Wagnum's Graphics Mod

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

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Can you explain please what are the benefits of auto exposure vs the fixed exposure with weathers adjusted to that fixed exposure?
There's three minor benefits. The first which is what i used to get the most complaints about when I used to use a more fixed exposure more like the Natural Graphics Mod, which is that when your driving towards the sun on clear weathers people used to complain about the brightness being too much and you couldn't see a thing due to the windscreen reflections etc. Having auto exposure drops the exposure down as far as it can go when driving directly towards the sun and so it makes it easier to see what your doing.

The second is very closely related because when you are in the shadows where it's very dark you want to be able to see some detail and once again people had issues with losing in car detail when it was dark. Having the auto exposure allows for this.

Lastly, if we're trying to replicate what our eyes do in reality, your pupils change size to allow more light in or decrease it just like the auto exposure does. Therefore having this effect adds to the realism a little bit.

You could potentially set a fixed exposure and then drop the contrast down so you can see all the detail all the time but then for me personally it looks incredibly flat and bland and that's just not the look i'm going for as I dont think reality looks that way...

On the plus side if it's not for you, due to the way i've made the weathers around the filter you can adjust the exposure setting which will then force the exposure to stay put depending on where you want it to stay...
 
Thanks. I may not be able to test again until this weekend. 99% is something wrong with my files.
Does sound it. I'll probably be making a few tweaks here and there before the weeks out so when i upload the next update i'll move all the files over nice and fresh just in case there's an issue with my upload. Dont think there is but you never know...
 
Not sure which settings your referring to but here's the filters settings for brightness, saturation etc;
Untitled.jpg

And in game effects settings
2.jpg
 
There's three minor benefits. The first which is what i used to get the most complaints about when I used to use a more fixed exposure more like the Natural Graphics Mod, which is that when your driving towards the sun on clear weathers people used to complain about the brightness being too much and you couldn't see a thing due to the windscreen reflections etc. Having auto exposure drops the exposure down as far as it can go when driving directly towards the sun and so it makes it easier to see what your doing.

The second is very closely related because when you are in the shadows where it's very dark you want to be able to see some detail and once again people had issues with losing in car detail when it was dark. Having the auto exposure allows for this.

Lastly, if we're trying to replicate what our eyes do in reality, your pupils change size to allow more light in or decrease it just like the auto exposure does. Therefore having this effect adds to the realism a little bit.

You could potentially set a fixed exposure and then drop the contrast down so you can see all the detail all the time but then for me personally it looks incredibly flat and bland and that's just not the look i'm going for as I dont think reality looks that way...

On the plus side if it's not for you, due to the way i've made the weathers around the filter you can adjust the exposure setting which will then force the exposure to stay put depending on where you want it to stay...
Oh it's fine as it is, I'm just curious. Thanks for the detailed explanation. :)
 
Ok, i somehow manage to fix it. I am not really sure since i just recopied everything and now is ok...:cautious::whistling:
doesnt surprise me, seems to have happened to a few people plus even myself at one point. realized the colours werent matching a previous image i'd taken even though done nothing to change them. Installed from my last update and it went back to normal... Cant get my head round it but the game occasionally has a mind of its own...
 
After some testing today, I got to say that I am deeply impressed with your mod.
I finally have @Chris Kennedy's mod removed ....(sorry).
Only things that troubles me :
1. I have major fps hit from dust when I go off track. Not sure if this related to your mod but with natural mod I haven't seen this (I think).
2. I am not sure if this mod has 100% control over clouds. I entered multiple times a mid day session in Mugello and clouds were always I bit different each time. Some times scattered clouds, some times just haze+scattered clouds, some times big puffy clouds etc. Is this normal? I see that it just adds 4 clouds textures with KUNOS' ( Wagnum1.dds , Wagnum2.dds, Wagnum3.dds , Wagnum4.dds ). Right?

All in all , I really thank you for your mod. It has the best image of all of them and believe me I tried them all.
Good job. :)
 
If I understood correctly, you need to remove all the Kunos' clouds and leave only the 4 Wagnum ones. Works fine for me that way.

Hmmm, thanks for this.
JSGME won't remove existing clouds though.
So in order to work properly, user has to remove this by hand or just use content manager.
 
After some testing today, I got to say that I am deeply impressed with your mod.
I finally have @Chris Kennedy's mod removed ....(sorry).
Only things that troubles me :
1. I have major fps hit from dust when I go off track. Not sure if this related to your mod but with natural mod I haven't seen this (I think).
2. I am not sure if this mod has 100% control over clouds. I entered multiple times a mid day session in Mugello and clouds were always I bit different each time. Some times scattered clouds, some times just haze+scattered clouds, some times big puffy clouds etc. Is this normal? I see that it just adds 4 clouds textures with KUNOS' ( Wagnum1.dds , Wagnum2.dds, Wagnum3.dds , Wagnum4.dds ). Right?

All in all , I really thank you for your mod. It has the best image of all of them and believe me I tried them all.
Good job. :)
Glad to hear you like! If the clouds are acting up it sounds like perhaps the mod isnt removing all the original files and so ones that are different sizes are getting in there and messing things up. The weather files are designed with very large cloud files in mind so if a normal cloud file is still in the folder it will stretch it out of all proportion. The four cloud files are more collections of clouds in each rather than singular clouds as they seem to work better filling the sky than the standard smaller singular ones that come as standard or previous mods that ive used before.

As for the fps hit with dust, not heard my mod causing that problem for anyone until you mentioned it but I have had that issue before. Werent my mod causing it and couldnt solve what was but did a integrity check in Steam and it cleared the issue, sorry cant be of more help on it!

Hmmm, thanks for this.
JSGME won't remove existing clouds though.
So in order to work properly, user has to remove this by hand or just use content manager.
I'll update the overview page now if that's the case as from what I understand, if using JSGME, if you use it to install the default clouds and then remove them to replace with mine then it will work, from scratch however I guess it doesnt know it needs to remove the original clouds so i'll make a note of this on the overview page :)
 
I was playing around a bit, doing some comparisons... In your opinion, what's lacking in AC's graphics department in order to get the overall atmosphere closer to the image in the comparison? Please don't get this as a criticism or request, I'd just like to hear your thoughts since you've dipped your fingers quite deep into this stuff.

Untitled_2.jpg


In my humble opinion (although the camera in the video might be lying a bit, but I'd say it's quite decent), disregarding the textures, the game is lacking that "bathed in light" look, and the light seems quite cold. Also, some areas that are bright in the video are surprisingly dark in the game and vice versa on some other spots.

Edit:
After a bit of messing around in Photoshop, mostly with color balance and shadows/highlights, this is the result:

Untitled_3.jpg
 
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This is the thing, Trying to achieve a realistic look with unrealistic lighting gives us some issues. From your testing you obviously have found that brightening most of the image makes it look more similar to the real life one. Unfortunately however as the AC engine only uses one light source and no ambient occlusion to give us a sense of soft shadows so the textures end up looking horrible and clearly not real. Playing with the amount of light to give it a good look that isnt true to life is better than trying to replicate reality when we have far more limited tools at our disposal.
Secondly, although that photo is truer to life than what youv'e captured in game, it is still just a photo which probably hasnt captured everything as well as it could have since doubt it had it's white balance set properly when taken, and contrast and brightness set perfectly afterwards to get the most out of the image. A camera sensor also cannot pick up anywhere near as much detail and contrasting range as our eyes can.
Real life weather also has a major role on colours so although the colours arent the same in the comparison images, who's to say on the right day you wouldnt capture a more similar palette in a photo.

Lastly, to get the weathers and filter to work well with a least all the Kunos tracks disregarding mod tracks just for the moment, you have to find a balance of colours that work with all of them as different textures and shaders have been used on each and what will look great on one track may look terrible on another. From playing about for hours and learning what tracks have what tendancies with brightness, colour etc (An example is Brands Hatch is much bluer than most the others), what I have ended up with seems to work well with everything. Sure I could achieve more realistic colours on one track but if i set it up to work perfectly say on Imola, it will then look terrible at Spa.

Unfortunately doing this isnt as simple as just chasing perfection but also finding a balance on what works with everything as well. Before they optimized the tracks a couple of updates ago it was horrendous as they were vastly different. They have far more similar now but there are still differences so you still have to achieve a good balance.

Sure there are still ways to improve this mod and have made some adjustments since my last update but want it to be a more noticeable update on the next one so will hold fire until i've got some good improvements to show :)
 
Thanks for the hugely detailed and helpful explanation. I fully get your point, and somehow I appreciate your effort even more after I've read it, I can only imagine the hours it took...
 
Thanks for the hugely detailed and helpful explanation. I fully get your point, and somehow I appreciate your effort even more after I've read it, I can only imagine the hours it took...
Its not like I haven't enjoyed it as I've always been quite artistic plus I like tinkering with things but yeah I've spent many many hours on it, probably too many if you ask my partner. You do sometimes go blind to the problems that need addressing after a while but having a break start seeing little things that need addressing again.
Have no 3d modelling experience but I've bought race track builder as there's a fantastic bit of road near where I live that I want to make into a track. Therefore learning how to do this while adjusting this mod means my progress is slowed down alot but I will be updating this eventually! :)
 
Can you guys post a video of this in actual gameplay?
Of my mod or what Topuz achieved in photoshop? If it's the latter unfortunately not as that was just a photoshopped image but I can of my mod although already have a couple of videos on the overview page. If you wanted to see a different weather and time however just let me know
 
Thanks for the hugely detailed and helpful explanation. I fully get your point, and somehow I appreciate your effort even more after I've read it, I can only imagine the hours it took...
Out of interest, what track is that image from? Is it VIR? Although this is a fantastic mod track and the guys who made it are geniuses, the colour of the grass on this particular one really isnt great for going with the other tracks unfortunately. The Kunos grass colours although not perfect look a lot better.

If it is that track the first release the shaders were too dark so on clear weathers everything looked too dark. They have lightened them but in doing so the grass colour is now a little odd... May work better with other mods or default weathers (as i havent tested) but not keen on the colour with mine.
 
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Yes, it's VIR, the latest 1.1 version. You're right, the color palette is quite a bit different compared to Kunos' tracks, but still looks quite good with your weather and filter as they are.
 
I was playing around a bit, doing some comparisons... In your opinion, what's lacking in AC's graphics department in order to get the overall atmosphere closer to the image in the comparison? Please don't get this as a criticism or request, I'd just like to hear your thoughts since you've dipped your fingers quite deep into this stuff.

Untitled_2.jpg


In my humble opinion (although the camera in the video might be lying a bit, but I'd say it's quite decent), disregarding the textures, the game is lacking that "bathed in light" look, and the light seems quite cold. Also, some areas that are bright in the video are surprisingly dark in the game and vice versa on some other spots.

Edit:
After a bit of messing around in Photoshop, mostly with color balance and shadows/highlights, this is the result:

Untitled_3.jpg

Thought i'd give it a quick go and make some adjustments to the clearer weathers (I say a quick go, realized just spent the last two hours doing this!). Have warmed up the high sun colour which in turn meant I had to cool down the low one as the whole range looked overall too warm. Then made the horizon less blue, and made the ambient high light more blue to compensate for the warmer sun. Decreased the contrast and colour on the filter slightly and the last image is what ive ended up with. Looks better than before on Brands and VIR but have yet to try it elsewhere...

Untitled_3.jpg
Screenshot_ks_mazda_mx5_nd_vir_23-9-116-18-1-49.jpg
 
20160923192206_1.jpg
20160923191208_1.jpg

Mods active in first picture are Peters clouds,Wag's weather and SFX.
Second Is Wag's Weather clouds and SFX.
I should also point out that when I viewed the pictures with windows they looked very different to when playing the game?
Edit: Light clouds in game.
And I might have the order wrong but I think it's correct.:)
 
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