TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

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Myth
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TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Myth »

Why not start the new year whit a new renderer?

Once again, happy new year 2010. UT99 is one decade old by now.
I found this old directx 9 renderer. I just want to spread the word about it. Because it's awesome.
And YOU deserve a kick in the nuts for not telling me about this earlier.
Here are some screenshots:

Preview

ImageImageImageImageImageImage
This is how I got my setting now.
This is how I got my setting now.
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Requirements:
- Windoze PC. It works for XP... dunno about the rest
- Directx9 support. This depends on your gpu.
- Pixel shader 3.0 (It's possible for 2.0 but I'm not sure)
- A proper GPU whit 256 VRAM (you can try whit less but the chances of getting it working properly are low)

Warning:
You might get a performance hit depends on your pc, even if you can run UT3 and Crysis.
You will get a major performance hit if you use it on laptops or pc's whit old or built in motherboard GPUs.

Ok, I'm going to present this in 3 easy steps how to get it working on your pc, and tweaking tips later on.

How To Get it working

Step 1:
Download it:
UTBloom.zip
(1.24 MiB) Downloaded 1914 times
Step 2:
If you already had d3d9 installed open unrealtounament.ini
Find [D3D9Drv.D3D9RenderDevice] and delete the whole section below [D3D9Drv.D3D9RenderDevice]

Step 3:
Extract it to your UnrealTournament/System folder.

Step 4:
Run UT.
Shift-F12 enables the effects. This won't work if you have F12 set to switch to windowed mode.
Remove this by typing into the console "set input f12 " whitout the " and try Shift-F12 again

Step 5:
You might want to enable some gfx options you removed in step 2. Bring up the Advanced Settings menu. Type into the console, preferences.
Under Rendering >> Direct3d9 Support set the following:
Coronas=True
DetailMax=2
DetailTextures=True
FramerateLimit=60 //if ut runs to fast this is essential, set it to monitors max refresh rate
HighDetailActors=True
MaxAnisotropy=4
OneXBlending=False
ShinySurfaces=True
SmoothMaskedTextures=True
UseAA=True //only if you want anti aliasing
UseFragmentProgram=True // True=don't use bump mapping; False=Use bump mapping; THIS MIGHT NOT WORK AND CORRUPT GRAPHICS
UseTrilinear=True
VolumetricLighting=True

These are not all the possible settings. If you know what you are doing feel free to experiment.

Warning:
Some servers might consider this a hack or a cheat. But it should work fine online.

Rants about the FAKE Bump-mapping

The bump mapping you see is generated by an algorithm. You can't generate real bump maps based off textures, mainly because 99% of the textures in unreal tournament have baked in lighting. Real bump maps are always drawn by the texture artist. That's why these bump maps might look incredibly ugly and fake.
Some maps will look espicially ugly. Bump mapping does not work whit textures that have macro textures. At least they didn't work on my PC. Haven't tested this on other PCs. Unlike detail textures, you can't remove macro textures. Macro textures is a hidden effect that can increase texture quality. It's hidden in the texture settings and no standart UT maps use it. I use them, Creavion uses them and some other mappers also use them.
The real drawback is that it's almost impossible to remove it. enbseries.ini has no option to remove bump mapping.
I've found a way to disable it. Set UseFragmentProgram=True in the Advanced Settings. Note that this might indeed corrupt the graphics if it doesn't work. This only seems to work whit specific versions D3ddrv.dll. I've got different bump effects whit different dll versions. I've uploaded the ones that have enabled me to remove bump mapping.

Tweaking the effects

Now you can modify these new effects in enbseries.ini which is located in the system folder.
I don't know what each setting does. Some are not working. Some are bugged. Some never were implemented.
You may play around whit them as you wish. You might get some very awesome effets or you might waste a few days of you life. I didn't find any documentation about these settings, and the combinations are close to unlimited especially since they work differently whit different driver versions.

Open enbseries.ini, you'll see a lot of settings. It's really unorganized.
I'm going to tell you how to finetune your bloom.
[BLOOM] //There is a Day and night version of various values. I don't know what's the difference. I recommend setting both to the same value
BloomPowerDay=20 //Bloom power sets how powerfull your bloom is.
BloomFadeTime=2000 //I tried this one whit different values. No change
BloomConstantDay=5 //This also sets how powerfull your bloom is.
BloomQuality=0 //This makes the bloom look smoother, it may also decrease performance
BloomScreenLevelDay=60 //This is the cutoff values. Only bright colors get blurred such as lights. If you set this to 1 you'll get that dreamy look, everything gets smooth. If you set it to 70 only bright spots get the bloom effect, it's a bit more realistic.
BloomCurveDay=3 //This is supposed to modify the cutoff geometry, how sharp the cutoff is. I've tried different values but no change
BloomPowerNight=25 //Same as above...
BloomConstantNight=5 //Same as above...
BloomCurveNight=3 //Same as above...
BloomScreenLevelNight=20 //Same as above... dunno why there is a night version. It must be leftovers from implementations to other games which feature a day&night cycle.
BloomAdaptationScreenLevel=80 //Before the bloom is applied the screen is darkened so that the screen won't get too bright. This is supposed to modify how much the screen gets darker. It didn't work for me. :(
BloomAdaptationMultiplier=20 //This has somehting to do whit BloomAdaptationScreenLevel.
BloomAllowOversaturation=1 //Setting this to 1 makes the bloom more colorful, 0 will make everthing more realistic. Not sure if it works
BloomMaxLimit=100 //Before the blurred image is aplied to the standard image it the blurred image can get limited. I reccomend setting this to 60 so that black text on white background is still readable.

Feel free to tweak any other settings. If you find out what they do post them in this thread whit screenshot. You can spend days tweaking this if you're a perfectionist. The combinations really are close to unlimited and none of them might look the way you want it.

Some know problems and Solutions

Q:The walls and floors look all black.
A:Make sure you have SinglePassDetail=False in the Advanced Settings

Q:Masked textures like leaves and chains have a totally black outline. I can't see anything behind them.
A:Make sure you have MaskedTextureHack=True SmoothMaskedTextures=True in the Advanced Settings, if it doesn't help play around whit these 2 settings, it might get working.

Q:Volumetric Fog doesn't appear.
A:Make sure that you have VolumetricLighting=True and set SinglePassFog=True or False. Sometimes it works whit one of them sometimes whit both.

Q:The Hud isn't transparent even I set it transparent, and when I pick up the shieldbelt my weapon gets a red skin.
A:Make sure that HighDetailActors=True in the Advanced Settings. This enables all the effects that can be removed to increase performance on old computers.

Q:The game lags constanly, now the game is unplayable.
A:Find these settings in enbseries.ini
[EFFECT]
EnableBloom=1
EnableOcclusion=0
EnableReflection=0
EnableMotionBlur=0
EnableWater=0
EnableShadow=0
DepthBias=0
EnableDepthOfField=0
Set everything to 0 except the EnableBloom like you see above.
If it doesn't help it means that the gpu doesn't support any of these. Just use the old renderer to play.

Q:The whole screen is white!!!
A:There can be multiple causes for this. Set UseFragmentProgram=False in the Advanced Settings. Set UseMRTRendering=0 in enbseries.ini.
Maybe it's because you simply set the bloom to be too powerful. Set BloomMaxLimit=10 in enbseries.ini. Another solution is to reinstall the plugin.

Q:I've tried everything but I can't get these effects working.. HELP PLEASE!!!
A:Delete d3dx9_31.dll from UT system folder. Don't worry, UT will use one that's installed into windows.
If it doesn't help it means that you computer does not support these. Note that this is an experimental plugin and might not work at all even if your PC is from the future.

For other games

D3d9.dll actually acts as a plugin to UT's d3d9Drv.dll, that means that this can be done for every Unreal Engine 1 game that has a d3d9drv.dll Download the latest d3d9drv from http://www.cwdohnal.com/utglr/ and put them into the game whit d3d9.dll

I've got different results for different versions of d3d9drv.dll You might even get different results by using different computers. I've uploaded the version of d3ddrv.dll whit which I've managed to disable bump mapping by setting UseFragmentProgram True.

I read here that it's possible for any DX9 game. Check it out: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1405180

Final Words

Here are the sources from where I found out about this. You may find extra files and tips around the community.
http://forums.blackcatgames.com/showthread.php?t=12536
http://www.oldunreal.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/ ... 1232956368
http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t=181821

These is a totally experimental renderer. Use it whit care. You might get GPU fried. :P

The guy who worked on this has a website whit enhanced renderers for other games. All the credits go to him. He doesn't work on this plugin for UT99 anymore. Anyways, check out the website: http://enbseries.gtamaps.net/index_en.html

If you got any awesome effects working and know how to do it, post it here.

If you made awesome screenshots or videos post them here. If they are awesome enough I will put them on this first post.

If you got any further questions or problems post it, we might solve it. Don't forget to post your system specs. They might be relevant.
Last edited by Myth on Sun Jan 03, 2010 7:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Creavion
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Creavion »

I surely count my self to the those people who check every setting in inis, although I could swear that I already heared anywhere about this bloom. Seems that I only forgot it.
Anyway, nice article/tutorial.
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Why do I leave? click here
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99 (graphics improvement)

Post by Myth »

mmm, UT3 post processing!!!!!1!11
Shot0157.jpg
Now all we need are some maps filled whit 1000000 polys and fat pigs instead of soldiers and you got yourself UT3 in UT99.

The DarkeningAmount from the colorcorrection section of enbseries.ini works quite nicely.
These are the settings for that shot:
[BLOOM]
BloomPowerDay=8
BloomFadeTime=2000
BloomConstantDay=15
BloomQuality=8
BloomScreenLevelDay=20
BloomCurveDay=90
BloomPowerNight=8
BloomConstantNight=15
BloomCurveNight=90
BloomScreenLevelNight=20
BloomAdaptationScreenLevel=20
BloomAdaptationMultiplier=20
BloomAllowOversaturation=1
BloomMaxLimit=100
[COLORCORRECTION]
DarkeningAmountDay=44
ScreenLevelDay=0
ScreenLevelNight=0
DarkeningAmountNight=44
GammaCurveDay=0
GammaCurveNight=0
ColorSaturationDay=0
ColorSaturationNight=0
UsePaletteTexture=0
//What I left out are disabled or 0
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Saya-chan »

Heh, been using ENBSeries on UT99 for a while. It indeed makes the game a bit more 'pretty' and hasn't got much impact on framerate, even with my crappy integrated GeForce 7050 w/ 128MB.
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Raynor »

I don't think it looks very good. UT with OpenGL/D3D9 and S3TC is fine enough. Adding bloom IMO ruins the UT visuals (Some parts of the map are overbrighted etc), in some maps it may look nice, but in general it doesn't seem to fit.
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Shadow »

Wasn't that Moonangel's Bloom Render we used in LSoNP ?
The pseudo-bumpmapping looks horrible
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by robin13 »

:x i actualy hate END series,bloom is way to bright,bump mapping way too ugly,skybox gets weard because of it (shadow pls tell me u dont use same bloom in ur sdk,the bloom from ENB is way too bright and ugly)
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Shadow »

robin13 wrote::x i actualy hate END series,bloom is way to bright,bump mapping way too ugly,skybox gets weard because of it (shadow pls tell me u dont use same bloom in ur sdk,the bloom from ENB is way too bright and ugly)
no, I'm always using self coded stuff
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by robin13 »

8) thats way better (i hope,havent seen ur bloom yet,maybe there's a picture on moddb but its way too late to go find one now)
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Myth »

You can modify how much bloom you want in the .ini
Bloom is just a fake effect of realism. There is no way to get it right.
The real thing is HDRL whit it's dynamic gamma and only colors that overflow get the bloom effect.

However, I've managed to get this ENB series working whit almost every DirectX 8 and DirectX 9 game i've tried. Warcraft 3 look simply amazing, all the spell effects are nice and bright and all the maps look great since none of them are too bright or too dark. (ok, maybe the snow maps are too bright, but the rest is OK)

I'm testing a few more things and shall post and update when I get something better.
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by papercoffee »

It is interesting how it's work... but ...I don't know. :noidea It isn't realy something for me.
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by Shadow »

papercoffee wrote:It is interesting how it's work... but ...I don't know. :noidea It isn't realy something for me.
righty right, same for me, bloom is such an overused feature..
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by UT99.org »

medor wrote:Run but lag

dual corps and graphique card 512 mo :thudown:
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by GenMoKai »

Its knda cool if you didnt knew that bloom was possible for UT99, lucky there are people who know how to do that :D

nice one
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Re: TUTORIAL: Bloom for UT99

Post by [did]Madis »

Holy shit, why didn't I know about this?
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