Wagnum's Graphics Mod Final (I promise! ;)

Right, so because ive been having loads of issues with the colour of the clouds, especially in light cloud weather, the only way to fix this and give them a slight blue tint is to have a cooler coloured filter and going the way the NGM does. Doing this however to my eyes at least gives everything a blue tint which is how I feel about the natural graphics mod. Great though it is my biggest issue I had with it was that it just looks overly blue... Obviously not everyone would agree with me as Chris's mod is by far the most downloaded so he's obviously doing something right, but I feel it needs to look less blue so i have attempted to get rid of the blue tint the colour temp has given my mod by changing everything in the weather files which as you can imagine is a lot of work... It's certainly cooler than previous installments but think ive achieved a middle ground which is a more realistic palette.
Let me know what you think as after a while your eyes get to used to staring at the same thing and you end up needing another persons pair of eyes to spot things. Hope you enjoy!

Starting with a clean slate have gone back to the vanilla weathers and used the new "natural" vanilla filter as a base and have reworked them all. Let me know what you think

I went back to check my older versions of my filter and realized I had turned my back on effects bloom effects somewhat and the higher contrast although a problem in some ways, also made some stunning visuals. I have therefore brought them back in a subtle way but in turn this meant I had to rework the filter entirely and then get the weathers to work again properly so lots of changes have been made even if its not that noticeable. Hopefully it's for the best but I let you guys decide. Can always revert back to previous versions as they are all available

I have also sorted my god rays out so now looks much more visually pleasing

Know I only did an update yesterday but the clear sky colours were bugging me as they didnt look realistic enough.

When I try and achieve the right colour I usually find an image to work from and then just try and get it to look similar. Most images on the internet however are over saturated and photoshopped so dont give you a true life look. Most camera's, especially phones also add colour to the image to make it "pop" more so once again a problem. It then dawned on me ive taken photos with my SLR camera during sunsets and daylight so matching up with them would be better and would give a true life colour.
Rather than just doing it by eye as well I also went about checking the colour values on my photo's and then taking screenshots of in game and checking the colour values of the screenshots and whatever was out adjusted accordingly. Now The skies for the clearer weathers look far more realistic and hope it's appreciated out there as think its a massive improvement!

In the process of doing this I also made a few other adjustments as follows;
- Recent filter adjustments (Gamma and contrast) have been pulled back ever so slightly
- Ambient lighting adjustments throughout to give a moodier sexier low light look
- Light cloud weather rework
- More touching up of the cloud files so they work better with Light cloud weather

Ive updated the title image, Clear, mid clear and light cloud so you can see the difference

All of my testing was done at Brands so when I updated the images i came across a few things that needed rectifying. Nothing major apart from the low sun in light fog turning a nasty colour and a few ambient light adjustments here and there. All fixed now though!

Right, hope people like the changes as its made the filter quite different once again and ive spent a fair bit of time tinkering.

Updates as follows;
- Filter has higher contrast but is overall brighter so cockpit is completely visible unlike on my older versions but isnt as washed out as my more recent ones. Had to do this to get the right lighting throughout all time zones with all weathers. Think it does look better this way as well although i'm sure some may disagree.
- I am now using edited versions of the clouds Chris Kennedy uses with his mod as mine were a little rough round the edges. I have made some adjustments to them however so if you already are using his, please uninstall and install mine as makes a big difference to the light cloud weather
- Light cloud weather looks a lot better as the clouds are no longer washed out and now have more depth to them (This took me most the time and effort so hope you like!)
- Clear and Mid/Clear now look more like summer weather (Who doesnt like summer!?)
- Light fog has much more sun (Sunlight would get through light fog obviously so why I didnt have it there before was just plain silly)
- Slight adjustments to all other weathers

Will update imagery on main page eventually but here's a snippet of light cloud weather.

Everything has been adjusted but main things have done are as follows;
- Higher threshold for glare to prevent too much around midday
- More evened out ambient lighting across weathers as some were too bright.
- Substantial changes to clear/mid clear weathers so the sky is now much more blue. Sunlight has also been pulled back a bit as it was washing out grass colour.
- Light cloud weather has been brightened up so it falls more in line with the clearer weathers (Who needs three gloomy cloud weathers!) In doing so mid clear has a few less clouds to fit between other weathers better
- Saturation of filter has been dropped to get more realistic colours but as stated already, colours in certain places have been made more vivid so doesnt look washed out.
- God rays have been increased to be more noticeable
-Subtle star reflections have been brought back (very subtle but adds a little something)

Everything has been reworked taking into account every constructive criticism Ive had so hopefully it fixes all the issues people have had.
I know the look has changed slightly so if you wish to revert back to the old filter just download the previous version but personally I think this looks much better and more realistic

Major changes;
- Gamma and brightness adjustments (detail in cockpits is now more visible)
- Bloom changes (although the threshold has been dropped the bloom level has been reduced so helps with over bloomed looking sunny "High" weathers)
- Colour adjustments to all weathers
- Brightness adjustments to all cloud weathers to account for adjustments made with Gamma and brightness
- Light Cloud weathers sunlight has been lowered but now has breaks in the clouds during "high" times so that blue sky is visible

Have gone through all weathers and pulled the blue ambient lighting back and to me at least it now looks far more realistic in the colour department.

Ive now looked into JSGME installs and found how simple it is so have included this with the install. Will update the overview page to explain how to install

After living with my last update for a bit I noticed that I was firstly asking too much from my light cloud weather so it had some big flaws plus my heavy, light and especially Mid cloud ambient light was just too blue! Ive also gone about a few other things just to get it looking a bit more balanced and pulling back a smidgen on the glare for slightly more realism while keeping that nice effect which when controlled well takes away the clinical unreal look that you generally get from games with no pp effects.

Things Ive worked on;

- All cloud weathers have had a lot of work plus i've optimized them slightly better and managed to cut back drastically the number of clouds while keeping the same look.

- Worked on the clear and mid clear a little adjusting the sky colours so that they are more realistic In my view and/or where i'm from.

- Adjusted the filter slightly plus trying out chromatic aberration (only subtle and only comes on when watching replays etc). If you dont like this just switch it back off but just toying with it at the moment...

- Deleted a couple of cloud files which can stay if you prefer but I found they were causing a few issues with my sky that didnt appeal to me.

Right so i've taken my time with this update so hopefully its an improvement!
- Substantial changes to cloud files so that they are more user friendly
- Complete overhaul of Light cloud weather
- Substantial changes to Mid and Heavy Cloud weather
- Few changes to Clear and mid Clear
- Several changes to the ppfilter

If you are updating from a previous version PLEASE DELETE YOUR CLOUD FOLDER BEFORE INSTALLING as the number of files has been streamlined and if the originals are still there they will cause nasty skies... Im still supplying a backup folder of the original Kunos cloud files so deleting completely wont cause you any issues.

Right so in this update ive spent absolutely ages trying to get the clouds look better in Light cloud weather. Annoyingly depending on what track you play on affects the look but think ive found a spot which works with all Kunos tracks. In the process I had to change the lighting so it looked right with the sky so been quite a few adjustments here.

From the suggestions of others ive also changed the exposure settings as most people ive heard from werent so keen on the blinding target exposure. I havent taken it down as far as some people may like but it now takes the edge off things.
Doing this meant the clearer weathers had been darkened so i've added a touch of ambient light to them just to keep them well lit without being overly bright. This in turn has helped a touch with the cockpit brightness which I know was also an issue for some.

Lastly ive made some slight adjustments to all weather conditions, so all in all it should be a better more rounded mod

Although I thought I had sorted it, light cloud still looked terrible in certain locations at certain times of the day. Ive had to do a lot of tinkering to find a sweet spot and think ive found it. Expect it could be improved on slightly but adjusting one thing upset another and so on so it's taken me a good few hours today to try and get it right.
On another note, ive changed heavy cloud weather so that the sky is brighter at noon and the horizon colour at sunset is better so there's more variation throughout the day and I'm really pleased with this now.

Any suggestions for further updates welcome

Right, hopefully this will be it for some time now... I basically have had quite a few people not so keen on the blown out look in bright bright situations (driving towards the sun etc) so have made some minor adjustments to tackle that but still want to hold on to the getting blinded feel a little as I like the effect. Hopefully people will be happy with the result!

I also realized that in light and mid cloud weathers the sky's were getting way to blown out so hardly any detail up there. Ive therefore addressed this and now I think they look a hell of a lot better! Will take photo's and videos and post once I get time.

Hope you all like the adjustments, any other suggestions welcome

Set the brightness on my un-calibrated screen on mid cloud setting and just realized so have just sorted. Apologies for yet another update! This is now my final version for a while. Any suggestions welcome for further releases...

Ive Reworked the heavy, mid, and light cloud along with heavy and light fog weathers so there is a more noticeable difference depending on the time of day.
Ive also adjusted the colour curves and fog settings of the clearer weathers.
Finally I have made adjustments to the filter to improve things a bit.
Will be the last update for quite some time so hopefully everyone likes this version as much as I do.

Will update the photos and video's when I get the time

After increasing the brightness on one of my updates recently it threw up other issues so have tried to find a middle ground, hopefully not too dark for those who like the brighter look.

I've reworked light, mid, and heavy cloud and think they all look really good now so will probably be leaving them alone for a while. Especially like the look of heavy cloud since it has a more storm brewing look but let me know your thoughts...

Hope you like and my next update wont be as rapid so you can actually enjoy the versions rather than trying to keep up to date

Altered the fog weather slightly just to give it a slightly better balanced look

Have adjusted these slightly and have updated video's and pictures on the page so you can see. Hope you like!

Right so ive made just a few adjustments as there were issues with it being too dark within the cockpit and complaints regarding it being too dark in general, washed out and too much effects. Therefore the brightness has gone up a tad to lighten up those cockpits of yours, the saturation increased slightly, some adjustments to heavy cloud weather to keep it gloomy (but not too dark) while at the same time prevent some of the colours from creeping away from realistic. The bloom effects and vignetting have been pulled back just a smidgen just to keep the realism alive without the effects taking over. I havent fully stress tested this version but cant imagine anything going too wrong.
Will keep working on today to get the colours right, plus think the light and mid cloud weather needs some working on so if i come across any other issues I will address