Natural Mod PP Filter 31

Pure script:
Adjusted the following: exposure+contrast logic, emissives, displays, lights, VAO in overcast, sunrays, sun saturation

Shouldn't look too different despite changing lots of the script

Pure:

• Improved sunrays
• Improved contrast, saturation, brightness in shade and in mixed weather (e.g. broken clouds)
• a few other misc tweaks

Pure
Improved sunrise/sunset transition
Improved appearance in bad weather

Sol
Adjusted filmic contrast, less washed out, closer in apperance to my Pure script

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

Screenshots with Pure:

Pure minimum version 0.142
Changes to Pure script:

• Adjusted tonemapping, improves contrast in overcast or dusk/dawn
• Much better handling of dark weather and extremely bright weather
• Better handling of tunnels
• Adjusted skydome brightness
• Complete overhal of the script, might require some fine tuning but the logic is far better than before. Please report any issues, e.g. night time brightness, lights, emissives, tunnels, transitions through daytime to sunset etc.

Properly dialed in for all weathers/times of day with Pure now

Pure:

• Overall slightly more contrast/less washed out
• Dusk/dawn brightness fixed
• Some over-bright mod tracks should look a bit better
• Glare at night adjusted
• Refined skydome appearance in bad weather
• Slightly more visible sunrays

General:

• Removed colour grading as it doesn't work in VR

Thank you very much to those who donated!

Nothing major, refining the Pure version, still some more work to do on making it not too bright on some non-KS tracks (have something planned but need to test it further)

Thank you very much to those who donated recently, seems like there was a handful all at once from nowhere, so I guess the filter appeared in a video or something?

Pure (minimum version 0.102):
Reworked tonemapping much less washed out, particularly at dusk/dawn
Glare adjust
Night reworked
Photomode filter fixed

Sol + Pure:
Photmode sunrays tweaked slightly
Colour grading by Peter Boese - doesn't seem to work in VR so may remove it in future for consistency
More saturation and contrast

Misc:
General note: sunrays work properly in VR now, so enable them in AC gfx settings if you had them disabled
Readme tidied up

Despite a short change list, many hours went into this update, I hope you agree it paid off!

Pure filter:

• Completely new and unique approach to exposure/gamma/contrast - resulting in much better eye simulation - when driving in dark parts of the track, these can be subtly boosted without the sky getting brighter. Logic configured to allow believable final result at all times of year. Some room to refine this behaviour but its a step change already in my opinion.

Sol + Pure filter

• Godrays in VR are fixed by Ilja in the next CSP version, so I spent the time tweaking them to be realistic to my eye (i.e. subtle). Changes apply for 2d users too.

Shots with Pure:

• Added note to readme on certain CSP settings that should be set to avoid washed out look
• With Pure WeatherFX:
  • less washed out at sunset/rise
• No other changes

Pure support, quite a lot of time went into tuning the appearance throughout the day and night, but I think it's worked out nicely.

Minor tweaks for Sol relating to brake lights at night and sun rays.

Beer fund: https://www.paypal.me/ears1991

• Slight tweak to filmic contrast, slightly less washed out
• Slightly reduced night bounced light level to improve the look of floodlit tracks
• Added note to readme file about fine tuning contrast for your display (i increase it to 0.985 for my quest 2)
• Forced on Sol control of csp lights to avoid issue with interior night light being on during day in cars (e.g. Porsche RSR). Its on by default but some people had it set false.

• Reworked for Sol 2.2, result is significantly nicer (mostly thanks to Peter's work on Sol). Overall contrast adjusted and appearance at dusk/dawn adjusted
• Improved approach to night appearance, now can get pretty much pitch black (set weather to overcast) without compromising headlight brightnes

Only relevant for Sol users:

• Improved headlight strength at night
• Adjustment to lighting balance

Updated readme instructions

Sol users:

• Improvements to dusk/dawn vibrance and shadows
• Sun rays restored to previous levels
• Improve appearance in overcast and bad weather
• Rebalance sun, ambient, gamma, brightness (no longer tampering with ambient level - shadows should look better)
• Add note in readme for displays with poor black level

Updated screenshots on OP

Sol users:
Sol minimum version: 2.1 alpha 12 (tested with alpha 18) (from https://discord.gg/KeHxbSX)

• Night brightness level tweaked - user can now fine tune through sol config app
• Ambient light colour temp adjusted
• Sun intensity reduced (less blown out at high sun)
• Added a variable "day_contrast" at the top of the .lua. the top 3 lines of the .lua are those that you might like to tweak based on your display
• Reminder: recommend to manually delete Natural_Mod_Rift from old versions

EDIT: slight improvement to dusk/dawn, change line 18 of the .lua to:

Code:

SOL__set_config("nerd__sun_adjust", "ls_Level", 1 - (0.25 * sun_compensate(0)), true)

Natural_Mod_Base:

• Minor tweak to gamma/exposure

Removed separate Natural_Mod_Rift filter, please remove that and use Natural_Mod from now on.

Sol users:
Sol minimum version: 2.1 alpha 12 (from https://discord.gg/KeHxbSX)

• Filmic contrast enabled, configured to get a bit closer to ACC tone
• Exposure and gamma are now static (no need to boost at sunrise/set in new versions of Sol)
• Night tweaks
• Adjust smog level

Non-Sol users (may as well ignore this update):

• Removed weather/cloud files
• Removed separate JSGME/CM Mod "Natural Oculus Rift Filter"

• Sol users (Sol 2.0.1 Recommended):
  • Edited .lua format to allow easy user adjustment of day/duskdawn/night exposure and gamma
  • Added sky level boost at dusk/dawn
  • Fixed typo in adjustment of sun level (helps white cars)
  • Switched to use Sol godrays logic. (Note still recommended to keep them disabled in AC gfx settings for VR)
• Added new filter: Natural_Mod_Base for users of default WeatherFX implementation (less resource intensive than Sol). Tuned for daytime driving, night time is a bit brighter than I would like, but I don't think filter .lua is possible with default WeatherFX implementation to work around this. Reason for adding: my natural_mod and natural_mod_rift filters use contrast lower than 1, which was fine until night time was added to AC. When using Sol I adjust contrast dynamically by time of day, but this is not possible with the default WeatherFX implementation to my knowledge, so this filter comes with contrast set to 1, and other tweaks to get what looks right to me with
• Photomode filter: widened exposure range

Tested with Sol 2.0.1. Older versions will work may require you to set sky blue preset in Sol Config App. Works with the current Sol 2.1 alphas but will require me to upload a new version once Sol 2.1 final is released

Changes only applicable for Sol users

• Completely reworked .lua, much simpler, end result is similar but boosting gamma instead of ambient which had some drawbacks
• Slightly brighter day time
• Removed stuff for Sol versions lower than 2.0
• Fine tuned night time
• VR: night contrast value corrected to prevent artifacts on glare
• Some of the values are hardcoded in the .lua, I can make them such that you can modify them through Sol config app, let me know if you care
• It may be worth resetting Sol config if you have ever modified settings in there. The only setting I change in there is setting clouds render method (2d/3d)
• If you've been using Sol 2.0 beta with previous versions of this filter, 2.0RC4 reversed ambient__AO_visibility, such that some versions of this filter got broken (shading screwed up), that will be fixed by this update

Intended for Sol2.0RC4 or higher but works fine on 1.5.1, 1.6.2

5.0.1:
Sorry for update spam... Accidentally deleted my ambient adjustment before upload.
Also replaced colour temp adjustment with adjustment to "ambient__sun_color_balance"

Spoiler: Some tracks are too bright!

The filter is tuned to get a dazzling effect when the sun is high in summer, but on some mod tracks with different shader values, this might end up looking way too bright. Assuming you use Sol, use the ta_exp_fix adjustment in the Sol Config app to easily fix these tracks, without compromising others.

Sorry for update spam, last one for a while hopefully...
Reworked day to night transition again, stole some of Peter's lua for setting exposure & gamma, adjusted contrast transition. Should result in:

• Better glare (e.g. brake lights) and lights at night. If you feel headlights are too dark you should adjust the CSP lights multi)
• More accurate ambient level at dusk/dawn

Fixed a copy paste error in 4.1.3 that messed with ambient/sky/clouds adjustment (mainly dusk/dawn transition)

• Tweaks to glare for brake light improvement and to account for recent CSP change
• With Sol Weather:
  • Minor tweaks to sun saturation and evening ambient look
  • Tweaked night lighting, particularly for the VR filter (actually gets pitch black)
  • Much better transition from day to night
  • VR: Minor tweak to white level (fix clipping, at least on my Rift)

Cheers to Terry for checking the changes on Rift S