[Unity plugin] Successfully disabled Lens Dirtiness & reduced bloom

[Fincer]

I feel this Unity engine plugin features a bit annoying. I prefer a clean gameplay camera without any extra/fun lens dirtiness effects added. I am somehow okay with the bloom but camera dirtiness, nah. I don't like it.

Unity assets store - Lens Dirtiness:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/11915

Lens Dirtiness - Documentation:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mDNHD6SCkXEcN0k2BnlFXDHiJK1LNIzjsiQVGtzhGJw/edit?pli=1

Lens Dirtiness - Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QZHBU6bNj4

Opinions, anyone?

[Bester]

Not bad, I quite like the effect but it is always nice to have the option.

[qpeirotuwpeiuqpruti]

I second this. It's not too annoying but it does seem to be plastered almost everywhere in the game. Seems a lot of devs these days forget to use such effects in moderation :(

[Fincer]

Allright, I did it. I just disabled Lens Dirtiness plugin on Oddworld New 'n' Tasty.

First of all, I realized that this feature is likely to stay because pre-rendered cutscenes use it. But I don't like it, I really don't. I want in-game options to control which graphical effects are in use. Anyway, my conclusion was that no devs likely would support disabling the plugin, so I took some steps to do it myself then. And here we are:

Stockyard - Lens Dirtiness enabled:
http://postimg.org/image/pd3o3z2m9/

Stockyard - Lens Dirtiness disabled:
http://postimg.org/image/3sih8nchf/

Scrabanian nests - Lens Dirtiness enabled:
http://postimg.org/image/92bq9h6x3/

Scrabanian nests - Lens Dirtiness disabled:
http://postimg.org/image/r72cqfgm9/

Lens Dirtiness disabled - Youtube Gameplay video sample 1 (Paramonian nests):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVvyliFcPXk

Lens Dirtiness disabled - Youtube Gameplay video sample 2 (Stockyard):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZqySUqcv5M

[Fincer]

Second feature I modified a bit was Unity material configuration for Abe's eyeballs (abe_eye.mat). I managed to remove the illumination effect. However, problem is that the eyes may not have any luminance/shadow parameters in Unity materials and it's bit complicated to add them afterwards.

In the original game, eyes were practically normally illuminated but in New 'n' Tasty, they are glowing like light bulbs even in dark shadows. That's okay for sligs (because they have it on the mask they wear) but for not Abe (does his eyes glow naturally that way? Really? I don't think so).

I prefer the old way in this manner and that's why I'm investigating the issue. Next step is to check what I can get with Unity 4.3 editor.

[gt]

Very nice, can this fix be shared?

[Fincer]

Sure. I added how-to instructions to the description fields of both Youtube videos (links above).

[gt]

Thanks. Could similar steps be taken to remove other PP effects like FXAA and motion blur? Is it a matter of just finding the corresponding strings?

[Fincer]

Yeah, that's the way how it is, at least for now.

Use a hex editor and find strings such as bloom, glow, effect or shader inside files. I use a powerful linux utility "grep" for that purpose. It basically scans strings inside files and list matching files for me, even binary files. Then I use a hex editor or Unity Assets Editor to investigate a bit more those files of my interest.

For me, it's basically a trial and error approach to find essential strings: Fill one string with zeros, launch the game and figure out the changes. Repeat, try another string, launch the game. Repeat...copy bits from some string to another in hex editor... This approach requires backup files to be taken because sometimes the game just crashes to desktop and you must take steps backwards.

The following Unity plugins are listed on Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty credits so it may be a good place to start finding stuff:

Advanced Foliage Shader
Cutscene Creator uSequencer
CharacterFX Shader Pack
Explosion Volume 2
Extreme FX Vol. 1
Glow11
Hayate Particle Effect Turbulence
Lens Dirtiness
Modern Gun Effect Pack
NGUI
PlayModePersist
Progrids
Real Flames - Basic Set
Scenemate
Vertex Painter

You can find some information about these plugins on Google.

Of course, you need to consider default Unity stuff as well. They're likely not listed above there. If something like blur effects are built in default Unity, it may require some further investigation to find references for them inside files of Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty.

This is what I know: mainData file is critical one. I suppose it tells the game which shaders etc. should be loaded on game start-up. If you want to play with shaders, this is likely the place to start on. Another one is (compressed?) dll file Assembly-CSharp.dll inside NNT_Data\Managed folder, not sure about its role yet but it contains many critical strings.

What comes to Unity asset files (and level files) in NNT_Data, you can explore them with editors such as:

- Disunity (command line script to extract files. Handy for fonts, shaders, meshes and textures etc.)
https://github.com/ata4/disunity/releases

- Hex editor (for editing strings)

- Unity Assets Explorer:
http://zenhax.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=36

- Unity Asset Editor:
http://www.moddb.com/games/7-days-to-die/downloads/unity-asset-editor

The output of these different Unity editors varies. Disunity is best for the models and fonts. Disunity extracts models in obj format which can be opened on 3ds Max. UVW Maps included.

Asset Editor is handy to preview texture files (though laggy).

With Assets Explorer you can extract assets such as .mat (Unity material file) and .ani (mesh animation) files better than with Asset Editor.

For some reason, extracted textures look drastically darker than if just previewed in Unity Asset Editor. The reason is unclear to me.

Several New 'n' Tasty assets and files they include:

- resources.assets: all language files, lots of Unity shaders, dds/tga textures
- sharedassets0.assets: movies, fonts, Unity shaders, dds/tga textures (gamepad, mudokon head...)
- sharedassets2.assets: 3D mesh files for in-game menus, dds/tga textures for menu meshes more shaders, movie preview images
- sharedassets3.assets: Abe, Slig, Elum, Slave etc. meshes and textures

etc. etc...

Btw. FYI. You can't modify .mat files easily because they are relatively linked with meshes inside assets. I've managed to remove texture and illumination effect from Abe's eyes but nothing else so far.

[Benjamoose]

Can I just say that I love what you're doing.

Please keep your tutorial online as long as possible!

If you ever need to distribute any files as part of a mod, I'd be happy to mirror them somewhere on my FTP to keep them around.

[Fincer]

Thanks Benjamoose.

I already have a backup of this tutorial, and if it somehow gets deleted, I can simply re-upload it. Always have backups. :)

There are still several bloom effects left, I'm very well aware of them. I'm not sure if I can do something for them but let's see. It's pure trial and error method I use, as I said earlier.

Thank you for your offering. I've modded games earlier in my life (such as Trackmania, Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour) but I think it's not time for serious modding now. I mean, there are several parts I want to do differently than devs have thought in this game but not anything like a total conversion or touching 3D models they've made for New 'n' Tasty. They've done great job on remaking this title but there are still several issues where I disagree with them.

First issue: I want wide options to in-game graphics configuration. Not just sliders but checkboxes, too (disable or enable feature X). If I don't have any, I will surely try to find a way to achieve my goal other way around.

Second issue: Abe's light bulb eyeballs. I love the idea that you can always see your main character's eyes but not if it comes with a price of ruining the gameplay atmosphere in dark areas. When you are in a dark area, it's dark and your *whole* character is dark, too. Including those damn eyeballs.

Third issue: I'm not a fan of smoke effects for "dark areas". This is very likely related to the capabilities and limitations of Unity engine. I still prefer the old way. I prefer it a lot.

[qpeirotuwpeiuqpruti]

Thank you so much for doing this! I am very grateful of you for investigating the Unity stuff and sharing how to make these changes :)

[Fincer]

You're welcome.

It's good to share tricks you know because it's for the benefit of game community and there are likely at least some people who have same goals than you do.

[Warthog3]

This is great, thank you :)

[Fincer]

No probs. :) It's always a pleasure to help people to get over some nasty issues when official support is not available. I hope the devs could still make this plugin optional by default, anyway.

[Oddworld Admin]

Originally posted by fincer89:

No probs. :) It's always a pleasure to help people to get over some nasty issues when official support is not available. I hope the devs could still make this plugin optional by default, anyway.

No promises (at all) but if there're enough voices...