Modder Essenthy Onigami has finally released a new version of his amazing mod for The Witcher 3, Super Turbo Lighting Mod. Super Turbo Lighting Mod 3.1.1 revamps every zone starting with the original setting, fixes ambient occlusion in shadowed areas and increases ambient occlusion in general.
In addition, this latest version of the Super Turbo Lighting Mod comes with fixes the exposure issues that have been reported, revamps vegetation translucency/lighting now coloring depending on Tod like vanilla and adjust rainy weather to fit more STLM mood.
Those interested can download the latest version of the Super Turbo Lighting Mod for The Witcher 3 from here.
And here is the complete changelog for its latest version (3.1.1).
The Witcher 3 – Super Turbo Lighting Mod changelog:
3.1.1:
– fixed noman’s land saturation
3.1:
– fixed clouds exposure issues and texture compatibility HD rework
3.0 changelog :
– revamped every zone starting with the original setting
– now zones have a more distinct feel between each other
– completely removed the projector behind geralt
– fixed the red mist bug after completing the swamp questline
– reduced the projector light during cutscene ( this might cause certain cutscene to be too dark, might fix in a future update )
– fixed all over exposure issues
– fixed most of the sun shape/form issues
– fog amount now depend on Tod, less during day and a slightly more during sunset ect ..
– fixed most of vegetation translucency issues, this is cannot be completely fixed as translucency does not work on grass
– revamped vegetation translucency/lighting now coloring depending on Tod like vanilla
– cutscene now use the default tonemapping to prevent over exposure
– imported cirrus layer clouds from B&W, while it work mostly it will require further tweaking in an update
– implemented anamorphic lensflare for the sun ( in certain Tod ) and firelight sources, because of the very hacky nature of this, mods that change lensflare are not compatible
– fixed AO in shadowed areas
– increased AO in general
– reduced geralt reflection in certain situation to prevent him from glowing
– rainy weather have been adjusted to fit more STLM mood
– hairbang mod now is part of STLM ( add physic movement to none hairwork hair and make hairwork ponytail slightly longer )
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
Video down.
For some reason the YT link is not viewable in some regions. Replaced it with a Vimeo video. Should be working fine now
Well, good only in certain areas and with good weather, in other circumstances it’s quite awful. I wouldn’t recommend it at all, older versions were a bit better
Couldn’t disagree more. The mod looks awesome. You are not supposed to run a reshade/sweetfx with this other than SMAA or sharpening.
Last time I checked the mod author had disabled comments following a less than favourable response from the community to version 3.0. Further patching is obviously already in progress so hopefully whatever issues are present will be resolved.
I really doubt about that. It’s a matter of taste, and he likes that “style”
What specifically are you ‘doubting’?
An actual and drastic change
Ah, yes, fair enough. The mod author evidently has his personal preference for how he wishes the game to look and he’s working within those parameters. Nothing wrong with that either because he’s in no way obliged to cater to what others wish for. Besides, there are plenty other choices available by way of other mods for weather, lighting, etc.
Highly anticipated by who?
By everyone who was extremely pissed off by blatant visual downgrade and the fact that CDPR got away with it.
The mod looks nothing like the E3 footage in certain areas. The dev cherry picked certain areas just like what CPDR did.
Excuse him for lack of proper modding tools, had he had access to them I’m sure it could’ve looked like E3. Damn, there are always some people that will always complain, whine about every single thing and generally can’t be pleased no matter what.
Guy says mod is anticipated by people complaining about visual downgrade, then complains about people complaining about mod that fixes the things people complained about in the first place….
Move along, nothing to see here for you.
Well according to you, there is. Because I complained about the downgrade, but this mod doesn’t come close because you can’t fix the things missing with modding tools. So this is just a recoloring of various things. Eh. You’re right. Nothing to see here.
A lightning mod doesn’t improve graphic, the HD reworked project does that
Yeah right.
Did he seriously just say that? Oh my!
how to still mods on gog version?
Its ok, I guess. John’s embellishment in the title set the stage for a let down.
Gee-z man that DOF is f***ng trash, how do you play with that amount of vaseline? I can’t even stand the vanilla dof.
And that’s not how DoF works… some trees that are 50 meters away are in focus and other 60 meters away aren’t.
It’s completely off.
That is because it is a compromise in the middle. Not blurred too close, but blurred far away. Is it real? Nope. Games are not real life. Depth of field should not be in ANY game, because you do depth of field naturally. Depth of field is always doomed to fail since it can’t mind read and pick what you are focusing on. The reason it got so big in games outside cutscenes is because of limitations and pop in that look even worse. In Witcher 2 a house will have no roof, then no siding. If you prefer that go for it. If you prefer blur super close? Have fun with that to. They are all flawed.
“Depth of field is always doomed to fail since it can’t mind read and pick what you are focusing on”
Indeed. That’s pretty much the main reason for why I disable DoF in all games.
I don’t have it myself but I wonder if those laptops with a built-in Tobii camera could be of use in this respect one day if the technology is further evolved. In other words, the camera tracking one’s eyes so DoF is dynamically adjusted by the game depending on what part of the screen is being looked at. Minimising lag would obviously be important but it could theoretically work well.
Because the popin in Novigrad or cities is even more distracting. You choose blur or a building with half textures that sometimes go crazy with a texture popping in and out at a certain distance. Oh and I hate depth of field in most games. I sure don’t have it on in Dark Souls 3. I use it in W3 due to engine limitations which are limitations on hardware we own. Also cutscenes in W3 can be broken without DOF. You will have images that just look like ghosts due to the problem I listed above also happening in cutscenes.
So pick. Either blur at a distance or half textures objects. Neither is ideal, but that is the reality of the hardware we own. In a few years maybe that will not be a problem.
It’s pretty bad. I use Native Depth of Field by KNGR for it. It allows you to use a slider to determine how far away you want the dof and how intense. STLM removes all of the blur, so just having DOF off will look a bit weird and aliased from far away, so I just keep it at a low setting.
We need a features list not a changelog
feature: lightning changed
Highly anticipated?
Well, intentionally or not, thanks for highlighting the actual performance cost the E3 build would have had on gaming systems were that the version that got released. I got disappointed as well when the “downgrade” became evident but if that meant that I was actually able to play it, then thank you very much.
But remember that at the time TW3 was released, the equivalent to those mid-range cards were close to high-end.
“IMO it would have been better to release a game that outpaces the hardware of the day than to limit it”. I disagree. I don’t know how Crysis fared but limiting the amount of people who could play it properly is not a good idea, especially for an independent studio that’s actually making a gamble with that game. Granted, showing that slice in the first place wasn’t a good idea either and CDPR themselves actually recognised consoles held things back (and they actually retooled the lightning renderer for B&W, not the whole engine, and that was mostly because the color palette was different)… but the thing is, it’s a still damn beautiful looking game! I personally I’m glad CDPR is not showing any footage of Cyberpunk in order to avoid silly stuff like this again.
Crysis pushed PC graphic boundaries further – something that TW3 could’ve done for this generation but instead CDPR settled for console mediocrity.
So? And that affected the game how? I can’t stress enough that I do think it wasn’t a good idea to show that really early build so soon in development but what did we lose by not having a “graphics boundaries pushing” videogame? Without taking into consideration the fact that an open-world RPG as massive as TW3 is way more expensive and difficult to make than an open-world shooter back in 2007 by a relatively big but still independent studio that could not afford to alienate gamers that could not run their game than a big studio backed by a publishing behemoth (EA),
TW 3 is still ahead graphics-wise than other AAA games released today. And considering how often it’s repeated that it’s about “gameplay, not graphics”, especially when bringin up old games like Deus Ex, I find this whole “downgrading” debate childish, counterproductive and hypocritical.
1) “And that affected the game how?” – CDPR flat out took people pre-ordering the game on the strength of 2014 37 min gameplay trailer for damn fools and shipped subpar game graphically. Not to mention its open-world aspects which were borrowed from the worst counterparts (i.e. almost any Ubisoft open world game in which the world just feels dead).
2) “TW 3 is still ahead graphics-wise than other AAA games released today.” – Hmm, GTA-5 on PC would like to have a word and that game was developed within constraints of last-gen consoles even yet it’s PC version didn’t come out half-cocked like TW3 did.
3) “Without taking into consideration the fact that an open-world RPG as massive as TW3 is way more expensive and difficult to make than an open-world shooter back in 2007 by a relatively big but still independent studio that could not afford to alienate gamers that could not run their game than a big studio backed by a publishing behemoth (EA)” – CDPR visually downgrading the game and settling for the least common denominator console (Xbox) just goes to show you how independent they are. Furthermore it’s not open-world in the true sense of the term, TW3 is several open chunks stitched together via loading screens. Besides as the old adage goes “Quality not quantity”. The fact that the game boasts the game world “35 times larger than that of The Witcher (2007)” does not automatically make it a better game than the original Witcher.
To sum up, if you think that we couldn’t run this game at 30 stable FPS on PC with the level of graphics demonstrated in 2014 on hardware available in 2015 and that graphical downgrade was the necessary evil to bring this game to fruition (a-la CDPR CEO saying “without consoles there is no Witcher”) then you’re just lying to yourself. Anticipating anyone wondering why 30 FPS and “what-is-it-the-90s?” questions – it’s not a PC FPS you don’t need precision in TW3.
1. Well, to be honest, the guy who pre-orders a game that long before it releases and bases said pre-order just on graphics, that guy is a fool, seriously. Also, I fail to see where TW3 shares similarities with Ubisoft’s open world games or that it’s a dead world when you can bump into all sorts of critters or whatever any given time.
2. I personally fail to see how GTA V (a game that, while being developed for old-gen consoles, was getting the remaster treatment for the new one, and still it launched six months later on PC so, good on them) looks better, seriously, maybe it’s because I never played it (nor I want to, to be honest).
3. I think you missed the part where CDPR is still a independent studio without unlimited funds. Hell, Bethesda is a way bigger studio with more funding, working even longer time on FO 4 and yet they were still using a decade old engine and had lackluster graphics, whereas CDPR built a brand new engine. You can say what you will about CDPR setting for the lowest denominator (Xbox where it ran at 900p 30 FPS) but it’s true that without consoles the scope wouldn’t have been reached as bigger the game, bigger budget, bigger target to reach and remain on business. Ambition has a cost, otherwise look at Kingdom Come. Also, they never said they downgraded it for consoles but instead that the renderers weren’t working as intended. If you believe that or not, it’s up to you but I’d rather have compromises than another AC: Unity. The more people can run the game at an acceptable fidelity and framerates and not just those willing to spend $1000 on graphics cards, the better. Pushing boundaries for the sake of it, is counterproductive as well.
PS: It’s not false advertising nor lying when their promotional materials showed the real state the game closer to the game’s release. Unlike No Man’s Sky, they never promised features up until the last minute that were nowhere in the final game. Again, focusing exclusively on a two, three year old advertising material and basing a pre-order on the graphics of that version and then complaining years later when the game had to change things or tone down certain overly ambitious features is indeed childish, counterproductive and hypocritical, not to mention quite dumb.
PPS: While it’s true that the game is made of different hubs, each map is as big as an open-world game so that doesn’t disqualify it from being labeled as an open-world RPG.
Besides essenthy himself shared the link to leaked CDPR documents where it explicitly says that the 2014 build of the game with predowngraded graphics was 99% playable by September-November of 2014 (the main story that is).
And even if you presume that the game with all those advanced effects was not playable at stable framerate (which I’m sure it was) then CDPR with its 250 people strong staff at the moment could’ve made the lighting on PC look exactly like one man did, and they could’ve done it not in 2 years but in a couple months – in other words that time that CDPR have spent on downgrading the game between November 2014 and May 19th of 2015 on doing just that. Instead they chose the way of least resistance where the game looks the same across all 3 platforms. The reason why that is the case is simple – platform parity and Microsoft cash.
1) Similarities between Ubisoft open world games and TW3: superfluous copy-pasted points-of-interest under question marks, same Witcher contracts which are basically the same dish with the same sauce under slightly different condiment.
2) “Unlike No Man’s Sky, they never promised features up until the last minute that were nowhere in the final game.” – Dude, open your eyes, there were features that were shown but were nowhere to be found in the retail game like way better UI, VATS like system, real-time meditation, not to mention 37 endings (which sounded way too good to be true anyway but in the end we got only 3 endings to the main quest).
1. Markers you can turn off if you don’t want them.
2. I personally don’t remember a VATS-like system ever being promised but you do have real-time meditation (you can do it anywhere), the UI being better of the final game is really subjective and I remember the 37 endings but I also remember them mentioning that the differences were small based on the outcome of previous quests. And that’s the last thing I’ll say on that subject, thank you very much.
Yes, but would have that been fair for most gamers? I would have felt very… underwhelmed, to say the least, if I found out that I needed a $1000 GPU to get part of what they were advertising. It’s just not fair.
“if the non-downgraded version of TW3 had been too demanding for many PC gamers then it might have diverted them to the XbOne” Let me get this straight: are you actually endorsing the idea that if my PC can’t run a game because the devs made it too demanding I go play it on a console that has an even inferior hardware? How does that make any sense? It’s like saying that I should have gotten the PS4 version of Arkham Knight because the PC one was broken… and yes, it is the same thing because it means that the devs were indeed capable of making the game run on lower specs but (for whatever reason) failed to do so for PC. See my point?
I’ll be 100% honest with this: I got the game at launch and my GPU, an R9 270X (far from top class) performed pretty much as expected: 30-45 FPS at (mostly) High settings. Drivers and patches did improve that and it now runs around 45 FPS almost constantly, sometimes reaching 50-60 FPS in less cluttered areas. That being said, I maybe was lucky and had no issues, so I can’t say anything about that statement about high-end cards choking on it.
Could have been optimized better? Probably. But while I think the downgrade sucked, even though we DON’T REALLY KNOW what happened behind scenes that forced that downgrade, it’s worth noting that game development is not easy, things change at the last minute AND the game has been out for almost 2 years by now and it’s still amazing. Instead of still crying over spilled milk let’s instead hope CDPR learned from their (stupid but I hope well meaning) mistake and they deliver on ALL their promises for Cyberpunk.
They did not rework the engine for B&W, just the light renderer and the way they organise object rendering (like grouping textures in order to increase the amount of objects without increasing draw calls). Meaning, they changed the workload more than the engine. Of course, that also counts as optimization.
As for the Kepler gimp, that’s on Nvidia’s drivers, not CDPR. Especially if you consider that it was sorta fixed with a driver update and that by reducing the tesellation factor, AMD cards were able to run Hairworks relatively well without generational differences nor notable framerate losses (only improving with every new update).
“I’m finding it hard to be optimistic when they’re keeping everything
about 2077 close to the vest, as that comes off as a deliberate move to
avoid the public accountability that burned ’em with TW3”
So, damned if you do, damned if you don’t? You criticized them for not delivering on what they promised graphically on TW3 when they released a very early gameplay and now you are going to criticize them for not releasing early stuff in order to not risk building up unrealistic hype? Come on dude, you are better than that.
“CDPR was held accountable by the gaming public. Now they’re seeking to avoid that accountability. That doesn’t bode well.”
I disagree. Showing one thing early and in the end delivering other not so good is good reason to be criticized (that’s it’s still happening 2 years later it’s ridiculous though). But working on something behind closed doors and not showing anything until it’s ready is a good way to handle the situation and build expectations that probably won’t be met at the end. Bethesda does it, EA does it, Rockstar does it, even Activision does it. It’s not avoiding accountability because there’s nothing to be accountable for: they are not offering anything, they are not building expectations. That’s being responsible. Otherwise, it’s a situation of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.
“one way the Kepler Gimp is effected is via GameWorks and CDPR mysteriously elected to incorporate that into its TW3”
Even worse. Because Nvidia should have known that it messed up with the older cards. It’s enough proof that it was Nvidia’s doing because, after the backlash, drivers, not patches, fixed the gimp. Yes, GameWorks is like gaming’s cancer, but why just blame it on CDPR, a company that actually worked to make Hairworks run on AMD cards (it ends up running pretty well after tweaking tessellation) and not on other games like Arkham Knight or most of Ubisoft games that use even more of Nvidia’s libraries?
Used it, but have pop in issues with all the grass. Sorry, but not taking off my KNG Ultra Grass mod for this.
Pop in needs to be fixed and light source saturation needs to be lowered https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/49c677b6cd51f0063954b89b74a8f5992e8cd8f2c3d72b24144b59f2c1b941fa.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d85ca31eadbd38fe9e2b02ecd3f837ef349387df63e9ab9977fab3e39333d89.jpg
Write directly to CDPR with your demands of eliminating pop-ins as they are the only ones directly responsible for it (i.e. the engine flaws) in the first place.
that pop in error I showed only happens on STLM 3.1. It doesn’t happen in 2.2 or Elder Blood Lighting Mod
This game looks stupidly different depending on cloud, weather and time with the sun/moon location. This game can look completely different 1 second later after a custscene because the in game “real time” has advanced a few hours past the cutscene.I can find occurrences where I do not like the look of any lightning mod, reshade or vanilla. None of them are a perfect solution.
And apparently, you can’t really have an argument with someone who disagrees with you without namecalling and assuming he’s “easily deceived”. Wow. Nice one dude.
I didn’t start it. Your words, not mine.
“focusing exclusively on a two, three year old advertising material and basing a pre-order on the graphics of that version and then complaining years later when the game had to change things or tone down certain overly ambitious features is indeed childish, counterproductive and hypocritical, not to mention quite dumb.”
Did I mention you being dumb? No, I didn’t. I’m sorry if you did that thing I consider is quite dumb, though. Still, that’s not me calling you dumb, just you doing something dumb. Big difference.
Semantics, dude. It was a dig and now you’re backpedaling or jsut plain trolling. Anyway, I’m glad that you’re happy with vanilla. I hope you’ll continue playing it this way because that’s “how CDPR envisioned the game”.
P.S. Not that it concerns you or anything but I pre-ordered the game a mere month before release (May 19th) but on the strength of that E3 2014 video just because I didn’t want to spoil the game for myself due to barrage of info that’s being thrown at you (trailers, teasers, plot details etc, you know the drill). But the only thing I’ll praise this new CDPR is for teaching me not to pre-order any games ever.
Odd that you keep mentioning the E3 2014 gameplay. I rewatched it this morning and I swear, besides the color grading, I see little differences with the final product (the map seems a bit different and not just because the lack of color). I’m probably missing something but I tell you the truth there. Now, I never said I was happy with it for whatever reason. In fact, I repeatedly said it was a stupid mistake on CDPR’s part. But that we keep talking about it like it was yesterday or that it’s the end of the world it’s blowing things way out of proportion.
Fair enough… Although I did see blood splatter in water but maybe that was introduced in a latter patch. As I said, it was a stupid mistake and I’m sure they are aware of it, as I’m certain they already have something to show from Cyberpunk but they are keeping it under wraps to avoid this all over again. As it was a first for them, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I doubt that graphical downgrade was a mistake but rather a deliberate decision. Their biggest mistake was false advertising and using promotional material with the level of graphics that they ultimately didn’t deliver. In other words they shouldn’t have shown so much.
However therein lies catch 22 – in order to gain more pre-orders, hype and amount of sold units they HAD to rely on those materials. But using those trailers and gameplay videos they set themself up for well-warranted flak from gamers who earned for truly next-gen graphics. Anyway I definitely think they learned from that experience seeing how we have had any info about Cyberpunk and the teaser trailer was released in 2013 or 2014.
Yeah, I mean it wasn’t a black and white situation, IMO. I still think it wasn’t a deliberate decision because no matter what, the game still looked great. Advertising it as it was going to be released wouldn’t have really hurt the game much (if at all) because of that. But yeah, considering how they are handling Cyberpunk, I’m confident it won’t happen again.