No HDR Mod Version 1.4 final for Patch 8 (Update 18.12.2013)

**Baleur** · January 26, 2014, 02:58 PM

It could be so easy for CA to just release some basic rudimentary tool to open and view .environment files in a windowed app that only renders a completely flat grassy plane with the lighting and skybox.
Throw in some UI screens (could be windows own ui for all i care) to edit the parameters in real-time, done.
Sigh.

**Kurisu Paifuaa** · February 03, 2014, 02:43 AM

Originally Posted by Baleur

It could be so easy for CA to just release some basic rudimentary tool to open and view .environment files in a windowed app that only renders a completely flat grassy plane with the lighting and skybox.
Throw in some UI screens (could be windows own ui for all i care) to edit the parameters in real-time, done.
Sigh.

They already have, actually... the Variant Editor in the Assembly Kit has an environment file associated with it's preview window.

You can replace the default environment file at ..\assembly_kit\editor_working_data\Weather\variant_editor_day.environment with any environment file you wish... just keep the default file name.

Also, GEM can be installed to the Assembly Kit binaries folder if you want to view those effects as well.

The shortcoming is that the scene in the editor window is pretty barebones. You do get to see the lighting on the unit though, along with a skybox and some water. There may (or not

) be a way to add terrain to the scene, but this is already quite helpful as the Variant Editor loads relatively fast and you can get predictable lighting each time... presuming there isn't some difference in how the lighting is rendered between the game and the editor.

Still playing around with it...

edit: Normally, when you rotate a unit in the VE, the whole scene rotates. However, holding ctrl while left click dragging will rotate the scene (and thus, the light source) around the unit. So you can get a preview from different angles. For taking screenshots (using sweetFX/GEM) the editor's preview window must be maximized (hide the info panels) in order to get the correct aspect ratio.

**Rammstein** · February 03, 2014, 08:45 AM

Whats the downside using "NoHDR mod - Version 1.4 final for Patch 8" with Patch 9? Is it not working at all or just wrong?

**Mech_Donald** · February 03, 2014, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by Kurisu Paifuaa

They already have, actually... the Variant Editor in the Assembly Kit has an environment file associated with it's preview window.

You can replace the default environment file at ..\assembly_kit\editor_working_data\Weather\variant_editor_day.environment with any environment file you wish... just keep the default file name.

Also, GEM can be installed to the Assembly Kit binaries folder if you want to view those effects as well.

The shortcoming is that the scene in the editor window is pretty barebones. You do get to see the lighting on the unit though, along with a skybox and some water. There may (or not

) be a way to add terrain to the scene, but this is already quite helpful as the Variant Editor loads relatively fast and you can get predictable lighting each time... presuming there isn't some difference in how the lighting is rendered between the game and the editor.

Still playing around with it...

edit: Normally, when you rotate a unit in the VE, the whole scene rotates. However, holding ctrl while left click dragging will rotate the scene (and thus, the light source) around the unit. So you can get a preview from different angles. For taking screenshots (using sweetFX/GEM) the editor's preview window must be maximized (hide the info panels) in order to get the correct aspect ratio.

Thank you for the hint! I have had a look into this and it's a quicker way to see changes of the weather files within the game engine. So very nice find!

Now it's just needed to get the terrain, or better all variants of terrain into this to get a decent result in modding. Nevertheless, even with this tool it'll be a very time consuming work to edit and proof all of the hundreds of weather files together with the corresponding terrain data. Have you found out how to get terrain into this tool?

Originally Posted by Rammstein

Whats the downside using "NoHDR mod - Version 1.4 final for Patch 8" with Patch 9? Is it not working at all or just wrong?

There is no downside as far as i have seen. No HDR works flawlessly with Patch 9 so far. You can use it.

Mech

**Kurisu Paifuaa** · February 03, 2014, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by Mech_Donald

Thank you for the hint! I have had a look into this and it's a quicker way to see changes of the weather files within the game engine. So very nice find!

Now it's just needed to get the terrain, or better all variants of terrain into this to get a decent result in modding. Nevertheless, even with this tool it'll be a very time consuming work to edit and proof all of the hundreds of weather files together with the corresponding terrain data. Have you found out how to get terrain into this tool?
Mech

Hi Mech,

No, nothing obvious. I'm assuming it reads models and other assets from the data directory, so I was just hoping to get a building or some other rigid model in place of a ship. Ships themselves aren't great for judging lighting... at least not with default textures. The editor doesn't appear to read map data at all (it's just a blank world space) so there's nothing to replace. You have sky and the reflective space below the horizon... just simple geometry, like the debug "world" models I'm assuming. Still looking though... I'm not intimately familiar with the arrangement.

A map editor would be suited to the task by default... so hopefully that isn't far off.

**General George S. Patton** · February 03, 2014, 08:52 PM

To test it can't you just overide all the files instead of just one?

**Kurisu Paifuaa** · February 03, 2014, 09:15 PM

Originally Posted by General George S. Patton

To test it can't you just overide all the files instead of just one?

That's a pretty good idea.

You'd need to find a method or tool that can automate the replacement process across the whole folder structure. Even if you narrow it down to relevant environment files ( e.g. day_dry_xx.environment) there are still hundreds of nested files. Looking at that...

edit: It wouldn't be necessary to replace all of them at a time... only what you're potentially working on. So something like day_dry_0x.environment for all Atlantic maps... then load up any Atlantic region in custom battle.

**Baleur** · February 04, 2014, 07:18 PM

Well notepad++ has some functions for automatically replacing lines of text, i don't know if it can be set up to do it across different documents.

**Mech_Donald** · February 04, 2014, 09:46 PM

Originally Posted by Kurisu Paifuaa

Hi Mech,

No, nothing obvious. I'm assuming it reads models and other assets from the data directory, so I was just hoping to get a building or some other rigid model in place of a ship. Ships themselves aren't great for judging lighting... at least not with default textures. The editor doesn't appear to read map data at all (it's just a blank world space) so there's nothing to replace. You have sky and the reflective space below the horizon... just simple geometry, like the debug "world" models I'm assuming. Still looking though... I'm not intimately familiar with the arrangement.

A map editor would be suited to the task by default... so hopefully that isn't far off.

I played a little arround with that, but it's not helpful in it's current state. This tool is just for making new variants of units or let you watch some units. Pity. A battle map editor would be the best for a quick look and test. Let's see and hope what CA has to show after the beta.

I also had the idea to overwrite all files in the certain directories to edit them. This was in early test phase just before Patch 8. After Patch 8 i have given up the idea, because the entire weather system was overworked and extended with hundrets of new files for new maps. The difficulty is to know wich maps belongs to wich weather file. Atlantic, continental, med, etc is much too general. For example, i picked a map from the custom battle mode and figured out wich weather folder belongs to it. Then i started to edit the lighting and color filtering of the corresponding weather file. It looked really good and realistic. Then i tested the edited file with another map and it looked awful. The coloring looked wrong. So it's not enough to just edit the file for one map, rather it's a work of finetuning and coordination with other battlemaps (textures) as well. And for this a preview-tool with the ability to load any map into is necessary (in my opinion).

@Baleur

Notepad++ is the best tool for editing all these script files like weather files or particle effect files. Never mod without it.

**Baleur** · May 05, 2014, 06:34 AM

Is this working correctly lately?

**ducks from space** · October 01, 2014, 03:05 AM

I'm using it with a tweaked gem (contrast cranked up), and it's work perfectly for me, very realistic, awesome mod.

Don't forget to load it before gem though.

**RandomRoman** · December 30, 2014, 05:57 PM

Hello, im using this mod without any other graphic mod (like gem etc) and with the latest rome 2 updates, the problem that the HDR is coming back with freezes etc (still dont freezes as much with the mod turned off, but still gives some issues)

i am the only one who is having this problem?