Quote from tristancliffe :

Good job real life doesn't look like that! And I bet it looks even worse in motion! Never seem my white race suit arms flare up in real life...

You can tone it down you know.. But if you must flame, go ahead

I'd guess zero would be the most realistic setting. But I'm not impressed by bloom like most people as I've yet to witness it in real life.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I'd guess zero would be the most realistic setting. But I'm not impressed by bloom like most people as I've yet to witness it in real life.

You lie sir...

Castle Coombe, Lancia Fluvia, circa 2003

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l9FK6uvTCk

LOL! Yes, that's pretty impressive bloom I must say, but I don't remember it quite like it's portrayed in that video. I'm confident there was rather better visibility

So taking this theory that LFS will respond to a .dll plugin along with a config file, it should be possible to modify the way LFS looks, by just manipulating these?

What would be great is a file like this that allows the user to adjust;

• Contrast
  
• Brightness
  
• Colour Saturation
  
• Sharpening
  
• Bloom
  
• Motion Blur

In essence, converting LFS from its quite bland looking DX8 self into a smartened up game, competiting graphics-wise to the other big sims?

Sounds quite good for just two little files.

Quote from mcintyrej :

So taking this theory that LFS will respond to a .dll plugin along with a config file, it should be possible to modify the way LFS looks, by just manipulating these?

What would be great is a file like this that allows the user to adjust;

• Contrast
  
• Brightness
  
• Colour Saturation
  
• Sharpening
  
• Bloom
  
• Motion Blur

In essence, converting LFS from its quite bland looking DX8 self into a smartened up game, competiting graphics-wise to the other big sims?

Sounds quite good for just two little files.

I think it allows adjustment of all those you listed apart from sharpness. I know theres colour and gamma correction as well as saturation.

I can't believe people are slating this little tweak, it makes LFS look just as good as any other racing game or sim out there at the moment and the fact that it is totally adjustable means that due to the compulsive nature of sim freaks I'm pretty confident that someone will have a nice subtle realistic .ini filed posted up within a few days, we all just have to dig in and see what we can do with it instead of saying how shiny it makes your forehead look. TWEAK!


I also noticed someone say that this interferes with other addons because of the modified dx8.dll, well theres a workaround for that as you can specify proxy libraries, it's explained in the readme

Quote :

[PROXY]
EnableProxyLibrary=(0,1) load 3rd party library by the mod at game start. Helps to solve problem with multiple d3d9.dll files.
InitProxyFunctions=(0,1) connect to functions of 3rd party library.
ProxyLibrary=(filename) file name of 3rd party library.

Heres a quote of the full readme explaining what each setting does..

Quote :

SETTING DESCRIPTION:

[PROXY]
EnableProxyLibrary=(0,1) load 3rd party library by the mod at game start. Helps to solve problem with multiple d3d9.dll files.
InitProxyFunctions=(0,1) connect to functions of 3rd party library.
ProxyLibrary=(filename) file name of 3rd party library.

[GLOBAL]
UseEffect=(0,1) activate mod at start. In some situations HUD or startup movies may be corrupted visually because of this parameter enabled.
AlternativeDepth=(0,1) increase performance of some effects, but not all videocards can use this mode at full precision, if you see large lines on the objects, disable this parameter.
AllowAntialias=(0,1) enables antialiasing setting from game to be used in the mod effects. (antialiasing, multisampling, fsaa, in other words).
BugFixMode=(0..5) every value fixes it's own unsopported feature or bug in driver or hardware. For drivers 169.xx and 171.xx do not set this parameter to 1. Values from 0 to 5 actually HDR texture formats: 0 (R32G32F)-high quality and middle performance, 1 (R32F)-high quality and fast, 2 (A32R32G32B32F)-high quality and very slow, 3 (R16F)-low quality and fastest, 4 (R16G16F)-low quality and fast, 5 (A16R16G16B16F)-low quality and middle performance.
SkipShaderOptimization=(0,1) disables optimization when compiling shader, may help to elliminate bugs.

[EFFECT]
EnableBloom=(0,1) enables bloom effect (bright areas blurred) with time dependent adaptation. Works only if mod activated already (by key combination).
EnableOcclusion=(0,1) enables ambient occlusions (ssao) and some other effects (mod version dependent).
EnableReflection=(0,1) reflection of vehicles.
EnableMotionBlur=(0,1) blurring image in fast motion of camera. Temporary disabled.
EnableWater=(0,1) enable water effects
EnableShadow=(0,1) enable shadow effects
DepthBias=(0..1000) for scene depth rendering, offset of geometry relative camera viewpoint. For some videocards may be useful to remove flickering and hiding of ambient occlusions.

[INPUT]
KeyUseEffect=(1..255) decimal key number for mod activation/deactivation.
KeyBloom=(1..255) decimal key number for bloom activation/deactivation.
KeyOcclusion=(1..255) decimal key number for ssao activation/deactivation.
KeyReflection=(1..255) decimal key number for reflection activation/deactivation.
KeyCombination=(1..255) decimal number of additional key for combining this key with others (SHIFT by default).
KeyShadow=(1..255) decimal key number for shadow activation/deactivation.
KeyWater=(1..255) decimal key number for water activation/deactivation.

[REFLECTION]
ReflectionPower=(0..100) level of cars reflection.
ChromePower=(0..100) level of steel parts reflection. Temporary disabled.
UseCurrentFrameReflection=(0,1) when 1 use for reflection image of current frame screen, otherwise use previous frame image.
ReflectionQuality=(0..2) quality, 0 means maximal quality and slowest speed.
ReflectionSourceSpecular=(0..100) percent of using "specular" material color as reflection factor. Some car parts may be reflective with this setting.
ReflectionSourceTFactor=(0..100) percent of using "texture factor" as game environment map mix level. Some car parts may not be reflective with this parameter and on the contrary.
UseAdditiveReflection=(0,1) reflections added to screen car colors, 0 means more softly reflection.
ReflectionDepthBias=(0..1000) offset of reflection geometry relative to car and camera viewpoint. For some videocards may be useful to remove flickering and hiding of reflections.
UseLowResReflection=(0,1) use small and blurred texture as reflection, looks like matte reflection.

[BLOOM]
BloomPowerDay=(0..100) power of bloom at day time, dependent from screen brightness.
BloomFadeTime=(0..100000) time of bloom adaptation to screen brightness change, in milliseconds.
BloomConstantDay=(0..100) power of bloom at day time, independent from adaptation time between screen brightness change.
BloomQuality=(0..2) bloom effect quality, 0 means maximal quality.
BloomScreenLevelDay=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, that determined as day time.
BloomCurveDay=(-10..10) gamma correction of bloom at day time. negative values increases halftone brightness (smoggy look), positive values decrease halftones brightness (contrast, intensive image).
BloomPowerNight=(0..100) power of bloom at night time, dependent from screen brightness.
BloomConstantNight=(0..100) power of bloom at night time, independent from adaptation time between screen brightness change.
BloomCurveNight=(-10..10) gamma correction of bloom at night time. negative values increases halftone brightness (smoggy look), positive values decrease halftones brightness (contrast, intensive image).
BloomScreenLevelNight=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, that determined as night time.
BloomAdaptationScreenLevel=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, over which bloom deactivating. It's desirable that this parameter will be greater than BloomScreenLevelDay.
BloomAdaptationMultiplier=(0..100) percent of day time bloom brightness, that will be used when screen brightness will be greater than BloomAdaptationScreenLevel. Value 100 disable adaptation
BloomAllowOversaturation=(0,1) if 0, bloom softly applied to screen and bright areas not become too oversaturated.

[SSAO]
UseFilter=(0,1) enable noise filtering, produced by ambient occlusion effect.
OcclusionQuality=(0..2) quality of ssao, 0 means maximal quality and slow performance. In current version this is disabled, using lowest quality level.
FilterQuality=(0..2) quality of ssao noise filtering, 0 is maximal quality and slowest performance.
DarkeningLevel=(0..100) darkening level by ambient occlusion
BrighteningLevel=(0..100) edge lightening level by ambient occlusion
IlluminationLevel=(0..100) light transfering level by indirect lightning
AdditiveIlluminationLevel=(0..100) lightening of dark areas by indirect lightning
UseAmbientOcclusion=(0,1) allow darkening of nearest objects (temporary disabled)
UseIndirectLightning=(0,1) compute indirect lightning (affect performance)

[COLORCORRECTION]
DarkeningAmountDay=(-100..100) how much to dark or to bright dark screen areas at day time. Negative values makes brighter, positive darker.
ScreenLevelDay=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, that determined as day time.
ScreenLevelNight=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, that determined as night time.
DarkeningAmountNight=(-100..100) how much to dark or to bright dark screen areas at night time. Negative values makes brighter, positive darker. Positive values recommended for more natural nights.
GammaCurveDay=(-10..10) gamma correction of bloom at day time. negative values increases halftone brightness (pale image), positive values decrease halftones brightness (contrast, intensive image).
GammaCurveNight=(-10..10) gamma correction of bloom at night time. negative values increases halftone brightness (pale image), positive values decrease halftones brightness (contrast, intensive image).

[PLUGIN]
WeatherMod=(0,1) activates color correction for Weather Mod installed, choosed by it's author. Temporary disabled.

[WATER]
UseWaterDeep=(0,1) use smooth transition between different deep levels.
WaterDeepness=(0..1000) factor of water semitransparencity at difference deep levels.
WaterQuality=(0..2) quality of water effects, 0 means maximal quality.

[SHADOW]
ShadowFadeStart=(0..1000) distance, at which shadow starts to be less intensive.
ShadowFadeEnd=(0..1000) distance at which shadow dissapear completely.
ShadowAmountDay=(0..100) percent of shadows intencity in the day.
ShadowAmountNight=(0..100) percent of shadows intencity in the night.
ShadowScreenLevelDay=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, that determined as day time.
ShadowScreenLevelNight=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, that determined as night time.
ShadowQuality=(0..2) quality of shadows, 0 is maximal and slowest.
UseShadowFilter=(0,1) enable filtering of shadows
FilterQuality=(0..2) quality of shadows filtering, 0 is maximal and slowest

[ENGINE]
ForceAnisotropicFiltering=(0,1) force to use anisotropic filtering for most game textures.
MaxAnisotropy=(1..16) maximal level of anisotropy filtering, greater values makes more sharp textures at low angles.
ForceDisplayRefreshRate=(0,1) force to use user defined reflresh rate.
DisplayRefreshRateHz=(60..240) custom monitor reflresh rate. Warning, incorrect use of this parameter may corrupt you display! (or what you are using)

[MOTIONBLUR]
MotionBlurQuality=(0..2) sampling quality, 0 means maximal quality
MotionBlurVelocity=(0..100) factor of movement vector length in forward or backward
MotionBlurRotation=(0..100) factor of movement to sides and rotation, recommended the same as MotionBlurVelocity


Key numbers (virtual key codes) available in key_codes.txt or key_codes.htm. In current version of the mod these lists of key codes are hex values, but mod works with decimal, i can't describe now how to convert them, may be later i'll do something.

PROBLEMS SOLVING:
Q: Mod installed, but i don't see any difference.
A: After game start mod is not activated, turn it on by hotkeys (by default SHIFT + Backspace).
Q: When activating the mod, image makes black (objects near the camera).
A: Your videocard not support antialiasing of HDR textures, disable antialiasing in the game and in display driver control panel. Also try to set AllowAntialias=0, BugFixMode=1 or 5, AlternativeDepth=0, if not helps, disable ambient occlusions EnableOcclusion=0.
Q: Computer not responding when mod activated.
A: Perhaps video drivers too old or too new, for example forceware 169.xx and higher (171.xx last tested) working incorrectly woth some HDR textures, use older drivers (162.xx, 163.xx). Also try to change BugFixMode and disable ambient occlusions EnableOcclusion=0.
Q: Car reflections sometimes hiding and flickering.
A: For some videocards you need to set ReflectionDepthBias value to something about 100, depending from hardware. This problem was found on Radeon 2xxx.
Q: From far distance interier and wheels becomes overlapped visible through car.
A: Value of ReflectionDepthBias is too high or it's not required for your videocard.
Q: I have integrated onboard videochip and mod not works.
A: Perhaps video memory size is too small for display resolution you are playing, decrease it or in bios setting increase video memory size (typically values from 16 to 128 Mb).
Q: At high resolutions and antialiasing mod not works.
A: Not enough video memory.


PERFORMANCE TIPS:
Do not use too high display resolution with ambient occlusion enabled, this effect directly depends from number of pixels on the screen.
By setting UseWaterDeep=0, UseOcclusions=0, ShadowQuality=2 rendering of the scene to depth deactivating and performance greatly increase.
Reflections with some imported car models may work very slow, because of too many polygons that currently proceeded several times, just wait for next releases, rendering reflections with cars itself will be done later.
Bloom almost not decrease game speed, use it as you wish.
Any filtering, for shadows or for ambient occlusions are very slow, try to set their quality=2 and check framerate, may be it will be good for you.
OcclusionQuality=0 set only if your videocard is realy fast, this is the most performance costly. By setting this parameter to 0 you may olso decrease filtering quality to 1 or even 2.

those "two little files" are DirectX overlays. One is just a config file and the other is the actual overlay - Unfortunately you can only have one of these running at a time, so this means you can't use TeamSpeak overlay, SoftTH, the drift gauge etc at the same timea s each other.

God Im so damn blind...

Quote from Jakg :

those "two little files" are DirectX overlays. One is just a config file and the other is the actual overlay - Unfortunately you can only have one of these running at a time, so this means you can't use TeamSpeak overlay, SoftTH, the drift gauge etc at the same timea s each other.

Im pretty sure you can Jakq, someone said the same thing about the TV addon for rFactor but a workaround was found by using the proxylibrary.

Oh, right...

Anyone care to show me how to do this? I would like LFS to look a tiny TINY bit more "vibrant", and nVidia's "Digital Vibrance" just looks like crap.

Quote from Jakg :

so this means you can't use TeamSpeak overlay

what is the TS overlay? what does it do? and do you know where i can get it?

Works perfect with my ATi Radeon X800 Pro VIVO Thanks No FPS drop at all here, neither any problems, weird!

It's this. You can see it "in action" here.

EDIT - Shaun you have an x800 Pro VIVO? How come you never said before?

Quote from Bramski :

[ snip ]

I can't believe people are slating this little tweak, it makes LFS look just as good as any other racing game or sim out there at the moment

[ snip ]

I don't think the tweak itself is being slated, just the end result.

When I saw this posted in regards to rF, after seeing the screenshots, was pretty horrified at the results... but it seems that most kids today don't _really_ want realism, they just want effects (not only in games, but in movies too).. and there's noway on earth that my eyes see anything like the state of all the screenshots I've seen. I'd need a damn eye transplant if they did.

I _really_ fail to see what all the ranting and raving is over this sh!tty bloom effect (generally speaking).. much like requests for "sun flare" (sun _glare_ I can understand).

LFS will never look as good as any other modern day sim out there IMO. The entire gfx engine is far far far too dated and / or limited. Only time it does is when wanabee modders hack about with shaders for the likes of rF mods. Get someone who knows what they're doing and those results are often great.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Jakg :

Oh, right...

Anyone care to show me how to do this? I would like LFS to look a tiny TINY bit more "vibrant", and nVidia's "Digital Vibrance" just looks like crap.

I don't know how to fix it for TSO as I don't use it but I'll install it and try and see if I can get it going, but if you wanted to run this file in conjunction with SoulHunta's FOV fix I think you just have to rename the bloom d3d8.dll file to something like d3d8LFSBLOOM.dll specify it like this in the proxylibrary section of the enbseries.ini


[PROXY]
EnableProxyLibrary=1
InitProxyFunctions=1
ProxyLibrary=d3d8LFSBLOOM.dll

This will load up the FOV d3d8.dll file as well as the bloom one, at least that's how it works with rF with the TV overlay.

I don't mind if LFS looks better, but also I don't care if it doesn't. If the only thing you like about racing games is graphic effects, LFS is not for you. If LFS would look like stunts (Back in the amiga-decade), but has the best physics engine, I would stick to it.

Hmm... Playing LFS using my reliable 486/66... *drool*

TS overlay doesn't have the DLL in plain sight iirc, I just used it an example.

Is the "enbseries.ini" included in this addon or is it something else?

Quote from Ian.H :

Ian

I just thought that it made a big enough difference to the look of LFS that i'd give a heads up incase others wanted to try it.

Quote from Bramski :

I just thought that it made a big enough difference to the look of LFS that i'd give a heads up incase others wanted to try it.

That's fair enough. I responded to what I quoted as you seemed quite surprised that some people prefer realism over OTT, unrealistic effects. I'm also glad you said 'difference' not 'better'

I'm sure many kids (and skidders) will love it, so you sharing the info I'm sure will be happily accepted by a fair few.. but don't be surprised that not everyone does.



Regards,

Ian

Not working for me
wtf rly? i open lfs and this comes..?!?!?
E: Works with older version, can't see differences
E2: Worked with taavis tweaked version

Tested it, and kind of liked it. It gives the surrounding more realistic touch. However, I still rank this as "this is not a must".

Pretty much way too much bloom, way too unrealistic if black becomes grey and clear colors get a gaussian blur of amount 50. Kinda more decent would be better.

Quote from baSh0r :

Pretty much way too much bloom, way too unrealistic if black becomes grey and clear colors get a gaussian blur of amount 50. Kinda more decent would be better.

Taavis version is good.. try it

Interesting, will have to have a play. Not seen a screenshot yet where it wasn't overdone though.

Default bloom is to high. Looks good only on few tracks. Examples:

http://www.server.aplus.pl/doriftokids/temp/lfshdr04b.jpg
http://www.server.aplus.pl/doriftokids/temp/lfshdr04.jpg
http://www.server.aplus.pl/doriftokids/temp/lfshdr03b.jpg
http://www.server.aplus.pl/doriftokids/temp/lfshdr03.jpg
http://www.server.aplus.pl/doriftokids/temp/lfshdr02b.jpg
http://www.server.aplus.pl/doriftokids/temp/lfshdr02.jpg