SweetFX Baleur (Enhanced color, contrast, anti-aliasing and bloom!)

[Baleur]

Not having played the game for a few months, I was a bit sad to see the usual colour gone from the game.

This got me thinking, surely SweetFX would work with KSP? And it does!

I modified my Rome 2 preset and went for a very subtle look as i always do. Some slight bloom, hdr and sharpening, along with fxaa (to eliminate the flickering white pixels you see in vanilla KSP).

There's also a very very subtle contrast increase, dark is slightly darker and a fairly substantial saturation increase (done through vibrance, which raises undersaturated colors without overblowing already bright colours).

I hope someone out there likes this SweetFX preset, screenshots below!

I included plenty of different scenes, with the UI because i feel those are important factors in judging which preset to use full-time.

Download: KSP SweetFX Baleur 1.0.rar

Just extract the files straight into your KSP_win folder.

Changelog

1.0 - Initial release.

Hotkeys

Num Lock - On/Off

The 1st button next to Num Lock - Reload SweetFX

The 2nd button next to Num Lock - Screenshot (placed in your KSP_win dir)

Screenshots (v1.0)

[aeTIos]

Maybe show some comparison shots. I don't see the difference between those and stock game.

[Drew Kerman]

hey thanks, I totally forgot to check out SweetFX with this game. Works great, colors are much more rich and vibrant now, which is what I like most about SweetFX. I had to tweak your settings to get what I want personally but that's nothing new. I used SweetFX Configurator to make the adjustments.

Maybe show some comparison shots. I don't see the difference between those and stock game.

You might as well just do this yourself. The add-on is easy to install and once the game is running you can use the Num Lock key to switch it on and off to see the difference.

[aeTIos]

-snip-

You might as well just do this yourself. The add-on is easy to install and once the game is running you can use the Num Lock key to switch it on and off to see the difference.

Fair enough

[K3-Chris]

Some way to toggle this without numlock? my keyboard doesn't have a numpad.

Also how would I scale the shaders? I think they're a bit over the top especially the bloom.

Edited February 17, 2014 by K3|Chris

[Roxette]

Some way to toggle this without numlock? my keyboard doesn't have a numpad.

Look near the bottom of the SweetFX_settings.txt file, you'll see a "Key settings" section where the keys are defined

[Piamette]

I've been using these settings, looks great IMO.

http://sweetfx.thelazy.net/?p=41

Edited February 17, 2014 by Piamette
fixed typo

[Drew Kerman]

Yes, the file has a link to where you can find new key definitions. I re-mapped it myself to use the Pause Break, which doesn't have an effect on the game.

Anyone looking to tweak the settings just get the GUI interface I linked to earlier if you don't want to edit the txt file yourself. I liked the GUI as it explained the values right there without me having to reference the SweetFX ReadMe

[Woopert]

Looks really nice!

Although, do you have the source code? I'm no expert but I know that's a requirement for posting addons to the KSP forums.

[Boamere]

Soooo How much ksp memory will this take up?

I am running a lot of mods and don't want to crash

[sidfu]

sweet fx is a freeware program so he he wouldnt need a source code since its just a settings change of the sweet fx but not sure.

[DartBoris]

Thanks a lot for that , this really makes KSP look juicy. Colours are much more intense.

About ram usage - didnt notice any significant change.

p.s: steam f12 screenshot doesnt work , it just makes picture without this FX. Guess it cant photo the injector layer

[Boamere]

Anyone else notice any performance issues?

I don't want to install it and realise it causes lag :/

Also is KSP_win the default folder, because I am using steam and do not have that folder (I think)

Thanks

[K3-Chris]

It doesn't affect your network in any way, can't cause lag.

Put the files in SteamApps\common\Kerbal Space Program\

[KvickFlygarn87]

Anyone else notice any performance issues?

I don't want to install it and realise it causes lag :/

Also is KSP_win the default folder, because I am using steam and do not have that folder (I think)

Thanks

It's the main folder, it's called ksp_win in non-steam version.

Also, I can't imagine it taking much performance if you have a decent PC.

[Boamere]

Yeah I have a decent pc, it's the amount of mods that I'm mainly scared about; I have about 37+ mods, so my game might start chugging XD

But thanks guys! I will try it out now

[KvickFlygarn87]

If it's not running badly already it won't after this.

[Baleur]

Yeah I have a decent pc, it's the amount of mods that I'm mainly scared about; I have about 37+ mods, so my game might start chugging XD

But thanks guys! I will try it out now

The thing is, this isn't really a "mod" per say. As with all SweetFX versions for other games (you can actually extract this .rar into any game using directx, and it will work in most cases).

So the number of KSP mods you use doesn't matter. This is just an extra step the graphics card renders after the game images are rendered. (as laymans terms as i can put it in)

As for framerate and memory usage, even on an old 560TI the framerate impact is between 1-2 fps. It's entirely dependant on your GPU, and won't cause further slowdowns with larger ships or objects since that's handled by the CPU.

Feel free to post more presets with a screen or two if you guys have others you use, or if you made your own tweaks

For KSP, simply maximizing your game again (if run in fullscreen) will re-apply the changes you just saved.

Some beginner info for you guys. Straight from the SweetFX_settings file.

#define USE_FXAA_ANTIALIASING <-- and all others like this line, 1 is on, 0 is off.

HDR - Not true HDR, but attempts to increase the difference between shadows and brightness.

#define HDRPower 1.06 <-- Generally brightens the entire image.

#define radius2 0.90 <-- Could be compared to contrast.

Lumasharpen - Sharpens the image.

#define sharp_strength 1.00 <-- The strength of sharpening the image, turn it up real high to see the effects. It sharpens both edges and detail within textures (such as planets or ship textures). Keep in mind that while combined with FXAA it can strike a nice balance between the edge-blur of the FXAA and the texture-sharpening of the Lumasharpen, best of both worlds.

Gaussian Blur - This is what I use for bloom.

#define GaussEffect 2 <-- 0 for pure blur, 2 for bloom, 3 for sketchy look.

#define GaussSigma 2 <-- Width of the blur or bloom, higher values mean that light and colors will bleed out further from bright areas.

#define GaussStrength 0.05 <-- Percentage of how much of the effect that is actually applied, this here is set at 5%

Vibrance - Saturates the image intelligently.

#define Vibrance 0.25 <-- Again a percentage, this here set at 25%. Lower it for less color saturation, go for negative values if you desire even less colors than in vanilla KSP.

Curves - Contrast curves for Luma (brightness/darkness) or Chroma (colors) or both. Similar to the "Levels" tool in Photoshop.

#define Curves_mode 0 <-- 0 is Luma (acts as intelligent contrast), 1 is Chroma (acts as a more fine-tuned or harsh Vibrance), 2 is both.

#define Curves_contrast 0.30 <-- Self-explanatory, here set at 30%, the strength of the effect.

#define Curves_formula 3 <-- The math for applying the curves. 2 (Abs Split) is very easy on the shadows and dark areas of the image, darkening them less even with a high contrast. 3 (Smoothstep) is otherwise a pretty even mode, the preferred default.

Dithering - Tries to even out color differences in the image, can have a subtle effect of reducing "color banding", but not always. Doesn't make a huge difference.

Tonemap - A great filter, can be used completely solo to produce interesting results. Most parameters are self-explanatory. Do note that high saturation values in here Will also oversaturate already bright colors in the image, potentially causing a cartoony look. Unlike Vibrance which attempts to balance out the image.

#define Defog 0.022 <-- Think of this as a contrast setting which darkens and desaturates shadows and lower midtones. "removing haze" and making it more lifelike (as our eyes can't perceive colors easily in darkness).

#define FogColor float3(2.00, 2.00, 2.00) <-- What color the above setting removes, here set to equal, which means it desaturates the dark areas equally. If you wish to for example make shadows in a game less blue, you'd add more to the last value which is B, Blue. Red Green Blue. RGB.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Baleur

[K3-Chris]

I think the defaults are way over the top, it's pretty blinding and over-saturated, and the AA really blurs the text badly, I guess there is no way to keep the AA from affecting the text? It's at the point that I need to toggle it to read stuff.

Does anyone have a config that's about halfway between default and stock KSP?

[Motokid600]

Is it possible to closer emulate the effects of light in space with this? ( I couldn't figure a better way to phrase that question lol ) Basically.. can I make the brights

brighter.. and the darks darker? Id like to achieve the effect of having no ambient lighting.

[Preliator]

I thinks there's too many saturation.. in particular inside the helmets.

http://imgur.com/a/VDoUg

Edit: how can I add the images directly inside my post?

[Sandworm]

You should add in the title/OP that this is a windows-only mod. It's not really a plugin as it modifys things well outside of KSP.

[usulrasolas]

It may be a windows only graphics bootstap, but I like it! way better performance than other graphics wrapping I've seen, due to the specific nature of it. Still this is worth it for me, I have so much gpu to spare for kerbal, its worth it for me.

[landeTLS]

Hey. I tried this out earlier. I really like the bloom and other stuff. Tho especcially for me some of the colors on the gui and some bright details look way oversaturated and kindof ruins the experience. I would lower it a bit.

Also. How would fxaa integration work? Is it already set up?

[dubhorizon]

Also. How would fxaa integration work? Is it already set up?

It is.You can open SweetFX_settings at the Kerbal space folder and fiddle with it since every setting explains what it does. I also had a problem with the brightness but in those settings you can increase #define GaussThreshold from 0.40 to 0.60 to remove most brightness and all these with just alt tabbing the game changing the settings file, alt tabbing back to the game and refresing sweet fx (explained first page). Sweet file this is, I really like it. Edited March 28, 2014 by dubhorizon
grammar error