Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines

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Natural Lighting
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Jan 22, 2024 @ 1:40pm
Mar 26 @ 3:32pm
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Natural Lighting

Description
Overview
    A Cities: Skylines mod that adjusts in-game lighting to look more natural.




Natural Lighting
This mod is a "no-frills", "no performance impact", "no configuration needed" attempt to provide an instant visual improvement in the game by making the in-game lighting look more natural and the shadows on the buildings less harsh.

It is a replacement for Daylight Classic and Softer Shadows but made for the current version of the game (1.18.1-f3) and having some of the features removed that targeted the version of the game available in their day and age that work a bit janky in the current version or look out of place nowadays (in my opinion).

The mod provides translations for all it's settings menu items in all the languages supported by the game. If you find an incorrect translation, please leave a comment below or open an issue on GitHub, linked below.

Natural Lighting LUT
This mod includes the option to use a dedicated LUT for the best experience. You can enable/disable that option anytime in-game. But you can of course also use any other LUT you like.

Compatibility
Game Version: 1.19.2-f3
Uses Harmony: no
Changes Save Files: no

This mod has a built-in check for the presence of the following mods that provide similar functionality or would break it:
  • Daylight Classic - replaced by this mod
  • Softer Shadows - replaced by this mod
  • Render It! - much more options and scope
  • Lumina - much more options and scope
If one of these is detected, Natural Lighting will deactivate itself and show a message in it's settings panel in the game's options menu. You can then either disable these mods to use Natural Lighting or check the "Enable anyway" checkbox. In the latter case, Natural Lighting will apply its settings and possibly override the settings from the incompatible mods. This will not result in crashes but may result in the game's lighting becoming a mix between Natural Lighting and the other mod(s). However this might give you an interesting starting point: You can for example activate Natural Lighting in conjunction with Render It! or Lumina and use these mods to then fine tune the game's visuals to your liking. Recommended only for players who have more experience with the aforementioned mods.

Why not just use Render It! or Lumina?
I like both mods. I used them for quite some time as Daylight Classic and Softer Shadows are very old and have their quirks with the current version of the game. But I could never get exactly the look I wanted and both mods gave me option paralysis. I just wanted a no-config, instant improvement for the game's very yellow tinted lighting. So I created Natural Lighting for myself and decided to share it here.

The second reason is that both mods use the Harmony patching library which might cause issues[github.com] for people who play the game on Apple Silicon Hardware as it has some outstanding issues with platform support. Natural Lighting does not make use of Harmony.




Source Code
The source code of all my mods is available on
[github.com]

Feel free to report any issues and feedback there or here on Steam.
28 Comments
Bomret  [author] Jan 2 @ 12:01pm 
@darcula2000 Natural Lighting basically does the same thing as Softer Shadows. What do you miss?
V_Cred Dec 5, 2024 @ 6:36am 
Nice work, It is good to know that it is dependence-free. I'll check it later.
darcula2000 Nov 30, 2024 @ 6:44pm 
Daylight Classic + Softer Shadows + Dynamic Resolution + Real Neutral LUT,Thank you, these four mods are still valid until December 2024.

I respect and thank every mod creator, but I have to admit that after 9 years, the simplest and most effective mods in terms of light and shadow effects are still those from 8 years ago.

this 4 mods combination still cannot be replaced, such as' Render It! ',' Lumina ', and' Relight '. Although these complex mods are more flexible and free, they require patience to adjust the values. Most players just want to achieve a simple and beautiful light and shadow effect.

What I most want to adjust is the part of the building that faces away from the light. The latest Mod [Natural Lighting] can replace [Daylight Classic], but still cannot fully replace [Softer Shadows]
Bomret  [author] Nov 23, 2024 @ 4:02am 
@Cloud Breaker that is strange. The mod only changes some internal values for calculating the in-game lighting. And it only changes them once when you 1. enable/disable the mod and 2. change the settings. According to tests and user feedback there is has been no noticeable change to FPS.
Cloud Breaker Nov 17, 2024 @ 5:07pm 
When I enable your mod it seems my fps degrades by about 20%.
diamondback1980 Nov 17, 2024 @ 5:13am 
BEAUTIFUL. Thanks a million for this mod. Looks great!
Royal Raven Sep 21, 2024 @ 4:14pm 
Thanks for this! Replaces my dated Daylight Classic and Softer Shadows.
wy38192 Aug 21, 2024 @ 7:48am 
Yes, keep working on it, but I hope the creators can work on a new cubemap replace.
m0LTEN Jun 15, 2024 @ 6:20am 
Top!
Bomret  [author] Apr 7, 2024 @ 11:24am 
Tranks a lot, MrPapaBear! Glad you like it.