Misc Natural Mod PP Filter 27

[ReturnMe]

There are a few conditions especially when the sun is pretty low where v18 produces unpleasant (and in my opinion unrealistic) sunrays. Depending on the standing point and viewing angle it seems that the sunrays only shine the left or the right side. It's very irritating when you move the head/camera especially when you're drivingFor me it's pretty hard to describe, so maybe the two pictures will help at this point.
Sadly I had to go back to v17, which doesn't produce any weird sunrays for me. Nevertheless I love this PPfilter!

I'm using Pure v0.165, screenshots where taken with v18 and more intense sunrays through adjusted Pure config > PPfilter > Sunrays slider.

 

[Chris Kennedy]

There are a few conditions especially when the sun is pretty low where v18 produces unpleasant (and in my opinion unrealistic) sunrays. Depending on the standing point and viewing angle it seems that the sunrays only shine the left or the right side. It's very irritating when you move the head/camera especially when you're drivingFor me it's pretty hard to describe, so maybe the two pictures will help at this point.
Sadly I had to go back to v17, which doesn't produce any weird sunrays for me. Nevertheless I love this PPfilter!

I'm using Pure v0.165, screenshots where taken with v18 and more intense sunrays through adjusted Pure config > PPfilter > Sunrays slider.

thanks for the feedback, assume you are using VR?
If you change line 177 of Natural_Mod.ini as follows (on v18), does it fix it?
DEPTH_MASK_THRESHOLD=0.999999999

I think I had to lower this value as there was some weird flickering with it set to 0.999999999
In the stock pure filter, an even lower value is used than i selected for v18, but this seems to cause weird effects (maybe like you are experiencing but even more so)

 

[ReturnMe]

You're welcome!!
Nope, no VR, just a single screen.
I have modified the value and yes, now we're back in business. Now I have sunrays on each side and I wasn't able to make them disappear anymore. For me it looks natural and realistic again.

Very interesting. So the goal is to find the sweet spot? As far as I remember I had no flickering issues with the last versions, but maybe you're talking about VR?! Also interesting, that nobody else reported this or another/similar/worse issue... Maybe a coherence with some graphics settings?

So in v19 I know exactly what to do first after copying ... or at least after the first test.

Nevertheless: Thanks you!

 

[Chris Kennedy]

You're welcome!!
Nope, no VR, just a single screen.
I have modified the value and yes, now we're back in business. Now I have sunrays on each side and I wasn't able to make them disappear anymore. For me it looks natural and realistic again.

Very interesting. So the goal is to find the sweet spot? As far as I remember I had no flickering issues with the last versions, but maybe you're talking about VR?! Also interesting, that nobody else reported this or another/similar/worse issue... Maybe a coherence with some graphics settings?

So in v19 I know exactly what to do first after copying ... or at least after the first test.

Nevertheless: Thanks you!

cheers for checking
i'm still not exactly sure i understand the problem you were having. i only really drive in vr and it seems great in v18. will try on single screen and see if i can spot it.

the flickering only seemed to occur with certain skydome textures at certain times of day, was fairly rare.

maybe a case of finding a sweet spot.

 

[ReturnMe]

Ok, let me try to describe it one more time:
Look at the first screenshot and you will see the resulting sunrays from v18 with adjusted DEPTH_MASK_THRESHOLD value. The sunrays are visible, no matter the viewing angle is. Using NeckFx so that the drivers head follows the steering wheel movement, the head tilts a bit to the side.
With stock v18, depending on the viewing angle (means also the position of the steering wheel in my case) the shown sunrays would be visible or they would be hidden/invisible.
While trying to reproduce this issue, I was able to get better examples of the issue. I would say it is obvious this time.
Most important: When I turn the steering wheel, so that NeckFX moves the drivers head a bit, the missing sunrays will be drawn ... or they disappear even more when I turn it the other side.

Hope it helps...

 

[therealdadbeard]

Is it normal for the pure app to say this filter has no pure script? All the files are there, what could this be causing?

 

[Chris Kennedy]

Ok, let me try to describe it one more time:
Look at the first screenshot and you will see the resulting sunrays from v18 with adjusted DEPTH_MASK_THRESHOLD value. The sunrays are visible, no matter the viewing angle is. Using NeckFx so that the drivers head follows the steering wheel movement, the head tilts a bit to the side.
With stock v18, depending on the viewing angle (means also the position of the steering wheel in my case) the shown sunrays would be visible or they would be hidden/invisible.
While trying to reproduce this issue, I was able to get better examples of the issue. I would say it is obvious this time.
Most important: When I turn the steering wheel, so that NeckFX moves the drivers head a bit, the missing sunrays will be drawn ... or they disappear even more when I turn it the other side.

Hope it helps...

struggling to reproduce
enabled neckfx and cant see any weirdness as the view changes
your LAC looks odd, tree on top of another tree?
how did you install/update pure? you should use the .bat file to ensure skydomes are installed correctly, looks like an issue with the mask which might be from an old version
edit: also, assume the same is present and more prevalent with the stock "pure" filter?

showing apps like these in screenshot might help reproduce

Is it normal for the pure app to say this filter has no pure script? All the files are there, what could this be causing?

no, check steps mentioend here: https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/natural-mod-pp-filter.97896/page-33#post-3615664

CM free cant install it properly.

 

[ReturnMe]

how did you install/update pure?

Always by hand. I also have run the install script, but no difference like expected.

edit: also, assume the same is present and more prevalent with the stock "pure" filter?

No problems/issues with pure, pureCandy and some others I've checked.


The graphics looks a bit odd because of SuperRes I guess.
This time I have disabled it and while testing I found the setting, that breaks it (for me):
With Clouds Render Method = 0 everything works great.


But with my default setting Clouds Render Method = 1 the sunrays and also the sun disappear partially, depending on the viewing angle.


Here I have set the brightness and contrast of the clouds so that the background almost disappeared. Depending on the viewing angle the border, which is also flickering, between cloud and sunrays shifts to the right or left. Maybe this gives you a better idea...


Hope this helps....

 

[Chris Kennedy]

Always by hand. I also have run the install script, but no difference like expected.


No problems/issues with pure, pureCandy and some others I've checked.


The graphics looks a bit odd because of SuperRes I guess.
This time I have disabled it and while testing I found the setting, that breaks it (for me):
With Clouds Render Method = 0 everything works great.
View attachment 647678 View attachment 647679

But with my default setting Clouds Render Method = 1 the sunrays and also the sun disappear partially, depending on the viewing angle.
View attachment 647680View attachment 647681

Here I have set the brightness and contrast of the clouds so that the background almost disappeared. Depending on the viewing angle the border, which is also flickering, between cloud and sunrays shifts to the right or left. Maybe this gives you a better idea...
View attachment 647684

Hope this helps....

really strange, cant reproduce.
id say try reset csp settings to default but doesnt really make sense if its fine with pure.
likewise try last stable version of csp
tried lower screen resolution, fov?

 

[ReturnMe]

really strange, cant reproduce.
id say try reset csp settings to default but doesnt really make sense if its fine with pure.
likewise try last stable version of csp
tried lower screen resolution, fov?

Took a while, sorry for that.
I figured out, that the ugly effect is a lot less visible, when I increase the far plane at least to its default settings (20000,30000) - I used to have "10000,20000". Now the have it set to "30000,50000" and I believe it looks even better.

But I would agree, that it should depend on the FOV. After adjusting the far plane, the effect/border seemed to move "outside", meaning away from screen center. When I lowered the FOV, the problem moved outwards.

Because lowering the FOV was no option for me, I lowered the threshold to DEPTH_MASK_THRESHOLD=0.999997999 and it's really hard to provoke this issue now, at least in my last tests.

Hope it helps, I'm enjoying the sun rays now.

 

[Chris Kennedy]

Took a while, sorry for that.
I figured out, that the ugly effect is a lot less visible, when I increase the far plane at least to its default settings (20000,30000) - I used to have "10000,20000". Now the have it set to "30000,50000" and I believe it looks even better.

But I would agree, that it should depend on the FOV. After adjusting the far plane, the effect/border seemed to move "outside", meaning away from screen center. When I lowered the FOV, the problem moved outwards.

Because lowering the FOV was no option for me, I lowered the threshold to DEPTH_MASK_THRESHOLD=0.999997999 and it's really hard to provoke this issue now, at least in my last tests.

Hope it helps, I'm enjoying the sun rays now.

Thanks for checking and getting to the bottom of it! Will try changing those settings and have a think if there's anything I can do to avoid issues

 

[Chris Kennedy]

Chris Kennedy updated Natural Mod PP Filter with a new update entry:

Refinement for pure script

Adjust DEPTH_MASK_THRESHOLD to address issue with pure skydomes (thanks @ReturnMe ) (also added note to mod overview page re. skydome and clip planes)

Pure script
Adjusted Lambert gamma - can have a big impact on the overall look, I think its better now
Adjust sun saturation
Adjust night exposure control

If you like the filter, you can get email notifications of updates via Racedepartment's "watch" function.

Note that free version of CM doesn't install this...

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[ReturnMe]

Hello, do you remember me?

I was taking some photos/screenshots and this time I thought I should mention this issue here.
I'm not sure, if it affects all colors in the same way, but when I use this filter while looking at brake lights, I recognized, that the color shifts towards yellow the brighter they get. Depending on the brake light location and car it looks more like an indicator than a brake light which is even worse in scenes, where an indicator would make sense (picture-wise).

Maybe it's just me, but most the times it is pretty annoying. So I wanted to ask if that could be improvable.

Here are a few (unnamed) examples of other filters for comparison reasons:


Here the stock Pure (also yellow-ish) and PureSIMPLE (which uses the default script, which looks better) filters:



Here we have Natural Mod v19:

 

[Chris Kennedy]

@ReturnMe this only happens with certain mod cars though doesnt it? KS cars and several mods I've tried (including some using refraction) all come out a nice rich red for me

I think the decision to use orange as the base colour in brake lights was made by some modders to try and workaround some limitations in AC, but now you have this fragmentation issue.

I suspect the filters where you have a red brake light in the image above might give undesirable results on stock ks cars?

I can try and look into it further if you share the car

 

[ReturnMe]

I haven't realized, that there could be a connection. After trying some cars the Ferrari GTO and the Audi Quattro gave me an identical result:

Natural Mod v19 (and basic Pure):


Two other (different) filters:

I suspect the filters where you have a red brake light in the image above might give undesirable results on stock ks cars?

No, luckily not. The brake lights are pretty red saturated - sometimes a bit too saturated (and therefore not bright enough?!). But basically I haven't noticed any big issues so far - which on the other side doesn't mean there are none.

I think the decision to use orange as the base colour in brake lights was made by some modders to try and workaround some limitations in AC, but now you have this fragmentation issue.

That could be the reason. At the moment I don't know how it works in detail and if those filters are not able to represent normal orange colors on other places/surfaces without any tendency towards red. I also don't know if it would be possible to separate brake lights from other surfaces, especially this PP filter is (also) made to save fps, so...

Again it's up to you if you wanna try to (let's say) "fix" this issue. While taking photos/screenshots I can switch to other filters when it comes to scenes with brake lights. While driving I don't care that much about this issue, because I'm a bad driver and can't keep up with others ... and when they past me, they don't use brakes..

But because of your answer and the fact that the basic Pure filter has the same problem, it seems like I shouldn't expect a solution, which is also understandable.

 

[Chris Kennedy]

@ReturnMe
seems OK here? have you got reshade or edited the ac saturation slider in gfx settings?

 

[ReturnMe]

have you got reshade or edited the ac saturation slider in gfx settings?

To begin with: No ReShade and no saturation settings changed in CM/CSP.

After looking at your shots I checked all my settings and the last one (of course) were the Pure settings. It looks like I accidentally boosted up the emissive lights too much. When I set the slider to default (1.00) it looks like on your screenshots.
But I also realized, that both cars still have orange/yellow parts whereas there should be red. So after a lot of restarts and tests my conclusion is:

1. Brighter emissive light increases the problem or let's say it makes it more visible.
2. Increasing the saturation slider in Pures' PP adjustments tab reduces the problem and you get a decent red color. Downside: You loose details. Examples are appended below.

So the question is if it is possible to fine tune the saturation in such areas.
Bumping up the global saturation to 1.200 is not the best solution, because depending on daytime and sun position, some colors look a bit over-saturated.

Hope it helps ...

Saturation: 1.000 / 1.100 / 1.200

 

[Chris Kennedy]

@ReturnMe isn't it an issue isolated to a few cars and therefore addressing it through ext config makes more stuff, if 99% of other cars are fine. The saturation, sepia, emissive values in my filter are all pretty standard, messing with global things to fix a few cars doesn't really make sense

 

[ReturnMe]

@Chris Kennedy I can totally understand you. Sadly for me it's not just "a few cars", because a lot of the cars I drive and like to take pictures of, have this problem.
But like I said, It's sad but not the biggest deal to change the PP filter for the photo shots or trying to bump up the saturation a bit. For known cars an ext config file could solve the problem, indeed.
Okay, let's close this issue, thanks anyway.

 

[Chris Kennedy]

Chris Kennedy updated Natural Mod PP Filter with a new update entry:

fine tuning and fix for slow exposure initialisation on pure 0.180

Pure script:

• Lots of fine tuning
• Changed approach to setting gamma+filmic contrast thanks to Ciba1991
• Includes fix for slow exposure initialisation with Pure 0.180 - code provided by Peter Boese

If you like the filter, you can get email notifications of updates via Racedepartment's "watch" function.

Note that free version of CM doesn't install this properly via drag and drop.

Read the rest of this update entry...