Yeah man, everythings good, thanks for asking. Ive had 5 weeks vacation and been focusing on the family. The spare time ive had ive spent in the garage sanding one of my project cars, which im now ready to paint. Im also spending less time with Beam since being told by the devs (in the speculation thread) that they will release or increase focus on graphical stuff/PostFX when Vulkan API is working as intended. Meanwhile, when i do play Beam, i each time set the PostFx stuff (Renderer Coponents) in the World Editor as i prefer but i do mess around with the settings for that and the maps to continously try to get a better result. Ive been using the ingame tonemap now, it makes the game look very similar to the one i used so i see no reason to mess with that. I use my SSAO mod but ive also used this mod https://beamng.com/threads/fixed-bloom-and-auto-exposure-postfx.87100/ lately since it does two of the things ive mentioned wanting now and then; a increased delay for the autoexposure to adjust and also a sort of fix for the bloom; the bloom isnt adjustable but its atleast not boxy and distinct. I again realize how much ive done through the years with this mod, bloom being one of those things back when i also used to fix the PostFx window, making it adjustable as intended (was a/multiple fault value(s) somewhere in the code that made the bloom offset and the bloom settings very inexact to use). It does feel like the devs enable us to use stuff but they dont necessarily spend alot of time on what the settings should be. The SSAO being one thing. Its locked for now unless using my SSAO mod and the SSAO gives very distinct shadows directly under the tires. It just doesnt look real or as real as it currently can IMO. This makes me think two things; either they dont use/have a person that is a lead for how the graphics should look (not to be mixed with someone who decides what graphical components should be used) OR they are in facts using more/different shaders/components in their WIP versions and we for now get the watered down version which isnt optimized for the best look. Maybe a mix of the two. Now i do understand that such a person would probably not have a full time post and graphics is a small parts of what Beam consists of, especially thinking of Beamng.Tech, but its what we look at when we play. I could definitely see a point in them asking what we would like it to look like cause theres is huge potential as there is. That doesnt mean we should throw or expect things as raytracing and what not, needs to be more realistic and preferably use what is there now and what is possible with small measures. I cant remember when i first introduced a different tonemap but it was years ago and it just now, in 0.25 that we officially see a new one ingame although theres no info about it in the Update information. I have a ton of ideas for how to improve the look (IMO that is, others/the devs might think my ideas are ugly, outdated so i need to consider the personal preference aspect here) without going hardcore rewrite everything, spend 50% of the budget on graphics kind of deal
I would love to work for BeamNG in the graphics department as I have much knowledge there but, several years underage xD
This looks so much better then the previous, where the sky was blinding and normal shadows were as dark as the night. Sadly only so much you can do with some shading and postFX. I think if we really want this game overhauled the whole shadows need to change, atleast in the way that shadows remove alot of detial from terrain. Which..... well ofcourse doesnt happen in real. Aside from my stock beamng rant i think this looks great, good work, maybe a little too saturated tho.
Holy moly. Looks incredible. Though a bit too much contrast with the HDR, but it still looks great. Midday pic hits different as well
Want to hear something interesting? The settings are the same, the sky was bright due to the overall balance of the image, autoexposure delivering a dynamic look. The sun was lower and that changes the brightness of it
Well hopefully once Vulkan becomes stable enough it'll open the doors up for much better PostFX and the like
Just some uploading to see how bright very bright is on different monitors factory settings, with one single setting im adjusting
Was testing the perceptual difference at different values. Its on point where i want i to be. Ive btw shifted from trying to keep things theoretically perfect, the sky at default value, brightness too and so on, to just what looks good. When using PostFx theory is out the house anyway.