Got to say looking good though (i mean at least one person still uses the non AP 375s - so that makes me happy )
As much as I'd LOVE to use the AP 375s, being in Australia, AP content costs me double to buy, and i also don't have enough space on my PC. That said, I still have the old 375/377 sound pack, which at least gives them a lift. I also can't take all the credit, as I used Pookeyhead's shader as a basis and I modified it from there.
I 100% agree, AP products feel very expensive in Australia and it forces me to often wait for a sale, even then I often still don’t buy anything. The only exception is if it’s a DLC that is some kind of useful environment or graphics enhancement, then it is almost always an instant purchase for me. I only have a few AP DLC in the locomotive range and I want to expand my collection as what I do own I absolutely love, but AP is in that range of TSC DLC that just feel like “luxury items” that you treat yourself to every once in a while if you’re an Australian.
Did more testing at different times of day under different weather conditions with vortHDR on and off. I noticed that for some odd reason in the early morning that my game went a brighter shade of green. Turns out the corect colour preset had white point correction enabled to auto colour which threw everything out. So I adjusted it accordingly. You may find the hue changes depending on time of day, whether you're in the cab, outside and if you have the HUD enabled or not, so I tried to make a balance. First 2 shots: Summer, 5am, Cloudy VortHDR on VortHDR off
Just so you know, the Second screenshots in each separate post there, have vortHDR off I personally like both depending on time of day and route. At night, when you’re not at a station, however, the adaptive tone map kicks in brightening area – a little too much in some cases, so I adjusted that accordingly. The main reason why I had it set quite high was so that it would adjust when going through tunnels. If you notice you may end up seeing some lines that Showed different hues? Kinda like how back in the old days some games would do that if it was rendered by software, instead A GPU. The only fix was to make adjustments in the adaptive tone mapper filter. Unfortunately it can’t really be fixed but if you sit further back from the screen, it’s not too noticeable,
Yes I am aware that the second screenshots have VortHDR off. I like the first set of each with it on and prefer it over off. Also I sort of think I know what you mean about the two shades at night sorta thing, I ran a Woodhead scenario yesterday and it was practically a pitch black night run. Unfortunately your preset made things look reallllyyy weird sometimes at night with a sort of two hues thing going on, it's hard to explain.
I see, maybe the best course of action is a manual thing the user has to do. Simply just turn it off during dark night runs. Just quickly hopped into that same pitch black 1am Woodhead Line scenario took a look around with the Adaptive Tonemapper turned off and it looked much better. But Adaptive Tonemapper makes an amazing difference in daylight scenarios. Anyway, here are some more screenshots I got with your Realism preset, still excellent! It even works very well even when the screenshots are turned black and white which I look doing for screenshots taking place pre-1960s. I just loooooveeee how these look!
Version 6.0 now available https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/m...her/i3946-ph-un-kiro0s-tas-reshade-preset-v60 - Added correct Contrast shader - Minor hue and saturation adjustments
So it looks like I broke my preset - I uninstalled reshade then did a clean install. Now my shader looks nothing like it did. Not sure what I did wrong.
Hi all, So it turned out originally the creator of the vort_HDR preset had got rid of the RGB mixer in his plugin because he thought no one was using it. It has since been added back in. Also, Blazin has brought to my attention that the vort_HDR shader that I use is an optional plugin and not installed by default when installing ReShade. For those who are using my preset, please redownload reshade and ensure that you have the "vort Shaders by vortigern11" box ticked on the "Select effects to install" panel of the ReShade installer. Once activated, use the following settings:
Please also note that to get these intended settings through Vort_HDR, you need to replace the 0 in "V_ENABLE_COLOR_GRADING", and "V_USE_HW_LIN" with a 1 to achieve the intended look and adjust to the correct colour grading settings. Where you do this can be seen in the screen in the previous post above by PhÜnKî_Rø0sTā under "Preprocessor Definitions". It's as simple as clicking on the 0, typing in 1, then pressing enter. "V_HAS_DEPTH" appears to be turned on by default so you shouldn't have to worry about that. If not, also replace the 0 there with a 1.
I originally had the values in the Red set as 190, 128 and 130 - which gave the sky a slight purple hue in the upper atmosphere. But feel free to muck around with the values to your hearts content.
This is a general ReShade thing depending on what you shaders you have equipped and the lighting of a night scenario. Very dark areas at night time scenarios with ReShade will produce weird looking affects as the shaders that Pookeyhead and PhÜnKî_Rø0sTā have been using are primarily meant for daylight scenarios. I work around this by turning off the shaders that produce this effect on night time runs; you could probably do the same. Here is an example of before vs after doing this on dark night scenarios with the Realism preset by PhÜnKî_Rø0sTā This is before, all shaders of the preset turned on. The effects look really weird; a bar with a blue hue that covers the top of the screen and the surroundings having a weird outlined shaded effect when they shouldn't under these lighting conditions and some other odd things. This is the same preset but with the PD80_04_Selective_Color_v2.fx and the AdaptiveTonemapper.fx shaders turned off which present a much more accurate look and feel of what night time would look like here. Extremely dark; a few objects that you can barely make out in the darkness like real life and the distant signal light and that's it really. I think Pookeyhead's preset uses these or similar shaders so turn those off. If not, turn select shaders off and see which ones sort of fix that effect through trial and error which is how I discovered what shaders to turn off in this example.
Thanks, will have a go, it's been better with them on until the fuzzy bar appears (which doesn't always) as the ambient light is slightly better. The route I am using is the West Highland merged route off the workshop. Have not bought the cloud pack off AP but have sky and weather 2.0.
Best thing to do if you're using my preset would be to turn off the adaptive tonemapper on night time scenarios. Using this will make the night sky unusually bright.
Also don’t forget to turn off PD80_04_Selective_Color_v2.fx as that also makes night scenarios look very unrealistic and strange. It’s not just AdaptiveTonemapper.fx that does this sort of thing.
After removing some of Shaders, fuzzy band came back. Removing all of them except default RWE2 the band still came back. Maybe it's something in RWE?
After using the shaders last night found the fuzzy bar arrives after using the cab light and turning it off.
PhÜnKî_Rø0sTā I have some feedback about your ReShade preset with VortHDR. The settings you have enabled for VortHDR sort of make screenshots / the game looked washed out. This was brought to my attention from some screenshot feedback from triznya.andras and how they mentioned that my recent shots have looked quite washed out. Now that I have gotten back home from holiday today I have been able to look into it better and discovered VortHDR was doing this effect; specifically is "Saturation" setting of VortHDR is making things washed out. Contrast is fine so VortHDR does not have to be completely disabled; simply turning from -0.175 to 0 and keeping Contrast at -0.075. Here are some before / after screenshots for comparison and this made me notice the washed out effect far better. Saturation at -0.175 Saturation at 0
I think there is no universal solution to saturation (color intensity, its difference from gray). More like content specific optimisation - if one cares. For me Hagen-Siegen with its DB trains are about a sweet spot in terms of color. Compares to real life ÖBB Tauri passing by. Whereas some UP locomotives (like the DD35) are at best idealistic, day 1 representations, which would fade a bit. Same about Weardale, it's very green. (And then the cab view glass tint.) Beside old (grayscale, sepia, desaturated) photographs and current (vibrant) trends, screen setup and eyesight. I think it helps to compare TSC to something baseline: a favorite photo. Set up a random slideshow with a mix.
Personally I disagree; Santa Fe colouring is overall quite vibrant and colourful and more so than what is seen in the first screenshot. The second screenshot is a better representation of their vibrant colouring. Also the "lighting" situation of those screenshots and how the ReShade did it's adjusting business there so maybe it wasn't the best example for those so here is a better look at it without saturation. Overall during scenario runs I do find the changed Saturation setting to 0 looks a lot better and more realistic colouring of the environment and train but I suppose it does come down to personal preference.
Reference - 1950-05, F7 Another - 1966-06, Fast Mail with PA What's crazy about these pics - post-processing aside - is how clear the air is, allowing for a blue sky. Although the second picture is a bit suspicious, if you check just above the treeline on the right hand side, especially in the middle at the V shaped part. Found an F3A with passenger equipment. Cajon Pass, 1963-11-16, with the Grand Canyon service
Hi personally like the first one as well. Also be sure to have your AP Weather enabled. (I think you have to turn dynamic clouds off?) From what I’ve seen in some of your shots on non-UK routes it looks like you’re using the default weather pattern. Saturation is much of a muchness. I try to keep it between my current setting and zero. of course, if you really want to, you could turn VortHDR off completely
AP Weather is turned on correctly. The AP Weather will be a default pattern based on whatever the scenario set's it as; it won't be anything too crazy like what AP does with it in their own scenarios since I mostly play Steam bought DLC but it still changes overtime if the scenario intends it to and such. It seems this sort of thing definitely comes down to personal preference honestly.
I like most of your shots, Blazin, but they all look as if your camera lens is fogged up and makes me try to clean my spectacles when seeing them. Very humid and cold they look. Each to their own of course
Thank you but I agree on your point; I don’t particularly like that effect… it’s something to do with ReShade blending lighting effects together I think I may have to try and sort it out. It feels like I can never get anything consistent to my likings!!
Do you use RW Enhancer too? Maybe try without that and see how you go? My preset is designed for those who don’t use RW enhancer
I've done some tinkering; does seem RW Enhancer 2 was effecting it somewhat and re-installed related AP Weather enhancements so thanks for the tip. I have done some messing around with the enabled shaders too and here is my opinion on the best "look" but it's mostly subjective but please do let me know what you think. For reference the time seen in these screenshots is 8am. All Intended Settings This is with the intended settings; and here the colour just feels drained out of the Santa Fe locos to some extent. Intended Settings; Vort HDR Enabled but Saturation turned off to 0 With Vort HDR still enabled [because I still like the effects it gives] but the Saturation turned off to 0; the appropriate colour has returned to the surroundings. But a bit too vibrant in some respects; so below is my final tweak of the preset. Previous Screenshot Settings with PD80_04_Contrast_Brightness_Saturation.fx turned off. As you can see now the morning light feels more natural in my opinion with that setting turned off. this is probably what I'll be running with going forwards. But this is appropriate sunlighting conditions, what about backlit shots? Same Settings as the 2nd Screenshot in this Post Same Settings as the 3rd Screenshot in this post As you can see I think the 2nd backlit shot there is darker yes; but it's more realistic to the lighting situation and looks more natural in my opinion. But as I just said, this is my opinion, so what do you guys think on the look of these shots?
On second thought; maybe disabling Vort HDR all together in my opinion is the best option. Vort HDR sort of puts over a layer of brightness which sort of furthers that "cool" feeling Spikee was talking about I think. Here is a comparison; both good lighting and backlit lighting. VortHDR - ON VortHDR - OFF VortHDR - ON VortHDR - OFF It's definitely a subtle difference but it makes a difference to me. The colour feels more natural with VortHDR off.
I’ve done more messing around and honestly it depends on the lighting and weather conditions on what settings should be enabled. For example the Contrast, Brightness, Saturation shader doesn’t work well in early morning situations but works well in regular daylight. So it’s a matter of mixing and matching depending on the scenario’s time of day and such.
Sorry for the late reply - I've been on holiday for the last couple of weeks. Yes, it's much of a muchness really - depends on the time of day, what route you're running etc - so I guess it could be tweaked on a per scenario basis. Maybe I should create multiple shaders based on time of day, weather etc. Let me know if that's a good idea - that way instead of manually tweaking, you can just switch to whichever shader suits the time of day.
All good mate I hope you enjoyed your holiday. Yes; I think for most a good idea would be add presets for specific times of day (eg. early morning / dawn, morning - afternoon daylight hours, evening / dusk, night). I’ve tried to mess around with specific setting variables myself but they really frustrate me and I can’t really optimise things well; aside from simply just turning off the setting so good on you for your efforts. Also just a final piece of feedback is that I find the contrast to be too high on your recommended ingame settings; most of time for locomotives such as steam locomotives it produces some heavy / unnatural shadows on their smokebox / boiler area and it results in some situations where you can’t even see the smoke box door. I’ll later send my current ingame settings; which I have configured so they’re good for my setup with your ReShade preset. All I did was lower contrast a little bit really and disable a ReShade setting or two to get my game where it’s at now. Thanks again for your efforts!
Here are the comparisons between my tweaked ingame settings and the recommended settings. The only tweak in ReShade is that VortHDR is turned off; and it barely makes a difference to this shadow contrast effect. First of all; here are the tweaked ingame settings I have been using recently: Tweaked Ingame Settings Recommended Ingame Settings Tweaked Ingame Settings Recommended Ingame Settings As you can see; the high contrast recommend settings produce extremely dark shadows on steam locomotives especially in backlit conditions which I don't like very much at all if I am going to be perfectly honest. However; the high contrast recommend settings do exceed in making colouring of most buildings and surroundings feel much more real and warmer, which I really like! It just seems to have a problem with handling shadow effects and making them too dark / too strong. I hope this feedback helps!
