As previously in other threads discussed, TSW3's new lightning can make a lot of the ingame world seem to bright or washed out. There is a tool called Gamma Panel ( https://gamma-panel.de.uptodown.com/windows ) which I've been using many times so far for other games that just do not have such settings ingame. It is easily set up, you can save your configurations and select them from a drop down menu. It is fast and does what it should do, and thanks to it, TSW3 looks better then ever, in my opinion. Of course an official slider would be better, but for everyone who does not want to tinker with their display settings every time they play TSW3, nor want to accept the brightness in game, this is a very fast and efficient solution. I would include before-after pictures, but since the tool changes the video output, both screenshots would look exactly the same. EDIT: In addition, I've been using the tool with the TOD4 mod for all routes. While it breaks most indoor stations light, any type of light source at night, the PIS system, and baked lighting inside stations, in combination with this tool it can create some stunning moments that make the game look photo-realistic.
For that you'd need something like an Elgato hooked up to your HDMI-out that could capture the video signal being sent to the display, rather than the internally rendered scene, I imagine?
What would be neat would be DTG acknowledging that the lighting is far from ideal and then doing something about it. We live in hope. Even reshade’s FakeHDR shader (I don’t have an HDR monitor) really helps, making everything the little bit less washed out (particularly under cloudy skies). It does make you wonder if the person/people configuring this is doing so on an HDR monitor.
Indeed. Nowhere more apparent that lighting needs sorting is Peak Forest. The route itself is superb, with a few caveats, but the lighting spoils the experience somewhat in bright conditions. It starts to look like the early days of Derail Valley or Diesel Railcar Simulator.
I’m working on a little something for Peak Forrest and have changed a number of assets to make them much less bright and saturated. Some of them, vehicles & phonebox in particular, are really crazy saturated so they almost glow
Most likely, many game developers assume that everyone has an HDR capable gaming monitor or a big HDR capable TV. Oh, and that they're on 16:9.
As an example of a game that just got a new optional HDR patch from one of the devs, which fixes a bunch of the same issues TSW3's lighting has - Seriously fixing the washed out textures for those with HDR displays, and making blacks much more natural: And notably - a must have option with any such implementation, which many devs adding HDR modes overlook, and exceptionally important when dealing with white UI elements cough cough TSW3:
