Sorry for taking so long. If installed correctly you shouldnt even have a albeta file. The folders inside the zip should all be found in the Documents/Beamng.drive folder. So, since i have less time to continue this im posting the core files, without a preset and without modified levels files. This zip contains all the postfx fixes/mods: All the Postfx window fixes Working tonemapping -Adjusted the code so that it makes bright sources brighter faster than before, when it seem to makes dark sources darker quicker than bright sources HQ SSAO so that it looks a ton better, especially under vehicles Fixed bloom position a few steps (compared to earlier fix it can now have a negative MEAN value which finally lets you center bloom completely on bloom source) Some DOF fixes, for example -DOF is effected by visible distance in maps, Im using between 4000-8000 and that also gives you smoother dof curves so that you dont have a visible edge where its either DOF or not DOF Working Minimum Luminance which has a very positive impact of setting bloom, tonemapping and so on Working White cutoff so that you can make things overblown bright, cause extra contrast along with Tonemapping Adjusted scales for many PostFx settings so that they are more userfriendly (example. Bright pass threshold) Multiflare Lensflare fix, have to be chosen in the map settings (called BeamNGLensflare1 or something like that) Probably more things ive forgotten The files in this zip is meant to be extracted into you Documents/Beamng.drive-folder, see attached pic. I thought id do this before the devs release their lighting updates, since these dont effect lighting, only PostFx and Lensflares. That way my level settings wont clash with their work. Looksl ike im out of business when they release the lighting update, also looks like bloom has been sorted/changed/updated judging by the vid of the D15 so might not need any of these in the future. Anyways, im glad ive had the time to contribute to the community in ways that i find boosts BeamNG where it thought it lacked.
Im really looking forward to that lighting updates to come! Itll probably make my stuff obsolete but until then im cruising on. It might be easy to think that i spend most of my time working on this but i actually just play Beamng more and more since im getting quite happy with how my stuff looks In this vid you can see how my latest and maybe last release will look, with all its map sky+lighting mods, lens flare fix and PostFx fixes. As usual theres no reshade or other gfx overlay, its pure ingame stuff thats there already. Ive just changed settings or made fixes to broken stuff all across the postfx boards and incl some other fixes to files, for example the mentioned lensflare which now contains the multiple flares template (with my custom texture though) if specified in the map settings. yep im a true nerd lol.
Who knows, maybe it will look even better with the new colour calculations? As of right now, it seems a bit too dim for me
I think new illumination should make it more controllable so Brother Dave can make changes he wants much easier, not so much trial and error as changing parameter might give closer to estimated effect. But you never know how it will actually work, will be interesting to see what people manage to get out of linear lighting.
Hopefully i can still contribute, the recent update to Hirochi and ECUSA made one hell of an impact on my mods and looked even better IMO, as you say. Yes, Im both exited and curious how it all will look, what will have been changed, is it a big change or a small and so on. Ive mentioned here and there that i think the gfx area is a turn off for some users, causing a drop in overall user amount. But things arent free so in order to improve that it needs funds, time and know-how and those are three vital parts in a business and alla areas compete about them. I think it was Nadeox that i had a discussion with a while back about the gamma in Beamng making things look flat and the less gamma i used the more vibrant colors got. Ive even tried different changes to the gamma file(s) but since im not a real shader/gamma/whatever coder i almost dont know what im doing. In some other discussion about game lighting, and i think this was through messages with the one responsible for that area, i got the response that it would take too much effort to adjust the resources but i guess theyve worked out a way on that subject. I did also talk to someone before the recent map updates about how they also didnt use normals maps for the foliage making them look even flatter but since they now do and get specular reactions and it makes an enormous difference. Im just glad theyve time to focus on the gfx side (or rather i think we can assume that they are constantly are working on it, just telling us about this part, now). Ideally for me they do something about the skies cause they all look very planar to me, the dynamics are killed when using the Colorize setting and the clouds are something that looks like its been around since the 00s in T3D. I tried making a huuge seamless cloud texture a while ago, with 10 different cloud type areas on it but i didnt get it to work. That was after talking to one of the T3D devs about clouds, using basic clouds instead of skybox for sky textures. I then tried to get it to react to TOD to have one texture for horizon clouds using basic clouds (which support transparency so that the colors of the Scatter Sky shows) and other cloud textures using the normal cloud layers. Didnt get the Basic clouds to react to sunlight so they were always lit up, even at night.
One more thing that limits graphics side of things is probably the performance. At least in past it has been so that physics need cores to do their thing, if physics fall behind things explode. So up to very recently all graphics was done by 1 core only. With Italy there happened a change and some processing is spread over other cores, not sure which, but I can see CPU load being more spread over cores now, even physics paused. These developers are incredible in how they listen community, they try very hard to make things possible even at given moment it would not be possible. I hope they get enough sales to be able to build their vision to fullest and sure enough good quality graphics are what makes sales.
The albeta.zip should contain a bunch of folders (art, core, shaders, levels) and a postfx preset file. If they dont then the download was probably corrupted. You should have extracted those mentioned folders and the file so that they sit in the folders as you can see in this post from Grevata: https://beamng.com/threads/graphics-mod-alternative-lighting.60343/page-10#post-1076616 0.18 is here, big yey! Im very much hyped, it seems to do big difference already even if they, as theyve said, havent adjusted everything yet! Cant help but think that it contains alot of fixes which i have made before; postfx window fix, bloom fix, lensflare mod, also the level distance settings seem to be changed so that the postfx DOF and also fog blend looks better, and so on. The high quality SSAO dont seem fixed though, although or me its stuck at high setting but still looks abit cloudy as if lower setting. Almost feels like theyve snuck by and checked what ive been doing, *hoping, dreaming* Anyways, i need to do a fresh install cause no matter what i do the game now looks like this: Its all the vibrance i couldve asked for but its a bit too much lol. Now if i could only lower it slightly i think itll look awesome. Im going to have to check if theyve got tonemapping working too, or if theyve even got Torque3Ds Uncharted 2-tonemapping running (its been in the latest releases but non functional), i reverted it to the old one in my Alternative Lighting cause it didnt work but now it might actually be running. Might need to continue this work, thought i wouldnt feel like i needed/wanted too Still not convinced the sky and clouds are convincing but it a personal preference really
Yes it sure seems like it, i reported the procedure to have it happen then unhappen, so to speak, in the 0.18 discussion thread. Meanwhile all my stuff seems to work and the levels files can be used straight away. The postfx presets doesnt create a good result though but happily using all my files makes the PostFx window work, although the 'color adjustment'-part of the new postfx disappears, but that seems like some kind of new version of the color correction imo. Not sure what the vanilla bloom fix is cause it does seem abit broken still, or if im just used to the adjustability of my fix. Im not sure if this is the case but it does seem like the clip distance on ECUSA (havent checked Utah yet) has been lowered so now the curves of for example DOF does actually work as a curves making it blurrier and blurrier the further it is from the user instead of just a wall of blur set at a distance, so that might be another thing thats 'in common' with my stuff. The new gamma changes though have made a huge impact on the attractability of Beamng, atleast for me. Im really enjoying it on another level now since it does now contain the ability to look very much like or close to a AAA game. I made a few changes to ECUSA sky and lighting and now im actually fighting to keep the shadows from being too dark, wasnt really a problem before so thats a good one Anyways, a few quick changes to that and using my PostFx fixes and a quick adjust produced this so far (posted in the screenshots thread last night and its abit too blurry but thats easy to sort ):
Been looking at the new lighting update stuff and its of course awesome and the devs done an amazing job but to my taste i see room for improvement, I wont implement the old tonemapping though, atleast not for a while. Cant make out if theyve got the Uncharted2 tonemapping thats in there working or not. Ill try and see whats up with the bloom since its still very much square shaped and takes alot of tinkering to work around. Ill also try and see whats different in effecting SSAO since the quality low/med/high only seem to effect strength and not resolution. Or atleast it looks cloudy in a way that i worked around (i think) with my mod pre-BNG Lighting Update. Some of the other settings are non-functional again/still in the PostFx window so might look at those. White cutoff isnt needed anymore IMO so that wont get alot of attention. But to be honest its way easier to get a good result now, these things are just my preferences. Ive already got a PostFx preset without any of my mods which i use and is very happy with, along with changing the settings for the maps, which still IMO can be improved by not using colorize on the sky for example. It would be nice to know though if the devs actually has looked at my stuff and implemented or fixed the vanilla ones cause theres alot in there thats very similar and if so it would give me a warm and fuzzy feeling to get some appreciation instead of me just spreading conspiracy theories about it lol Enough of that, ill try and leave those thoughts alone.
Found another coincidence which i enjoy seeing since i havent had time to work on it myself. Utah (havent checked that on the other maps yet) now has testclouds/texurea for the phenomena of clouds collecting at the horizon, which ive talked about here in a few posts and over at the torque3d forums
Now that ive come back from the jaw drop of all the similarities from what ive released and discussed at these and the torque3d forums, i think its time to relase a new set. Im really happy about the changes the devs made, especially curious to see how the horizon clouds, which ive talked about making before this release, will look when further worked on. Theres much less needed for me personally to get the game looking as i prefer now, in htis release theres only a set of levels settings adn the PostFx preset file, no more core file mods. I WILL probably however add my version of the multi lensflare again since the vanilla doesnt really do it for me. Levels are: Utah Hirochi Italy Ecusa Automation test track Some levels night settings havent gotten much attention yet. This can be found in the first post but install by copying the levels-folder and AL.postpreset-file from the AL.zip into your This PC\Documents\Beamng.drive-folder. Might need to clear cache. When ingame, open the PostFx window and load the AL.postfxpreset. Done EDIT: If the game doesnt look right when you've loaded the PostFx preset file you might need to restart the game, it seems to be a bug in the games PostFx after the 0.18 update.
loving the mod but do you know why its pretty weird and dark for me? i did everything just like you said to do it. i had prev versions some time ago and they worked really good. maybe this time i did something wrong
No idea man, looks way washed out and overdarkened. Are you sure you have non of my old mods installed and/or have cleared cache, maybe even done a fresh install of BeamNG lately? I did a fresh install at 18.0.3 or something so somewhat fresh. I removed any extra files im tinkering with so it shouldnt be on my side.. IS ANYONE ELSE HAVING SIMILAR PROBLEMS AS WABOLL HAS? BTW I tried to replicate the angel of the pic and the TOD and mine looks like this:
Where can I find it? Oh, well, need to Enable Advanced Options. Ok, another one question: does the DoF affect to performance? I my opinion does.
Yes, sry about that, didnt include that info. Once its been done you wont need to do it again until you manully delete the settings folder afaik. It wont even reset if reinstalling through Steam.
tried ECA to see if i got the same results and it looks like i did. although im not sure. i dont know what could be causing that and im avoiding reinstalling the whole game because of many reasons so
