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

[arcadios]

sorry i cant do that atm cause i am at work! i ll try when ill go home. i am sure someone will try and tell. ty for your reply

 

[WagnumPI]

Hello.
I just did a clean install of the mod, copied the .dll, but for some reason sweetfx doesn't seem to be enabled. Running Win10,AC x64. Am I missing something?
Thanks.

just to be sure can you try this and report back to me?
open the sweetfx folder located in the root folder of AC. In there open the text file SweetFX_settings.txt and scroll down to the LumaSharpen settings section. Change the define sharp strength from 1.0 to 3.0 and define sharp clamp from 0.035 to 1.0 and the sharpening will be blindingly obvious.
Just want to make sure it's a problem with the upload rather than just being very subtle so people arent noticing it much.
Could you let me know the outcome? Thanks!

Just so you know, i'm on Win 10 and running the 64 bit version as well and reinstalling that file fixed it my end...

 

[mamooh]

Yep, it is indeed enabled. It was just that Scroll Lock menu/splash is disabled in the .ini that threw me off.
Thanks for the prompt reply!

 

[Blamer]

Here you go;
Heavy Fog High

Heavy Fog Low

Light Fog High

Light Fog Low

Clear High

Clear Low

Mid Clear High

Mid Clear Low

Light Cloud High

Light Cloud Low

Thank you very much!
Much more than I expected!

 

[Ian Cameron]

just to be sure can you try this and report back to me?
open the sweetfx folder located in the root folder of AC. In there open the text file SweetFX_settings.txt and scroll down to the LumaSharpen settings section. Change the define sharp strength from 1.0 to 3.0 and define sharp clamp from 0.035 to 1.0 and the sharpening will be blindingly obvious.
Just want to make sure it's a problem with the upload rather than just being very subtle so people arent noticing it much.
Could you let me know the outcome? Thanks!

Just so you know, i'm on Win 10 and running the 64 bit version as well and reinstalling that file fixed it my end...

somewhat confused with this sweetfx when I install this mod I'm not sure where to put this sweetfx file. I install into root folder so I have the MODS folder in with all your contents, then activate it with JSGME. But when I get to loading screen it crashes back to menu at the point of loading the car. Then I notice it has installed all the sweetfx items outside of the MOD folder into the root directory, only when I delete these I can play the game. But then I don't know if sweetfx is working.
Just tried your LumaSharpen setting but I see no difference. Everything else seems to work ok.
Could you please help with this thanks.

 

[WagnumPI]

somewhat confused with this sweetfx when I install this mod I'm not sure where to put this sweetfx file. I install into root folder so I have the MODS folder in with all your contents, then activate it with JSGME. But when I get to loading screen it crashes back to menu at the point of loading the car. Then I notice it has installed all the sweetfx items outside of the MOD folder into the root directory, only when I delete these I can play the game. But then I don't know if sweetfx is working.
Just tried your LumaSharpen setting but I see no difference. Everything else seems to work ok.
Could you please help with this thanks.

I do recall installing sweetfx incorrectly can throw you out of the game before it starts. Quick question, have you tried manually installing the mod? On the overview page i've put a link to a Youtube video that shows you exactly how to do it. The SweetFX stuff does in fact need to sit in the root folder for it to take action so your going down the right path but something is not quite right and without watching you do it, it's a little tricky to pinpoint.
If it still doesnt work after following the manual install instructions I reckon you probably have a file located somewhere in the wrong place which is making the game throw a tantrum. If you have the time, delete all the files in the root folder (except the folders) to make sure there's nothing in there which we dont want, back up any other mods you want to keep that overwrite original files and then do an integrity check via steam. Once that's done do a fresh manual install of the mod following the video and if you want to make sure sweetfx is working, bump up the sharpening. That will definitely fix it

 

[Ian Cameron]

tried manual still crashes, only when I remove all sweetfx stuff it works.
so guess I will have to go down integrity route again.

 

[Ian Cameron]

I do recall installing sweetfx incorrectly can throw you out of the game before it starts. Quick question, have you tried manually installing the mod? On the overview page i've put a link to a Youtube video that shows you exactly how to do it. The SweetFX stuff does in fact need to sit in the root folder for it to take action so your going down the right path but something is not quite right and without watching you do it, it's a little tricky to pinpoint.
If it still doesnt work after following the manual install instructions I reckon you probably have a file located somewhere in the wrong place which is making the game throw a tantrum. If you have the time, delete all the files in the root folder (except the folders) to make sure there's nothing in there which we dont want, back up any other mods you want to keep that overwrite original files and then do an integrity check via steam. Once that's done do a fresh manual install of the mod following the video and if you want to make sure sweetfx is working, bump up the sharpening. That will definitely fix it

Done integrity installed mod manually placed sweetfx in main directory, but still crashes. remove sweetfx, back to running ok.
at a loss.
Just how much better is running this mod with sweetfx, do I really need it?
Edit...Have just discovered that if I just remove the .dll then the game doesn't crash, could it be this that's conflicting?

 

[WagnumPI]

Done integrity installed mod manually placed sweetfx in main directory, but still crashes. remove sweetfx, back to running ok.
at a loss.
Just how much better is running this mod with sweetfx, do I really need it?
Edit...Have just discovered that if I just remove the .dll then the game doesn't crash, could it be this that's conflicting?

Strange... What you could try doing is downloading the .dll file from the this post (The third file which is downloadable on the first post) and try replacing the one you had with this. See if that helps. For the life of me I cant quite recall how it works exactly but I think this may well help.
The sharpening is only marginal and guess it depends what resolution you are running at but on my screen in 1080p the standard game looks somewhat blurry and this just sharpens it ever so slightly which i think improves the look a fair bit. If running in 4k i'm not sure if it will help but it might. You can increase the sharpening as well but I found it to cause some graphical glitches when overly done so went for just a very mild style.

 

[WagnumPI]

Just putting this out there but would people be interested in a slightly different look?
Been playing with the filter to get a proper white balance which i've achieved now but then it got me playing with other aspects such as brightness. To prevent it looking washed out ive upped the saturation and contrast plus a fair bit of changes to the weather files but for those who complain about being too dark, this certainly fixes that. Making it brighter gives it that "real life brightness" kind of effect...

 

[AMV8 VANTAGE]

I had to stare at those first two pictures Wagnum, I thought they were real-life photos at first. Looks awesome, in fact your graphics mod is awesome anyways. Definitely at least 10x better than the vanilla version. My two cents would be if it is possible, to have the above as an option, so people can decide whether to have the more saturated/darker look or the newer/brighter look

 

[WagnumPI]

I had to stare at those first two pictures Wagnum, I thought they were real-life photos at first. Looks awesome, in fact your graphics mod is awesome anyways. Definitely at least 10x better than the vanilla version. My two cents would be if it is possible, to have the above as an option, so people can decide whether to have the more saturated/darker look or the newer/brighter look

Thanks for the input. I'll perhaps add them to my download as a separate weather and filter pack. The last image is light cloud weather and realised that sky was too vibrant so tuned that back and looking much better as well now

 

[Alexandr66]

Just putting this out there but would people be interested in a slightly different look?
Been playing with the filter to get a proper white balance which i've achieved now but then it got me playing with other aspects such as brightness. To prevent it looking washed out ive upped the saturation and contrast plus a fair bit of changes to the weather files but for those who complain about being too dark, this certainly fixes that. Making it brighter gives it that "real life brightness" kind of effect...
View attachment 171841 View attachment 171842
View attachment 171819

Hey man,
Is those shots using SweetFX [liftgamma] boost for midtones? If yes, what will be without?
As i'm "playing" with own pp-filter and it is now in such condition, that it is quetly hard to improve anything. Or at least seems to be so. Let me ask you few questions about your pp-filter:
[TONEMAPPING] - why you decide to set 1.15, while 1.2 for example giving more good results relative bright?
[CHROMATIC_ABERRATION] - Still using it? Why?
[GODRAYS]- is there you did something specific to have more natural "God" rays ? ;-} If so, can explain may be some details?
[COLOR] - Do you after long practice, decide that Saturation=0.9185 (oh, see you as well was there careful..) - is give most natural colors around? Or you boost them a bit, as well with SweetFX or even weather files?

PS. Man, think we can "improve" our graphics with such file's system .... all "life"

 

[RaceWasGood]

Looks really nice! +1 for separate packs.

 

[WagnumPI]

Hey man,
Is those shots using SweetFX [liftgamma] boost for midtones? If yes, what will be without?
As i'm "playing" with own pp-filter and it is now in such condition, that it is quetly hard to improve anything. Or at least seems to be so. Let me ask you few questions about your pp-filter:
[TONEMAPPING] - why you decide to set 1.15, while 1.2 for example giving more good results relative bright?
[CHROMATIC_ABERRATION] - Still using it? Why?
[GODRAYS]- is there you did something specific to have more natural "God" rays ? ;-} If so, can explain may be some details?
[COLOR] - Do you after long practice, decide that Saturation=0.9185 (oh, see you as well was there careful..) - is give most natural colors around? Or you boost them a bit, as well with SweetFX or even weather files?

PS. Man, think we can "improve" our graphics with such file's system .... all "life"

The effects in sweetFX are very minimal on the settings I use so apart from the sharpening you wont really see much difference from those pictures. If you switch off LIFTGAMMAGAIN it will no longer look like it did before SweetFX was switched on so this just keeps it looking as it does without SFX. Have just noticed however I had CA on in sweetfx which it's not meant to be so thanks for pointing that out! As for your other points;
TONEMAPPING - I generally play on my very expensive telly which pretty much made me a poor man for a quite a few months however it deals with blacks and dark tones exceptionally and so the darker 1.15 gamma setting just looks really nice. It seems like there's a fair few people that want a brighter look to the game however, way brighter than than the vanilla version and so that's what i'm currently working on. Currently got it all the way up at 1.4 without anything looking blown out
CHROMATIC ABERRATION - This only affects replays, not in game (Unless you use the F5 camera I think?) As it's replicating replay cameras as apposed to your eyesight, it gives that subtle bit of realism to it, softening things a little so you dont have any unrealistic sharpness to things.
GODRAYS - It was very much a trial and error process testing out all the different variables. Been a while since played around with now but you from what I recall, you dont want the angle attenuation too low otherwise the glare will flood in too much which looks over the top and get the colour of the godrays similar to the sunlight rather than just pure white so it blends better. Dont over do the colour though.
COLOR - On the rest of the settings with everything else that saturation level seemed just right and worked perfectly on my 7.4 release. Unfortunately for me however Kunos changed the way fog works and never truly been able to replicate the look again hence why i'm still playing around. On my current project it's all the way up at 0.95 as ive bumped the gamma up which in turn brightens the image and washes the colours out. Depends on the look you want to achieve but currently aiming for a much brighter and perhaps more realistic look but in turn with it being brighter it wont look as atmospheric. I've upped the contrast to compensate for that somewhat but wont release this unless I feel truly happy with it as it will be an additional filter and weather pack on top of the Wagnum one.

 

[WagnumPI]

New project... Wagnum mk2 (TTLC)

Mid cloud

Light Cloud

 

[Alexandr66]

The effects in sweetFX are very minimal on the settings I use so apart from the sharpening you wont really see much difference from those pictures. If you switch off LIFTGAMMAGAIN it will no longer look like it did before SweetFX was switched on so this just keeps it looking as it does without SFX. Have just noticed however I had CA on in sweetfx which it's not meant to be so thanks for pointing that out! As for your other points;
TONEMAPPING - I generally play on my very expensive telly which pretty much made me a poor man for a quite a few months however it deals with blacks and dark tones exceptionally and so the darker 1.15 gamma setting just looks really nice. It seems like there's a fair few people that want a brighter look to the game however, way brighter than than the vanilla version and so that's what i'm currently working on. Currently got it all the way up at 1.4 without anything looking blown out
CHROMATIC ABERRATION - This only affects replays, not in game (Unless you use the F5 camera I think?) As it's replicating replay cameras as apposed to your eyesight, it gives that subtle bit of realism to it, softening things a little so you dont have any unrealistic sharpness to things.
GODRAYS - It was very much a trial and error process testing out all the different variables. Been a while since played around with now but you from what I recall, you dont want the angle attenuation too low otherwise the glare will flood in too much which looks over the top and get the colour of the godrays similar to the sunlight rather than just pure white so it blends better. Dont over do the colour though.
COLOR - On the rest of the settings with everything else that saturation level seemed just right and worked perfectly on my 7.4 release. Unfortunately for me however Kunos changed the way fog works and never truly been able to replicate the look again hence why i'm still playing around. On my current project it's all the way up at 0.95 as ive bumped the gamma up which in turn brightens the image and washes the colours out. Depends on the look you want to achieve but currently aiming for a much brighter and perhaps more realistic look but in turn with it being brighter it wont look as atmospheric. I've upped the contrast to compensate for that somewhat but wont release this unless I feel truly happy with it as it will be an additional filter and weather pack on top of the Wagnum one.

Well, understand you clearly - ThanX!
And let's see...

 

[WagnumPI]

For those of you interested, this project is coming along very nicely! Usually after leaving it for a day or two I come back and find loads of things i need to adjust but have only needed to make a few tweaks here and there today. Think potentially have the bulk of the work finished but if you are looking for a realistic look, I think i'm really getting somewhere for you.
I'm also trying out Reshade rather than SweetFX. Dont think it's really improving performance as I only use it for lumasharpen but seems to be a bit easier to test and use so will upload this as well. Will be sharpening the look a fair bit more with this but not pushing it too far as that ends up creating nasties in the image and tends to make stuff in the distance look terrible.
I'm also toning back my fog effects on all weathers apart from the foggy ones since this is giving a more realistic look. Not bringing it as far back as vanilla and other mods but finding a nice balance so you have that atmospheric look that softens what you want it to but doesnt look too washed out in the process.

 

[WagnumPI]

My new mod -TTL

 

[Alexandr66]

My new mod -TTL
View attachment 172782 View attachment 172783 View attachment 172784

Interesting!
And what is mean TTL?