True Color-Grading Filter / Look Up Table (LUT) Removal Mod (Needed!)

[arkhenon]

Lighting in Thyme and Rosemary is embarrassing

That problem is everywhere for interior lighting (CDPR actually stated that interior lighting took a big hit when they changed the lighting system). And it's mainly because of the backlight that they put there to see the character better. While I was using Asmodean's mod though, that problem nearly went away completely. I would suggest you to go to Rosemary and Thyme using that one Of course STLM isn't bad for interiors too.

But yeah, when it comes to "grim world = almost black & white world", I agree with @Nolenthar. Witcher is one of my favorite literary series, and I read them many many times. I don't remember feeling like the world actually "looked" dark in any one of them, except from some swampy areas with ancient manors in them When explaining Brokilon, or some forests that they camp in, or some destroyed elven ruins (etc.) Sapkowski always mentioned the vibrant beauty and colors of the place. It actually underlines the darkness of human action, and the grim qualities of the monsters and sentients alike much better, because it draws a nice contrast there. Of course people can prefer all kinds of things, and I respect that immensely. But for me, wanting the world to not just feel dark and grim, but to "look" like it, is kind of emo. When I look at how people live and act, and the effects of the war all around (burned villages, people hanging from trees, refugees and so on) I feel that this is a dark world, in its dark times. But when I see some beautiful places, some green, lush forests, I get that it is so insignificant to the overall "world". Nature simply doesn't "care", and colors are indifferent about human actions. They will be there muuuuuch longer, after everyone is dead and gone. Which was a great design decision from CDPR, for me.

Now, wouldn't have I wanted all this with the improved lighting system that they had? Sure, anyone would have I think. But it's been a year now, I'm okay with it Besides, there are several cool mods around, so it's alright. After all this debacle, I can't see them doing the same thing in the future anyway. Oh, and of course we shouldn't forget the important facts like we didn't see much of the game before (maybe other areas were totally rubbish...), and there are some improvements over the older builds, where there are reductions of quality as well. It's not a one way street. Anyway, it's been a long time, we should let somethings go at this point I think

 

[Dubya75]

While I was using Asmodean's mod though, that problem nearly went away completely.

So if a modder can fix lighting problems, then it is an absolute certainty that the developers can do it even better. But they don't! Why not? This is what bothers me...

 

[Zultre]

So if a modder can fix lighting problems, then it is an absolute certainty that the developers can do it even better. But they don't! Why not? This is what bothers me...

Because that was a choice that was made by the Creative Directors of the game - A choice that probably got a thumbs up from management at CDPR ..... Just remember that there is so much variables at play when it come to game creation - Time, money , resources at such ..... We ask why don't they do this or why dont they do that? Well maybe because they have all hands on deck working on the new expansions .... We (players) have to understand that no developer is going to go rogue and change the lighting of every ENV if he/she does not get instructed to do so. Remember this game is a product , and you don't change the product if your boss doesn't tell you to do so.

 

[Dubya75]

Because that was a choice that was made by the Creative Directors of the game - A choice that probably got a thumbs up from management at CDPR ..... Just remember that there is so much variables at play when it come to game creation - Time, money , resources at such ..... We ask why don't they do this or why dont they do that? Well maybe because they have all hands on deck working on the new expansions .... We (players) have to understand that no developer is going to go rogue and change the lighting of every ENV if he/she does not get instructed to do so. Remember this game is a product , and you don't change the product if your boss doesn't tell you to do so.

Thanks for the lesson, but I work in software development so I know how things work.
I don't much care how CDPR organizes their work and delegation of tasks. All I care about it the end product. What I see is modders FIXING problems in the game that the developers are supposed to be fixing (and I am not talking about enhancement mods here, I am talking about fixing things that are broken, not artistic decisions, BROKEN things!).
Is it unreasonable to ask for problems to be fixed? I don't think so.

 

[Zultre]

Thanks for the lesson, but I work in software development so I know how things work.
I don't much care how CDPR organizes their work and delegation of tasks. All I care about it the end product. What I see is modders FIXING problems in the game that the developers are supposed to be fixing (and I am not talking about enhancement mods here, I am talking about fixing things that are broken, not artistic decisions, BROKEN things!).
Is it unreasonable to ask for problems to be fixed? I don't think so.

Lol , if you are in software development then you would know just how important delegation of tasks are ... Look the bottom line is - The game has been out for almost a year - CDPR did the best they could , with what they had , in the time space they had to do it ... It's a simple fact - I think for one we should be grateful that we have modders who fixes some issues with the game - simple issues such as lighting - We could have had a Unity on our hands which is un-modable and where the general gameplay is broken .... I am not saying that CDPR couldn't have fixed somethings , what I am saying is that is it really relevant today a year after release with modders fixing these issues?

 

[Nolenthar]

Thanks for the lesson, but I work in software development so I know how things work.
I don't much care how CDPR organizes their work and delegation of tasks. All I care about it the end product. What I see is modders FIXING problems in the game that the developers are supposed to be fixing (and I am not talking about enhancement mods here, I am talking about fixing things that are broken, not artistic decisions, BROKEN things!).
Is it unreasonable to ask for problems to be fixed? I don't think so.

If your biggest problem with the game is with the lighting of a whore house, I'd say we can be pretty certain the developers can be quite happy about their game. Bugs/issues are part of software development, you should know if you work in a company made of more than 3 people that there are priorities.

"Changing" the lighting for a few people who believes somehow the lighting should have been more like a 30 minutes demo they have seen (knowing they didn't see the rest, which could look very bad), or even "fixing" lighting in a given place, doesn't sit high in the priority list. Also, this is all so dependent of the person.

I mean, I never noticed any issue in the Thyme & Rosemary Lighting. Is that because I didn't pay attention while I was busy playing the game ? or because there are no noticeable issue with my colour set up / gamma / gfx card / post processing details, who knows. I couldn't say.

But really, what I can tell you as a player is that I'm quite happy it's not high on CDPR priority list. There are, in my opinions, more important issues that they should fix. Yet, I'm not doing a big fuss over those issues. At the end of the day, TW3 is among the best game I've ever played, and this means I can give them a slack.

 

[Nolenthar]

-- Deleted Post --

This is a modding community. Stating that ANYTHING the modder can do should be done by developers, who are paid for that, is in my opinion a self-centered statement. There is no aggression, insult, or whatever. Modding being done to improve a gamer toward one's opinion, it makes perfect sense it will make the game better for some (and worst for others). Asking developers to stick to one opinion, and do this in a degrading way is in my opinion more of an aggression.

And yes, when a company released that good of a game, even with some flaws, I believe it's up to the community to stand for the guys behind the scene who have helped deliver this great game, and I have hard time accepting that people with little knowledge (because unfortunately, whether we like it or not, we all have a pretty limited knowledge of the game internal engine, before you imagine this a personal attack toward Dubya) shall dictate what can be done from what cannot, and what should be done from what shouldn't.

I also somewhat believe the colour stuff has been debated in such a length that anyone should have understood by now that it's quite useless to continue. Whatever their reasons, CDPR ain't gonna change the game lighting or art direction, and if anything, we can probably wait for Blood & Wine to see if they do it different for Toussaint.

If people believes a specific zone is "broken" in term of lighting, as this seems to be said for Thyme & Rosemary, I'd suggest raising a bug report, with pictures and comparison, directly to the developers. Just complaining about it on the forum, without giving more than "tis broken" ain't gonna do anything. If there is a genuine bug there, whoever has knowledge of this bug should report it in the clearest way possible.

 

[dragonbird]

OP was asking for a mod, or any other suggestion for him to achieve the results wanted. Any further posts should be in direct response to that question. It really isn't appropriate to continue to sidetrack this into yet another statement of opinions on lighting.

 

[Domhnallaich]

Im not sure if it removes any sort of filters but the Grim Lighting mod from Guitar is pretty awesome IMO.

 

[essenthy]

So if a modder can fix lighting problems, then it is an absolute certainty that the developers can do it even better. But they don't! Why not? This is what bothers me...

because its silly and it wouldnt work, simply, the engine and the lighting and coloring system was made to support vanilla style, not any other form of lighting/coloring settings, this is why STLM and any other lighting mod have issues ( that not everyone will necessarily notice ), when you make a game of this scope you dont leave some " possibilities " or optional form of style in term of lighting or color grading ( because that alone go along with assets creations ... ), they exploited the engine as much as they could while being aware of the 3 platform capabilities and limitation

its the same for colograding, you absolutely cannot just start messing around with colograding without encountering many issues because the colors/contrast/midtones/highlight parameters in the game supports the lighting when its in its weakest form ( aka interiors and shadowed areas ), as soon as you start to drift away from how vanilla look you will inevitably create problems that cant be fixed without dialing back your edits or changing the tech itself wich is obviously impossible, its the same with how geralt is lit, certainly you could remove the lighting boost geralt receive in shadowed areas like Asmodean did or how i did it in STLM but it also cause many other issues in many areas TODs/weather types

it took me a while to understand this, as soon as you edit something you create a problem somewhere and the worst thing is that you might not even realize it in time because your eye is not used to noticing minus details, i wish peoples tried their hand at modding the game and understood the tech and the insane complexity of all of these instead of crying in every single way

oh whelp

 

[Domhnallaich]

because its silly and it wouldnt work, simply, the engine and the lighting and coloring system was made to support vanilla style, not any other form of lighting/coloring settings, this is why STLM and any other lighting mod have issues ( that not everyone will necessarily notice ), when you make a game of this scope you dont leave some " possibilities " or optional form of style in term of lighting or color grading ( because that alone go along with assets creations ... ), they exploited the engine as much as they could while being aware of the 3 platform capabilities and limitation

its the same for colograding, you absolutely cannot just start messing around with colograding without encountering many issues because the colors/contrast/midtones/highlight parameters in the game supports the lighting when its in its weakest form ( aka interiors and shadowed areas ), as soon as you start to drift away from how vanilla look you will inevitably create problems that cant be fixed without dialing back your edits or changing the tech itself wich is obviously impossible, its the same with how geralt is lit, certainly you could remove the lighting boost geralt receive in shadowed areas like Asmodean did or how i did it in STLM but it also cause many other issues in many areas TODs/weather types

it took me a while to understand this, as soon as you edit something you create a problem somewhere and the worst thing is that you might not even realize it in time because your eye is not used to noticing minus details, i wish peoples tried their hand at modding the game and understood the tech and the insane complexity of all of these instead of crying in every single way

oh whelp

And on the note of STLM, you did so much amazing work on this. Do you plan to release any new versions? You did a video on YouTube a few weeks ago, looked very nice.

 

[skylineR390]

but the key thing to understand is that they had no choice, lets just hope for an enhanced edition

I don't think much has changed between now and then. The lowest common denominator remains the same and unless they release an exclusive build for us, and I don't see that happening, the chances of a graphics overhaul in an enhanced edition are slim to none.

Look at the stark contrast between low and medium settings here: https://youtu.be/ZlkYpNyKCjM?t=5m36s. That is the difference Shaders can make my friend.

@OP: This reshade for STLM 2.1 has the best LUT I have ever found. http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1090/?
I personally enjoy the natural preset the best, give it a whirl.

 

[Domhnallaich]

Look at the stark contrast between low and medium settings here: https://youtu.be/ZlkYpNyKCjM?t=5m36s. That is the difference Shaders can make my friend.

That video is for rise of the tomb raider, not the witcher 3. You kinda farted on your own point. I agree regarding STLM though, it's pretty amazing, as is grim lighting mod.

 

[moonknightgog]

That problem is everywhere for interior lighting (CDPR actually stated that interior lighting took a big hit when they changed the lighting system). And it's mainly because of the backlight that they put there to see the character better. While I was using Asmodean's mod though, that problem nearly went away completely. I would suggest you to go to Rosemary and Thyme using that one Of course STLM isn't bad for interiors too.

But yeah, when it comes to "grim world = almost black & white world", I agree with @Nolenthar. Witcher is one of my favorite literary series, and I read them many many times. I don't remember feeling like the world actually "looked" dark in any one of them, except from some swampy areas with ancient manors in them When explaining Brokilon, or some forests that they camp in, or some destroyed elven ruins (etc.) Sapkowski always mentioned the vibrant beauty and colors of the place. It actually underlines the darkness of human action, and the grim qualities of the monsters and sentients alike much better, because it draws a nice contrast there. Of course people can prefer all kinds of things, and I respect that immensely. But for me, wanting the world to not just feel dark and grim, but to "look" like it, is kind of emo. When I look at how people live and act, and the effects of the war all around (burned villages, people hanging from trees, refugees and so on) I feel that this is a dark world, in its dark times. But when I see some beautiful places, some green, lush forests, I get that it is so insignificant to the overall "world". Nature simply doesn't "care", and colors are indifferent about human actions. They will be there muuuuuch longer, after everyone is dead and gone. Which was a great design decision from CDPR, for me.

Now, wouldn't have I wanted all this with the improved lighting system that they had? Sure, anyone would have I think. But it's been a year now, I'm okay with it Besides, there are several cool mods around, so it's alright. After all this debacle, I can't see them doing the same thing in the future anyway. Oh, and of course we shouldn't forget the important facts like we didn't see much of the game before (maybe other areas were totally rubbish...), and there are some improvements over the older builds, where there are reductions of quality as well. It's not a one way street. Anyway, it's been a long time, we should let somethings go at this point I think

Yeah, but I don't even want to compare it to the old builds.
If there is a problem, the problem is not related to how the game looked 2 years ago. Even the Asmodean's mod doesn't make any miracles. The main issue in the Rosemary and Thyme inn, is basically (I think) how the characters are lit.

Spoiler

See Geralt in this picture. There's something wrong with the way he is lit, and I don't know why. To stay in topic, I honestly don't think is possible for a modder to fix this. Is not a matter of colour scheme, there's something in the tech that is wrong. Or missing. Shaders, maybe?

 

[arkhenon]

@moonknightgog That's exactly my point though. It *is* the artificial backlight (or rather, the fact that the characters are reflecting more light - to be seen more easily) that creates that problem. And Asmo's mod (and STLM, to some extent) fixes it. That's what I remember from when I used his mod. You should try it for yourself and see the difference. For example, remember how in vanilla you can see Geralt (and around him) easily even in caves? That's because of the increased light reflection in indoors. And you can't see Geralt in caves using Asmo's mod. You have to use either cat potion, or a torch.

 

[Guest 3841499]

well, they wont tel you how to do that because the big part of color grading controls are in env files, and modding those files is not officially supported, and in a way it would be like admitting that they made something wrong

while vanilla color grading isnt bad in itself, its far inferior to what they had in the earliers builds , and am pretty sur that they are aware of it, remember that they made the demos they showed us, they simply had no choice but to go for vanilla style colorgrading, and from my understanding the way color grading work in vanilla is fairly complicated, they just dont do " colorgrading " with the finalcolorbalance parameters, they also created some specific " lighting " just by using coloring/midtones/parametriccoloring parameters to overcome the problems they had since they downgraded the lighting system, especially in shadowed areas and interiors

to sum it up, vanilla color grading compensate for the lower version of their lighting system

the game doesnt use any form of " filter " as far as i know, its just coloring parameters, removing the vanilla coloring parameters wont magically make the game look better, you will cause more problems than you will ever be able to correct, maybe if we had redkit we could re make our own, but right know it would be ridiculously time consuming to change those parameters " correctly ", and you have to know how their own engine handle this properly along other lighting parameters, because if it wasnt enough, lighting itself has its own many coloring settings that interact with colograding, its very complicated

this is just my guess but i dont think that they are happy with how vanilla turned out looking compared to how the game looked back then, but the key thing to understand is that they had no choice, lets just hope for an enhanced edition

Yeah, I got a similar reply from CD Project Red. The ENV files are supposedly modifiable though. I realize that the new color grading made for worsened lighting system, BUT they could still make the game darker, gloomier, etc. They didn't want to get into it and kept saying "We're very busy!" - can't be bothered doing something about color grading or helping us improve it... IMHO, this color grading fantasy world is a BIG DEAL to many Witcher 3 lovers. Witcher 2 wasn't nearly as fantasy-like as Witcher 3...

Do you advice any ReShade/SweetFX presets to make the game look more like E3 video's? I think these presets improve the atmosphere in one way, but mess it up in another way...

 

[essenthy]

Yeah, I got a similar reply from CD Project Red. The ENV files are supposedly modifiable though. I realize that the new color grading made for worsened lighting system, BUT they could still make the game darker, gloomier, etc. They didn't want to get into it and kept saying "We're very busy!" - can't be bothered doing something about color grading or helping us improve it... IMHO, this color grading fantasy world is a BIG DEAL to many Witcher 3 lovers. Witcher 2 wasn't nearly as fantasy-like as Witcher 3...

Do you advice any ReShade/SweetFX presets to make the game look more like E3 video's? I think these presets improve the atmosphere in one way, but mess it up in another way...

its impossible to make the current game looks like the E3 demo (2014 build to be precise since thats the most reasonable example, trailers are out of question ) even by tweaking the tonemapping operator and colorgrading directly from the game, and sweetfx and resahde are already out because they influence everything else everywhere and dont work per zone/region

outside of assets and art direction difference ( wich were vastly suprior imo ), there are two factors that made the game look way better than what it is right now

1) the lighting system

the lighting was simply of higher quality, they had dynamic IBL ( many interviews confirming that ) wich looks miles ahead, more realistic, more ambient and has excellent lighting retention in shadowed areas, this is the first thing that give a tone to any object that is hit by light, wich mean if you change it, everything change


2) tonemapping

back then, dynamic exposure use was very minimal, because the lighting in shadowed area was good, now because the lighting is so weak in shadowed areas they abuse it literally everywhere, as soon as you enter a slightly dark/shadowed area the exposure goes up to help light up the scene ( instead of having normal light lighting up the scene ), BUT since geralt already has so much fake lighting on him it make him pop up ALOT, technically its understandable that they cant check everywhere and tune those parameters to fix geralt poping since its automated most likely, but its a big issues for me

her's an example :

View attachment 41311

as you can see in the horizon and in the scene in general the exposure is normal because the natural light is enough to light up the scene, but if you take vanilla and go to the exact same place you will see exposure goes up, and stuff in horizon getting crushed ( clouds/object ), thats what dynamic exposure does, and its used everywhere

then you have tonemapping curve wich give the image a certain " tone ", they deliberately made it look more gritty/old/yellowish and used or i dont know what word to use here, rather than more natural/neutral like the E3 demo

so what you can do to make it like E3 anyways ? the first and easiest step is to make tonemapping curve to more neutral wich is doable and should not break too many things but its extremly complexe and tiresome to tweak with the current modding tool, then change the colorgrading parameter to neutral too, then you will have something that " imitate " E3 demos

i personally gone to the point of completely removing the dynamic exposure, wich make shadowed areas look washed out but i still prefer that than the dynamic exposure and characters poping out like they have an invisible projector on them

 

[WalteriusMaximus]

@essenthy I am assuming the second image there is from your work on STLM 2.2? It looks fantastic! So much better and pretty close to the E3 demo, IMO.

It really looks like CDPR had the wrong guys working on the lighting system. They didn't do a great job at all when you consider the amazing work you are doing on your own, with very limited modding tools. Keep up the good work and I really hope to see this mod of yours when you are done with it!

 

[Olddddd]

The second image is from E3 demo.

 

[essenthy]

@essenthy I am assuming the second image there is from your work on STLM 2.2? It looks fantastic! So much better and pretty close to the E3 demo, IMO.

It really looks like CDPR had the wrong guys working on the lighting system. They didn't do a great job at all when you consider the amazing work you are doing on your own, with very limited modding tools. Keep up the good work and I really hope to see this mod of yours when you are done with it!

no its from the long E3 demo, its not a matter of the " wrong peoples " working on it, as much as i prefer how the old demos looks, vanilla is still fantastic, we can all critic how the game looks, what happened and whatever, but keep in mind that they did their best considering all the 3 platforms, yes they didnt deliver what they showed us, but the game is still a beast

its an incredibly complex task to make a game of this scope, let alone on 3 platforms and 2 of them being new, am sure they tried their best to deliver what they showed us, there are many proofs around that that E3 build was playable, so it wasnt all BS, shit happens !