[Lighting Mod] STLM 2.2

[amfibiya89]

Indeed the LOD in the game isn't good enough to completely get rid of it. Doing so together with extended light reach will expose a lot of rather nasty flaws.

With that said they certainly went overboard with the distance fog in vanilla.

Really not. I played almost whole game with 2.2. And light reach was too far there. I used LOD mod, and increased foliage visibility in ini file, and shadows and i didn;t even noticed any LOD issue. But keeping in mind this is game and the LOD exist in this game. So there was not dramatic LOD issue as vanilla. So if we have strong enough PC we can get rid of this problem.

Distance light reach is something really adds more immersion to game visuals.

EDIT: We all have different taste and opinion Some of us like fog some us do not, some of us like even vanilla lighting.

 

[cyberpunkforever]

what is the objective of STLM? to recreate the visuals of the E3 gameplay or create something new and different?
i'm confused :s

 

[Big_Machine]

what is the objective of STLM? to recreate the visuals of the E3 gameplay or create something new and different?
i'm confused :s

I'd imagine it's to get as close as possible to E3 2014 footage. @essenthy has been pretty clear about it.

 

[tennisaddict1999]

Awww, the tree lighting changed from the latest screenshot and the teaser video. Isn't the teaser video tree more similar to e3? I guess it doesn't matter since whatever you choose will look good.

 

[Mezziaz]

Really not. I played almost whole game with 2.2.

Then you haven't seen the real problem, 2.2 has more distance fog than 2.1.

Even so 2.1 still have plenty of distance fog left (when compared to none at all) I could show you what the game looks like then when the real horror is revealed.

And by then what has been seen cannot be unseen.

 

[spencerolmos]

what is the objective of STLM? to recreate the visuals of the E3 gameplay or create something new and different?
i'm confused :s

The goal is to get the lighting as close as possible to e3 2014. Within Essenthy's tastes of course.

---------- Updated at 06:42 AM ----------

btw peeps how do you get a profile pic? I've been looking for a while but can't figure it out :/

 

[TudorAdrian]

The goal is to get the lighting as close as possible to e3 2014. Within Essenthy's tastes of course.

---------- Updated at 06:42 AM ----------

btw peeps how do you get a profile pic? I've been looking for a while but can't figure it out :/

go under "Settings" (sprocket icon) and to "Edit Profile picture" ..there's a resolution boundary so you'll have to trim it down

 

[essenthy]

@essenthy looks really good. Billion time better than vanilla. But why you do not use sun brightness from 2.2? Is this your taste or is this because of technical limitation? I mean color grading is more similar to E3 this time. But sun brightness was more similar to E3 in 2.2 version.

Anyway I can't wait to play with this mod again from beginning. And did you start to change settings of bad weather or it will began after clear weather?

EDIT: And mountains and fog in distance looks better than your last comparison video with vanilla.

its not sun brightness, its exposure, its not possible to have the same image clarity as the E3 build without breaking everything that has any amount of specularity, basically everytime you increase the exposure anything that has a bright pixel ( translucency, skin, bloom, white surface, sky, moon, clouds ect ...) become brighter, i tried to do that in 2.2, but it ended up breaking many thing that i cant fix

so a settled for a lower exposure curve but now nothing is broken, the sun is a little big at sunset, but thats it, everything else work without being too bright or too dark or too shiny, it look fine

maybe its still possible to achieve, but currently i dont know how to do that, i could spend some time testing again for days or just work on the update

either the specularity of objects was very very low in the E3 build so you could have a very high exposure, and in that case its impossible to replicate, changing the specularity of everything else is impossible, or thats what they meant what they said they changed the lighting system, the old system was capable of providing a higher amount of light without breaking specularity in some ways

and thats assuming it was in game and not post process in post production, or post process in game but the tech was removed, its too hard to guess what it exactly made it look that way

E3 build was using nearly the full spectrum of what an SDR tonemap curve is capable of at maximum ( specularity, shininess, color brightness ect ... ) vanilla for some reason cant reach that amount without breaking stuff

its almost as if the E3 build was HDR if you compare it vanilla, wich is impossible obviously but thats give you an idea of what am talking about

there are many other things the E3 build has different than vanilla that when you pile them it make it just superior in every possible way

 

[TudorAdrian]

yeah, consoles -> CDPR re-wrote the rendering system :|

 

[-The_Crasher-]

Well, actually leaked documents say that the e3 2014 build's main story was completely playable on all platforms. So not consoles...

I don't know what changed their minds on the lighting system... Maybe drugs? Who knows...

 

[amfibiya89]

Thank you for long explanation

maybe its still possible to achieve, but currently i dont know how to do that, i could spend some time testing again for days or just work on the update

I hope you will find the way to increase the brightness of sun in some day. And I think we can wait a bit long for you if you will search some way for that. This is core of beauty of visuals and I think Witcher 3 shined in pre-release footage firstly because of that. Shame on CDProject for removing this from game. (And THANKS for this game too )

or thats what they meant what they said they changed the lighting system

Do not think this is what they talked about changing. They said they changed lighting of 2013 version. And we can clearly see that light of 2013 tuned down very strong. But they didn't said anything about downgrade of 2014 build. Even Jose Teixiera said that they didn't downgrade the game after that build. So I think it means they just disabled some features in files but not deleted them.

It gives me hope that like every new finding one day you will share a post in Twitter that you finde how to increase brightness YAAAAYYYYYY

---------- Updated at 10:08 AM ----------

Then you haven't seen the real problem, 2.2 has more distance fog than 2.1.

Even so 2.1 still have plenty of distance fog left (when compared to none at all) I could show you what the game looks like then when the real horror is revealed.

And by then what has been seen cannot be unseen.

Emmm... I know that fog was strong in 2.2 compare to very last SS of 2.3. But I didn't talked about distance fog :/ I talked about light reach.

 

[spencerolmos]

go under "Settings" (sprocket icon) and to "Edit Profile picture" ..there's a resolution boundary so you'll have to trim it down

Wow I'm an idiot. Thanks man. I was just looking on the main profile page. Never found an option so I was like this is weird.

---------- Updated at 10:20 AM ----------

its not sun brightness, its exposure, its not possible to have the same image clarity as the E3 build without breaking everything that has any amount of specularity, basically everytime you increase the exposure anything that has a bright pixel ( translucency, skin, bloom, white surface, sky, moon, clouds ect ...) become brighter, i tried to do that in 2.2, but it ended up breaking many thing that i cant fix

so a settled for a lower exposure curve but now nothing is broken, the sun is a little big at sunset, but thats it, everything else work without being too bright or too dark or too shiny, it look fine

Maybe what your saying doesn't affect this, but there will be full light rays now right? I'm pretty sure you said that there were when you layed out goals for 2.3. I'm just clarifying.

maybe its still possible to achieve, but currently i dont know how to do that, i could spend some time testing again for days or just work on the update

either the specularity of objects was very very low in the E3 build so you could have a very high exposure, and in that case its impossible to replicate, changing the specularity of everything else is impossible, or thats what they meant what they said they changed the lighting system, the old system was capable of providing a higher amount of light without breaking specularity in some ways

and thats assuming it was in game and not post process in post production, or post process in game but the tech was removed, its too hard to guess what it exactly made it look that way

E3 build was using nearly the full spectrum of what an SDR tonemap curve is capable of at maximum ( specularity, shininess, color brightness ect ... ) vanilla for some reason cant reach that amount without breaking stuff

its almost as if the E3 build was HDR if you compare it vanilla, wich is impossible obviously but thats give you an idea of what am talking about

there are many other things the E3 build has different than vanilla that when you pile them it make it just superior in every possible way

THere are full light rays in 2.3 right? I think I remember you saying that. If not totally cool haha

 

[Dprelate]

@essenthy;

How much control could we have over the fog? for example is it possible to define different density for different distances?
I'm asking this because of the swamp zone. STLM makes it really beautiful and immersive (similar to your old swamp zone lighting mod). however when the player enters the zone, suddenly dense fog appears not just around Geralt but also on distant areas as well. these are far away from this zone but because the player is already in swamp, then swamp env define the entire visual.
Is there any way to tweak this env in order to fix this issue? are there any other way to implement fog for an area?
thanks in advance.

 

[essenthy]

@essenthy;

How much control could we have over the fog? for example is it possible to define different density for different distances?
I'm asking this because of the swamp zone. STLM makes it really beautiful and immersive (similar to your old swamp zone lighting mod). however when the player enters the zone, suddenly dense fog appears not just around Geralt but also on distant areas as well. these are far away from this zone but because the player is already in swamp, then swamp env define the entire visual.
Is there any way to tweak this env in order to fix this issue? are there any other way to implement fog for an area?
thanks in advance.

thats how thing work in the game, if you are in a zone even observing a far away different zone you will see it with the parameters of the zone you're in

 

[Dprelate]

thats how thing work in the game, if you are in a zone even observing a far away different zone you will see it with the parameters of the zone you're in

What about introducing fog via other methods like volumetric clouds over skellige?
is it possible to manipulate these elements in a way so that they would represent the swamp fog?

ps
sorry for asking so many questions.
:huh:

 

[essenthy]

What about introducing fog via other methods like volumetric clouds over skellige?
is it possible to manipulate these elements in a way so that they would represent the swamp fog?

ps
sorry for asking so many questions.
:huh:

maybe its possible but its too much effort for nothing since the swamp itself is located beneath most of velen, you dont see it from far unless you climb very high in a very specific place, i dont see the point

if it was very easy to do it would be cool yeah, but its not

 

[Dprelate]

you dont see it from far unless you climb very high in a very specific place, i dont see the point

I was trying to find a way to fix this:

if you are in a zone even observing a far away different zone you will see it with the parameters of the zone you're in

for the swamp area. I didn't mean being able to see the swamp fog from afar; although this could also happen as a byproduct.
anyway, thanks for your explanations.

 

[jimmywon34]

I really hate the fog in this game. it takes away from the colors and the beautiful graphics and fog is almost everywhere in this game.

 

[Valas991]

I really hate the fog in this game. it takes away from the colors and the beautiful graphics and fog is almost everywhere in this game.

yeah, and w/o it, enjoy the mighty LOD

 

[jimmywon34]

yeah, and w/o it, enjoy the mighty LOD[/QUOT

true pop in is ridiculous in this game but even the fog doesn't cover most of that from what I can tell