AssettoByNight 2.1

Very small update.
Some people complained that some of the new scenarios introduced in 2.0 were a bit too dark, and I agree.
Increased the diffuse light of both DarkIsTheNight and DuskToDusk (the former still a bit darker than the latter for obvious reasons).
Minor changes to HazyMoon.

Last words.
Someone asked if the Legacy edition and DL Edition are compatible, and if you can use both ones.
The answer is obviously YES.
I'm not replacing the old ones, I'm just adding a few ones, it's up to you to decide.

Update only for Content Manager users using Dynamic Lights mod.
4 new scenarios ranging from sunset to sunrise
DuskToDusk, scenario starting at sunset and ending at sunrise with fading stars

DarkIsTheNight, like DuskToDusk, but the sky at nitght is a bit darker

Moony, scenario starting at sunset and ending at sunrise with Moon and fading stars

HazyMoon, scenario starting at sunset and ending at sunrise with Moon, clouds and a bit of haze

-----------------------
All scenarios span roughly 12 hours or racing and the night darknes falls roughly 3 hours after sunset and the darkness lasts about 6 hours. Wathever time you select, the scenario will always start at sunset, so you have to use time acceleration. For instance:
- if you want to span all 12 hours in a 1 hour of play you should set TIME MULTIPLIER = 12
- if you want to set-up a weekend race with, with 30 min of practice, 30 min of qualy, and 1 hour race (in total 2 hours) if you set the TIME MULTIPLIER to 3 you will have qualy and practice in the dusk and the race at night

... and so on
------------------------
In the archive you will find two folders:
- LEGACY folder, wiht previous 1.9 AssettoByNight mod
- CM_DL_EDITION folder, with the new scenarios; to install simply copy the content of "CM_DL_EDITION/weather/" in the weather directory of Assetto Corsa. Also in the "CM_DL_EDITION" folder you will find the relevant ppf.filters in case you need (for VR?).

This weather scenarios do not make use of LUA scripting to ensure maximum compatibility.

Hi guys, it's been a while sine last update. Believe or not I've been working for you.
This update brings news (hopefully good) to Content Manager users. For vanilla AC launcher user no news, just a question? Why havent you got Content Manager yet? You are hurting yourself and you will miss something special in the near future....

CM Dynamic Lights add-on patch: This release brings a patch for those using CM with Dynamic Lights mod (https://acstuff.ru/f/d/28-shaders-patch-dynamic-lights/77, headlights projecting light). If you are using CM without it this patch is not relevant to you.
The patch asjust the exposure mechanism to handle headlights in a natural way and without clipping (overexposure).
In the archive you will find a directory named "DynamicLights_OPTION"; AFTER installing the AssettoByNight mod in the usal way, drop the content of the "DynamicLights_OPTION/weather patch/" into the weather directory of assetto corsa and overwrite. If (for some reason) you need the ppf-filters, you will find them into the "DynamicLights_OPTION/ppfilters/" folder (they have a "-DL" suffix).
Hope the patch will improve the visual experience as it should.

News: As some of you already know, in the last weeks I've worked in coordination with the CM developer (a true legend!) for a major project I had in mind, and some of the recent features added to CM enable my new creation, Assetto Four Season. In comparison to Assetto4Seasons, AssettoByNight is nothing. Soon, very soon, I'll realeae an alfa (but functional) release. For the moment, I leave you to the teaser video and to the guessing game.

See you soon.

Major changes

• Completely redesigned EveningEve (because it was ugly). Now it looks nice and it's close to what I had in mind.
• Redesigned Sunrise Clean to secure a consistent behaviour when used in weekends or long races
• Minor tweaks to Sunrise Misty (improvement of sun and clouds)
• Improvement of Sunset in terms of visibility and visual appeal
• Improvement of Moonlight; it was almost perfect but I noticed that in some rare cases (2 curves in Nordschleife for instance) the road bonduaries were hard to catch;
• Changes to Moongaze; changes to the sky to make it more credible and with a consistent visual impact in all tracks; improvement of visibility

Other changes
Reduced color saturation in low light condition to improve even further the immersion.

Before talking about the release I'd like to invite anyone who is upgrading from a previous release to remove weather folders of previous release (see also FAQ).
This release brings several changes/fix/improvements.
Major changes

• New Sunset scenery

• New EveningEve scenery

• New MoonGaze scenery

• Significant changes to Sunrise Clean scenery

Minor changes

• Improvement of Moonrise scenery (better Moon and less dark setting)
• Other minor tweaks in other sceneries.
• General improvement of clouds/stars pattern

FIxed the performance issue with Moonrise. Now performances are almost alligned to the other sceneries.
Also the sky looks better.

This release brings performance optimizations.
In the archive (for each launcher) you will find three folders for three profiles:
- Quality
- Balance
- Performance
Select one and install as usual. If you change your mind on the profile to use, just select another one and drop in the proper location according to the usual procedure and overwrite (it is safe).

Quality, as the word suggests, maximize quality. Performance mazimize performaces. Balance sits in the middle.

Whatever profile you select the visual impact will be great. Obviously there are little differences, but they come with a price.
Anyway between the Balance and the Quality profile the difference is barely noticeable.

PERFORMANCE REFERENCE
For your reference this is how the mod runs on my PC (GPU NVIDIA GTX 1080 OC + RYZEN 1600X no OC) driving in cockpit view (the most demanding in performance terms) at 2K resolution, ultra details (motion blur OFF) at Bahrain Night track (a lot of external lighting sources).
With the BALANCE profile, across all sceneries (with the exception of the Moonrise one) I have an average FPS close to 100FPS (sometimes above this value); rarely the FPS goes below 90 FPS and it never went below 88 FPS.
With the QUALITY profile you can expect a drop of FPS ot 5% up to 10% compared to BALANCE depending on the scene.
With the PERFORMANCE profile you can expect a gain of 2% or 3% compared to BALANCE.
In non cockpit view you can expect up to a 10FPS increase.

Performances my change depending on circuit.

That being said, with the Moonrise scenery there is a performance issue. It does not depend on the PPF (switching among the three will not lead to a significant change in FPS). Most likely it is due to the clouds. I have to investigate, and hopefully come with good news during the week.

[UPDATE] I found the performance issue with Moonrise, and fixed it in upcoming v1.8 release. As expected it was not the PPF but the clouds pattern.

If you encounter performance issues send me a message but please give me details (PC spec, VR/noVR, resolution, circuit and scenery used).

That being said, my recommendations:
- if you have a mid-low end PC, or you are in VR, start with BALANCE profile
- if you have a mid-high end PC (such as mine) or you are in VR with and high-end PC (1080 in SLI or equivalent), choose QUALITY.

Enjoy

I know, I know, in v1.5 I stated no major release would come, and here I am again few hours later with a significant upgrade, the v1.6. I lost all my credibility.
The point is that with the v1.4 I anticipated I was working on a new scenery, which actually designed, the "F1ByNight".
F1ByNight is the twin brother of CityBynight and it is an optimization of the latter for use with Formula cars (not necessarely Formula 1).
I did not include it in the v1.5 because I thought it could be perceived as an overlap with CityByNight, then after playing with it I realized its value especially in night tracks, so I had a second thought and decided to include it in the package. After all, it is up to you which one to use and when to use it.
Basically F1ByNight provides some improvements in terms of lighting at ground level, exposure, and handling of external lights, due to the fact I could bypasss the constraints of headlights and adjust the exposure to lower POV.
In essence F1ByNight provides a visual experience similar to CityByNight with the following main differences:
- PROS: a more realistic handling of street-lights and external lights and improved FOV in night tracks
- CONTRAS: less appealing headlights (if you use it with cars with headlights), and slightly less appealing sky

In conclusion, personally, in GP circuits and city tracks, I'd go with F1ByNight when driving cars with no headlights and I'd go with CityByNight when driving cars with headlights. The difference are small nevertheless noticeable. Either way you cannot go wrong.

This is it. Enjoy.

This release brings many small changes/optimizations, too many to mention all, below the most relevant ones.
Sunrise Misty: no changes.
Sunrise Clean: changes of sky colour, clouds pattern, light at groud level and sun godrays. The sun is still too high but I cannot do anything about that. Overall it is very good.
Moonrise: changes of sky colour, clouds pattern, light at groud level, and added few stars. Fixed brakes lights (too strong in previus releases). It is a very solid and quite appealing scenery which credibly reflects the handover between the evening and the night with an early rising moon.
Moonlight and CityByNight: minor changes of the sky and huge improvement of stars/clouds pattern.

I'm quite happy with the result achieved, and I consider this a stable release. This means that there will be not any major updates. Anyway I'll keep mantaining the mod, so there may be in the future few tweaks/fixes here and there.

Enjoy guys.

Major changes

• The Sky (in Moonlight and CityByNight sceneries) now has stars. To achieve that I had to embed textures (this is the reason the archive has increased its size). Stars pattern could be improved, but it is already OK, overall.

Minor changes

• Minor tweaks of CityByNight PPF
• Minor changes to the sky (colors/brightness) of Moonlight and CityByNight

Working on improvement of Moonrise and maybe the design of another new scenery....

Minor changes

• Minor tweaking of "CityByNight" scenery; improved just a bit the visibility in cockpit view for occasional very dark track sectors. Decreased the ghost/afterimage effects in order to fit better with tracks with several sources of lighting (such as night tracks).

Other changes

• Changed few asphalt temperature parameters, to improve grip (previous ones were a bit too punitive)

Lastly, we are just about to enter into the Bahrain F1 GP weekend, aren't we? The right time to watch "Bahrain Night Track modded with CityByNight"!

Enjoy.

Major changes

• Major improvement of "Sunrise Clean" scenery (sky, clouds and sun). Nothing groundreaking but should look nice.
• Changes in "CityByNight" scenery; improved darkness, fixed an issue (in some tracks distant mountains could pitch to light blue), improved visibility in cockpit view (now far corners should more easy to spot). Overall more immersive and functional.

Other changes

• Improvement of headlights (more balanced lighting and DOF dependednt rotation of diffraction stars)
• Changed asphalt temperature parameter

Enjoy.

Major changes

• Redesigned the "Sunrise Clean" scenario, now more in line with what I had in mind, but still need some work.

Minor changes

• "Moonlight" scenario; decreased the brightness of the scene and tweaked the exposure to grant adequate visibility in cockpit view while improving the darkness feel from external cameras (replay). Pretty solid, watch the new video at Black Cat County

Major changes

• Completely redesigned the "Sunrise Hazy"scenary, now much more in line with what I had in mind. Succeded in combining sun, clouds and haze. Works great on road track circtuits (see new video of "Sunrise Hazy" at Highlands).
• Significant changes in "Moonrise" scenary; more drammatic and immersive, now one of my favourites (watch new video of "Moonrise" at Nordschleife)

Minor changes

• "Sunrise" scenary; minor change to the sky and significant changes to the godrays pattern to make it less invasive and annoying

General changes

• Improved exposure and lighting to grant better visibility at road level in the Moonrise, CityByNight and Sunrise scenaries

Enjoy.