TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Get some cool tips about how to tweak your UT graphic, gameplay, and much more!
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Shadow
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Shadow »

That "bump mapping" is static and thus not very useful, every texture looks like plastic, the bump mapping is generated by some algorithm rather than the position of a light source
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Dr.Flay
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Dr.Flay »

ENB is a huge pain in the arse, because there isn't enough info on using it with the old Unreal engine.

The plastic look is a common occurrence (and they even have a name for it) when ENB is not set up right (actually usually your D3D9 settings).
The big problem with ENB is that being a non-standard bolt on, the user has to do some detective work to get it to look right.
Setting changes to your Direct3D9 config and the ENB config are absolutely necessary.
Depending on whether you use ATI or nVidia, or even which model, you will have to set it very differently.

Many people have tried it out and quickly given up. I spent several weeks learning about it and tweaking my settings, until it looked right.
I've been using it for a couple of years now, and it's still a pain if I change my D3D9 settings.

The main ENB config I use looks awful on it's own, but with the extra config someone made for Theivery it looks great.
You have to get the balance so that it convincingly fakes HDR. Many people end up with it far too bright, too dark or looking weird and plastic (Renderer switch deals with that).
I have tried to get my shadows a bit darker and the highlights a bit lighter, rather than make a big change, as it is extending the range in both directions anyway, so it doesn't need as much range as people think.

Some of the functionality is aimed purely at Deus Ex. If your maps don't have the day or night tags in them, then it may be it looks wrong because you are using daytime bloom settings in a dark map, or night time bloom in a bright/day map.
A map like Kamah would need the night tag in the forest, and the day tag at the beach-front, to work properly.

Also if you have your graphics card settings too low (mipmaping and anisotropic filtering), it doesn't work properly, no matter what settings you choose in ENB or UT's prefs.
Too many variables make this a labour of love, and not for everyone.

ENB has moved on, but the Deus Ex/Unreal version has not been updated (not enough feedback, not enough usage with UT) and is even available for Skyrim.
If more people had been using it and joining the forum to give feedback and configs, it would have had the same amount of development the GTA version got (and still does). Classic "catch-22" it never got better, because no one can be arsed to mess about for days getting it working (unless like me you suffer with OCD).
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