_AC_Pure ppfilter for Sol 2.0+ only 4.0a

Hotfix to set the sky hue where I intended it to be. Don't need to download if you want to adjust the sky hue yourself in the Sol_Config app. It's the only change from the previous version.

Notes:

-- The alternatives folder has another set of filter .ini files. It is basically the same except it is slightly cooler or neutral on my monitor. Hardly noticeable unless you compare screenshots. Might make for a better base to do your own tweaking because it is more neutral.
-- I included 3 reshade filters I sometimes use as well for anyone who wants to try them. You will need Prod80 installed for them to work. They make minor changes to the colors that I have yet to figure out how to do without reshade. Mostly helps with the sky color and reduces the contrast a little without fading the colors.
-- Because of differences in monitor setups, i'm sure there a few self tweaks you will need to do. Most likely you will need to tweak one or all of these things. Whitebalance, saturation, contrast and brightness and\or exposure to fit your monitor setup. I can only judge these things based on how I have my monitor setup.

Filter explanation:

Base filter has some level of distant fog enabled. This is the filter I use most often when driving because I like things in the distance to be a bit hazy. You can use the Sol_Config app to increase or decrease the fog density and saturation to your liking, but no other settings can be changed.

Filter 2-3 has a large amount of fog\haze that covers pretty much the entire view. I use these filters for watching replays and driving at some tracks. I like it for replays because every race I have ever attended in person always had a haze over everything from the dust the cars kick up. I tried to simulate that look with these filters. The amount of fog haze is heavier in the morning and evening and gets less noticeable in the mid day hours. The difference between the two is simply the starting density. You can also use the Sol_Config app to adjust the fog density and saturation on these filters as well.

Filter 4 has the fog disabled. I rarely use this filter except on a few tracks or when testing colors because it is too clear. The world really isn't that clear and things in the distance shouldn't be as clear as things right in front of you. I still included it for those that don't like to use any distant fog.

Since I think I still prefer Sol 2.0.2 over Sol 2.1, I still need a filter compatible with Sol 2.0. This is my attempt to recreate my latest AC_Colors filter for Sol 2.0. This will only work with Sol 2.0. As with my latest AC_Colors update, I decided to go back to basic edits. The filter is bright and has lower contrast and slightly higher saturated colors.

Notes:

-- Removed all color edits from the CG file except for the added black and yellow on the green tones.
-- Reduced the contrast and slightly raised the saturation in the CG file.
-- Added more of Sol's ambient saturation to the .lua file.
-- The alternatives folder has another set of filter .ini files. It is basically the same except it is slightly cooler or neutral on my monitor. Hardly noticeable unless you compare screenshots. Might make for a better base to do your own tweaking because it is more neutral.
-- I included 3 reshade filters I sometimes use as well for anyone who wants to try them. You will need Prod80 installed for them to work. They make minor changes to the colors that I have yet to figure out how to do without reshade. Mostly helps with the sky color and reduces the contrast a little without fading the colors.
-- Because of differences in monitor setups, i'm sure there a few self tweaks you will need to do. Most likely you will need to tweak one or all of these things. Whitebalance, saturation, contrast and brightness and\or exposure to fit your monitor setup. I can only judge these things based on how I have my monitor setup.

Filter explanation:

Base filter has some level of distant fog enabled. This is the filter I use most often when driving because I like things in the distance to be a bit hazy. You can use the Sol_Config app to increase or decrease the fog density and saturation to your liking, but no other settings can be changed.

Filter 2-3 has a large amount of fog\haze that covers pretty much the entire view. I use these filters for watching replays and driving at some tracks. I like it for replays because every race I have ever attended in person always had a haze over everything from the dust the cars kick up. I tried to simulate that look with these filters. The amount of fog haze is heavier in the morning and evening and gets less noticeable in the mid day hours. The difference between the two is simply the starting density. You can also use the Sol_Config app to adjust the fog density and saturation on these filters as well.

Filter 4 has the fog disabled. I rarely use this filter except on a few tracks or when testing colors because it is too clear. The world really isn't that clear and things in the distance shouldn't be as clear as things right in front of you. I still included it for those that don't like to use any distant fog.

Small tweaks to the CG file and .lua.

-- Another small increase to the CG file contrast and reduced the FilmicContrast slightly as well to keep the same level of light\dark balance as the previous version.
-- Adjustments to blue and green lightness levels.
-- Set ambient hue saturation level to 0 in the .lua file. Was getting tired of trying to balance the CG file with the game's ambient hue. Now I can set the level of warm\cool ambient feel with a CG file adjustment. Also makes it easier for the user to adjust on their own with the Sol_Config app.
-- Added a little InputYOffset adjustment to the sky to create a light ring at the bottom of the sky. Wanted to do this before but forgot.
-- Returned CG file intensity back to 100%.

Filter explanation: Three different filters with different sky blue intensities. AC_Pure is a darker sky, AC_Natural is middle and AC_Fair is the lightest sky. Once you settle on a sky you prefer, you can delete the other files. I use them all at different times and tracks. Each version has four variations explained below. Once again, just delete or don't extract any variation you have no use for.

Base filter has some level of distant fog enabled. This is the filter I use most often when driving because I like things in the distance to be a bit hazy. You can use the Sol_Config app to increase or decrease the fog density and saturation to your liking, but no other settings can be changed.

Filter 2-3 has a large amount of fog\haze that covers pretty much the entire view. I use these filters for watching replays and driving at some tracks. I like it for replays because every race I have ever attended in person always had a haze over everything from the dust the cars kick up. I tried to simulate that look with these filters. The amount of fog haze is heavier in the morning and evening and gets less noticeable in the mid day hours. The difference between the two is simply the starting density. You can also use the Sol_Config app to adjust the fog density and saturation on these filters as well.

Filter 4 has the fog disabled. I rarely use this filter except on a few tracks or when testing colors because it is too clear. The world really isn't that clear and things in the distance shouldn't be as clear as things right in front of you. I still included it for those that don't like to use any distant fog.

Sorry fellas. Included the wrong CG file without the shadow adjustment for the extra warmth. I imagine the filter looked almost green with so little blue in the shadows. Hopefully this is better.

Big thanks to estellia for his suggestions, teaching me a few things I didn't know about and helping me test this new version.

This will get long. Big changes to the CG file in an attempt to reduce the amount of blue road reflection my filter creates. It's still there but it a little less noticeable.

-- Reworked the blue and green colors in the CG file. Greatly reduced the amount of cyan in the blues to reduce blue road tint. Greatly reduced black level of greens because it altered car skins too much.
-- Increased the level of contrast and brightness in the CG file. Reduced the level of FilmicContrast to counter balance the increase on CG file contrast.
-- Lowered CG file saturation. The filter is still oversaturated but as I mentioned in a previous update, I was told it's best to release a filter with too much saturation than too little. The game handles reducing saturation better than increasing it because of what it does to the car's lights. Use the Sol_Config app to adjust the saturation to fit your monitor.
-- Reworked the warm\cool color balance. The filter is warmer than past versions. Maybe not a warm filter, but warmer than it was.
-- Lowered CG file Intensity to 90%.

Filter explanation:
Three different filters with different sky blue intensities. AC_Pure is a darker sky, AC_Natural is middle and AC_Fair is the lightest sky. Once you settle on a sky you prefer, you can delete the other files. I use them all at different times and tracks. Each version has four variations explained below. Once again, just delete or don't extract any variation you have no use for.

Base filter has some level of distant fog enabled. This is the filter I use most often when driving because I like things in the distance to be a bit hazy. You can use the Sol_Config app to increase or decrease the fog density and saturation to your liking, but no other settings can be changed.

Filter 2-3 has a large amount of fog\haze that covers pretty much the entire view. I use these filters for watching replays and driving at some tracks. I like it for replays because every race I have ever attended in person always had a haze over everything from the dust the cars kick up. I tried to simulate that look with these filters. The amount of fog haze is heavier in the morning and evening and gets less noticeable in the mid day hours. The difference between the two is simply the starting density. You can also use the Sol_Config app to adjust the fog density and saturation on these filters as well.

Filter 4 has the fog disabled. I rarely use this filter except on a few tracks or when testing colors because it is too clear. The world really isn't that clear and things in the distance shouldn't be as clear as things right in front of you. I still included it for those that don't like to use any distant fog.

There are separate folders for Sol 2.0 and Sol 2.1 users because the filters require different coding for different Sol versions. Extract from whichever Sol version you are using. The Sol 2.1 versions are a work in progress and I can't guarantee they will carry over well as Peter releases new alpha and beta versions. I'm only including them for those early adopters. I have no plans to keep updating them until Sol 2.1 is officially released so you will see some quirks. For instance, the glare is different between Sol versions so the sun glare is a bit odd on the Sol 2.1 filters. The look is the same but on Sol 2.1 you can see the sun shape through the glare where you can't on Sol 2.0.

Not a significant update. More of a try it if you want to update based on a few suggestions I got. Surprisingly I didn't hear any complaints about the exposure\brightness levels. What I did hear was that the filters lacked contrast especially between lights and darks. So in the 'Alternatives' folder is two versions with small steps down in brightness and different levels of contrast\FilmicContrast to darken the shadows and put more definition between light and dark areas. They have unique names so they won't overwrite the default filters. Those who suggested this improvement may like them better.

For those who like the default filter, it remains basically unchanged from my last update. I'm sure there are a few things different because i'm always tinkering. Feel free to copy over your existing version if you want to but I doubt you will notice anything different.

For those who have never used these before, you may wonder why there are 12 different filters. First off, the three filter names have different sky colors. Each filter name has 4 versions that have different levels of distant fog\haze. Secondly, you don't need to extract or keep versions you don't like so you don't have to worry about cluttering up your filters folder. I only include them all to provide options for people to try. And lastly, I made them all because I use all 12 of them depending on the car, track, weather or time of day i'm driving in. Not all cars and tracks are made the same so I build myself filters to fit certain 'situations'.

CG File
-- Slight increases to saturation, contrast and brightness.
-- Color balance adjustments between highlights, shadows and midtones. Still looking for that neutral color balance.

.lua file\ppfilter
-- Changes to colortemp and white balance. They are now a 1:1 ratio.
-- Reduced the amount of ambient blue in the morning and evening. Still blue, but not as blue.
-- Reduced the brightness level slightly at dusk and dawn.
-- Reduced the level of cloud opacity for a few of the weather types to get a softer look to the 3D clouds and eliminate some of the hard edges. I'm not sure what this does for 2D clouds so you may not like the change.
-- Increased exposure and reduced gamma. I may have gone too far on the exposure. You can manually edit the .ini value if you would like less exposure.
-- Added a little more night brightness. This is tough to balance because of differences in headlight brightness on all of the cars. Hopefully I didn't go too far.
-- Reduced FilmicContrast level slightly.
-- Changed ambient_sun_color_balance and ambient_AO_visibility back to their default values.
-- Tweaks to the distant fog\haze levels and added one more level variation. As you move down in the filter order, the amount of distant fog\haze gets less. Personally I like using filters 2 and 3 the most. Filters 3 and 4 are basically the same except for the amount of blue in the distance.
-- Added a third sky color option (AC_Natural) that falls between Pure and Fair in blue intensity. Thanks goes to JavireTwo for letting me steal the sky from his Photorealistic Filter.

The filters are designed for Sol 2.0+ but will work with the Sol 2.1 alpha versions based on my testing of them. In the alternatives folder is the version I use because I prefer a slightly warmer look. The default version probably has better color balance and works best on most tracks.

Sorry for the quick turn around on this one. After posting the update this morning, I learned how to do something that I thought was worth getting out there because it helps the user to customize better.

-- I was told how to separate the amount of fog\haze density at dawn, day time and dusk so now there is less fog\haze during the day and more at dawn and dusk. I may have gone to far with dawn and dusk, but I like the look.
-- You can now adjust the amount of fog\haze density to your liking using the Sol_config app slider on page 19 for fog density. You can only adjust the density though so don't bother messing with the other sliders.

I promise this will be the last update for awhile. I know I can get update happy sometimes, but i'm pretty satisfied with the filter so I don't see a need to work on anything at the moment. Plus I have a ton of new tracks and cars i've been downloading so I need to get back behind the wheel to try them out.

Dusting off this old filter name for kind of new filter. This is nothing more than a fork of my AC_Colors filter, but it is for Sol 2.0+ only. It was getting too hard to balance the colors, lighting, etc. between Sol versions so I decided to make a Sol 2.0+ version only.

No major differences between this and my AC_Colors filter except I added two different distant fog settings. You can compare the differences in the images below. AC_Pure has no fog effect so that you can use the Sol_Config app to configure the fog to your own liking or not use it at all. AC_Pure2 has a distant fog effect of slight density that bleads into the foreground a bit, but everything right in front of you is still pretty clear. AC_Pure3 (which is my favorite) has a thicker density that covers everything, but I lowered the fog saturation level to take out the color. This creates sort of a haze look over everything that I really like.

There is also an AC_Fair filter included that has a lighter blue sky but the same fog settings as AC_Pure. I always need a lighter blue sky for open wheel cars.

All about the sky with this update. Still trying to figure out how to make a realistic sky. Hopefully this update has a better looking sky than the original. I also added entries in the .lua file for differences between Sol versions. This should have a better looking sky for Sol 1.5 users.

Also, i've come to realize that all the really good filters out there render the sky purplish on my monitor which makes me think I have issues with my monitor's blue representation. Because of this, i'm not sure what color my skies will look on someone else's monitor if they look blue on mine. So i'm asking if someone could PM me what color the sky is on their screen with this filter so I have some idea of which way I need to adjust it in the future. Thanks...