Realistic Lighting Preset

Realistic Lighting Preset

Click on the images for an interactive comparison !

The goal of this mod is to fix the relatively washed out, blurry and uninspiring Commonwealth Wasteland by using the popular Reshade injector.
I implemented multiple performance friendly Reshade effects including :

Tonemap
Vibrance
Curves
Luma Sharpen
Lift Gamma Gain
Cartoon and Film grain (only a very very small amount of both, which is propably not noticeable but sometimes they increase visual quality)

Antialiasing :

I have also added a high quality antialiasing method in the form of FXAA and SMAA, which works great with the built in TAA Bethesda added. Speaking of which, my custom Luma Sharpen settings alleviate most of the blurring caused by its usage, making the textures look sharp and more detailed without actually changing them.

Brightness :

With the usage of Curves, Vibrance and Tonemap i reduced the overall brightness of the game, making it look closer to real life standards. Nights are fairly darker and secluded indoors areas, like sewers and abandoned buildings, may give you trouble navigating them.
QUOTE
You most likely will need some sort of light source, otherwise you may find yourself in a predicament !
Performance :

Fallout 4 may not look like a demanding game. However due to the way the engine is coded, shadows render even when they shouldn’t, making them the biggest performance hog along with godrays. Luckily my preset doesn’t add salt to the injury.
QUOTE
On my fairly good machine, at most i lost 3 frames per second in the most demanding area possible.
That however can change for the worse based on your configuration.
Check the “Recommended mods” section as well as the ”Configuration” section on how to change that.

Installation instructions :

1)
Download the Reshade Package version 1.1.0 from the official site
QUOTE
Click the first button not the one that says SweetFx 2.0 !

2)
Extract Reshade 1.1.0 in the “root” folder of Fallout 4 with WinRAR
Most of the time that is in C:/Program Files(x86)/Steam/Steamapps/common/Fallout4

Alternatively go to the Steam launcher, right click on “Fallout 4”, click “Properties”, go to the “Local Files” tab then finally click on “Browse Local Files”.
QUOTE
Carefull, install the package in the same folder Fallout4.exe is, NOT in the Data folder where most other .esp and textures/models based mods go !

3)
Extract my preset in the same folder as above overwriting everything.

Uninstallation instructions :

1) Delete every instance of dxgi.dll and Reshade.dll as well as the Reshade folder itself !

Recommended Mods :

Darker Nights by unforbidable

Light Tweaks by Fr4nsson

ENBoost by BorisVorontsov

Shadow Boost by AlexanderBlade

WET by SparrowPrince

Configuration :

All these changes refer to the SweetFX.cfg found inside the Reshade folder that came with my preset.
If you simply want a darker looking wasteland with absolutely no frame loss consult the following :

To disable Lumasharpen : #define USE_LUMASHARPEN 1 from 1 to 0
To disable Filmgrain : #define USE_FILMGRAIN 1 from 1 to 0
To disable Cartoon : #define USE_CARTOON 1 from 1 to 0
To disable SMAA : #define USE_SMAA 1 from 1 to 0
To disable FXAA : #define USE_FXAA 1 from 1 to 0

I have also configured a custom Vignette setting which i found a bit demanding ( – ~2 frames ).

To activate Vignette : #define USE_VIGNETTE 0 from 0 to 1

Other variables that may interest you but are not recommended ( frame loss, not optimal quality etc ) :

To activate HDR : #define USE_HDR 0 from 0 to 1
To activate Bloom : #define USE_BLOOM 0 from 0 to 1
To activate Filmic Pass : #define USE_FILMICPASS 0 from 0 to 1