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Cities: Skylines >  Workshop > Keallu's Workshop > Render It! > Discussions
Render It!
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 This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important
Keallu  [developer] Jan 18, 2023 @ 5:29am
Anti-aliasing in Render It!
For anti-aliasing - in human language soften jaggy edges - the most popular mods have been Dynamic Resolution and PostProcessFX. Where vanilla game uses the Enhanced Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing (SMAA) technique, Dynamic Resolution uses the SuperSampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA) technique and PostProcessFX have offered different versions of Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA), Enhanced Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing (SMAA) and Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) techniques.

I personally prefer the techniques used by PostProcessFX as they have a lot less impact on game performance compared to Dynamic Resolution since they are post-processing effects. Render It! have support for FXAA and TAA since SMAA is in the Vanilla game. It is based on the latest version of Post Processing Stack v1 for Unity. You can see a comparison of the different techniques here[imgsli.com]. It can still be used in combo with Dynamic Resolution but requires some tweaking with advanced settings.

Render It! also includes the options to enable Ambient Occlusion, Bloom and Color Grading post-processing effects. Ambient Occlusion darkens creases, holes, intersections and surfaces that are close to each other. In the real world, such areas tend to block out or occlude ambient light, so they appear darker. Bloom creates fringes of light extending from the borders of bright areas in an image, contributing to the illusion of an extremely bright light overwhelming the camera. Color Grading alters or corrects the color and luminance of the final image that is rendered. It is similar to applying filters in software like Instagram. Color Grading is a more advanced method than the Look-Up Texture (LUT) which is the default 'color grading' method in the game. They can be used together though.

It is important to mention that none of the post processing effects are directly affected by time of day. They are time-independent.

See example of Ambient Occlusion here[imgsli.com], Bloom here[imgsli.com] and Color Grading here[imgsli.com].
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Showing 1-11 of 11 comments
flexityswift Jan 18, 2023 @ 9:34am 
Hi there! I've been trying to switch to RenderIt instead of the myriad of other visual mods, but I cannot seem to figure out how to make AA look good - everything is either super over sharpened or blurry to the point where quality just looks terrible. Lighting levels seem possibly incorrect as well. Even importing all the preset profiles, they just look off to me. Is there a trick to getting things right?

Some examples:
https://imgur.com/a/1Eog0RJ

Nvidia Control Panel - Default settings
GeForce Experience - "optimized" settings
No other visual mods enabled or subscribed

I followed the guides you've posted as well and cannot replicate decent results.

Thanks for any advice you might have!
Last edited by flexityswift; Jan 18, 2023 @ 10:01am
#1
Keallu  [developer] Jan 19, 2023 @ 12:51am 
I can see that you uses the samples from the Basic Guide by @Chamëleon TBN. Try to reach out for him on Discord. I'm sure he can help.
#2
flexityswift Jan 19, 2023 @ 4:18pm 
Originally posted by Keallu:
I can see that you uses the samples from the Basic Guide by @Chamëleon TBN. Try to reach out for him on Discord. I'm sure he can help.

My problem is that every configuration I've tried looks similar to these examples, even starting from the default and fiddling with each setting individually. Here are examples of the three default AA options, with FXAA set to Extreme Quality:

https://imgur.com/a/NhhYquZ

I have no other visual or lighting mods subscribed, and all game graphics settings as high as they go. Am I doing something wrong?
Last edited by flexityswift; Jan 19, 2023 @ 4:57pm
#3
Keallu  [developer] Jan 20, 2023 @ 3:49am 
Originally posted by flexityswift:
Originally posted by Keallu:
I can see that you uses the samples from the Basic Guide by @Chamëleon TBN. Try to reach out for him on Discord. I'm sure he can help.

My problem is that every configuration I've tried looks similar to these examples, even starting from the default and fiddling with each setting individually. Here are examples of the three default AA options, with FXAA set to Extreme Quality:

https://imgur.com/a/NhhYquZ

I have no other visual or lighting mods subscribed, and all game graphics settings as high as they go. Am I doing something wrong?
What graphics card do you have?
#4
76561198882082831 Jan 20, 2023 @ 1:00pm 
Originally posted by Keallu:
Originally posted by flexityswift:

My problem is that every configuration I've tried looks similar to these examples, even starting from the default and fiddling with each setting individually. Here are examples of the three default AA options, with FXAA set to Extreme Quality:

{LINK REMOVED}

I have no other visual or lighting mods subscribed, and all game graphics settings as high as they go. Am I doing something wrong?
What graphics card do you have?

Thanks so much for sticking with me on this. I've got a 1060 which I know is old at this point, but doesn't explain why I'm getting such terrible results with Render It compared to older visual mods.

Here's a comparison on a brand new save with only Render it (and dependencies) subbed, vs a combination of Relight, Dynamic Resolution, and Ultimate Eyecandy. At least to my eyes, the older mods produce a much better rendering.

{LINK REMOVED}

ok now I can't do links?
Last edited by flexityswift2; Jan 20, 2023 @ 1:01pm
#5
76561198882082831 Jan 20, 2023 @ 1:01pm 
Maybe this will let me use the link: {LINK REMOVED}
#6
flexityswift Jan 20, 2023 @ 1:07pm 
Originally posted by Keallu:
Originally posted by flexityswift:

My problem is that every configuration I've tried looks similar to these examples, even starting from the default and fiddling with each setting individually. Here are examples of the three default AA options, with FXAA set to Extreme Quality:

https://imgur.com/a/NhhYquZ

I have no other visual or lighting mods subscribed, and all game graphics settings as high as they go. Am I doing something wrong?
What graphics card do you have?


Thanks so much for sticking with me on this. I've got a 1060 which I realize is old at this point, but I still get better results with older visual mods than with Render It. Here's a new comparison in a brand new save with only Render It and dependencies subbed, vs a combination of Relight, Dynamic Resolution, and Ultimate Eyecandy.

https://imgur.com/a/7Ijz8h3

At least to my eyes, the older mods produce a much better result than I'm able to get in Render It no matter what I try or which guide I follow. I really wanted to replace all these with your single mod but I guess I won't be able to :/
#7
Keallu  [developer] Jan 21, 2023 @ 12:04am 
Originally posted by flexityswift:
Originally posted by Keallu:
What graphics card do you have?


Thanks so much for sticking with me on this. I've got a 1060 which I realize is old at this point, but I still get better results with older visual mods than with Render It. Here's a new comparison in a brand new save with only Render It and dependencies subbed, vs a combination of Relight, Dynamic Resolution, and Ultimate Eyecandy.

https://imgur.com/a/7Ijz8h3

At least to my eyes, the older mods produce a much better result than I'm able to get in Render It no matter what I try or which guide I follow. I really wanted to replace all these with your single mod but I guess I won't be able to :/
Render It! can replace a lot of mods such as Relight and Ultimate Eyecandy and others but nowhere is it stated that is has functionality that can replace Dynamic Resolution. If you read above, Dynamic Resolution uses the SuperSampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA) technique which is a pre-processing technique that requires a lot more from your hardware than post-processing. SuperSampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA) is rendering the image at a much higher resolution than the one being displayed, then shrinking it to the desired size, using the extra pixels for calculation. Some users still uses both Dynamic Resolution and Render It! and some have found Render It! to be sufficient. It is all a matter of personal taste and how much you want to stress your hardware.
Last edited by Keallu; Jan 21, 2023 @ 12:05am
#8
BritishTrainspotting Aug 3, 2024 @ 3:14pm 
When using the TAA anti-aliasing setting, a lot of rendered textures in-game (but strangely not the cliffs material). When configuring the stationary and motion blending, the jitter effect is removevd when reducing the sliders, however it effectively disables the anti-aliasing effect.
I know that I previously had no issues with TAA, but why am I now experiencing issues with it?
#9
Changshan Oct 27, 2024 @ 7:23am 
Forgive me if this is already stated somewhere, but: should you turn the in-game AA setting on or off, while using 'Render It!'?

Why I ask: I have TAA enabled through Render It!. While starting through Skyve, the game automatically disables the in-game AA for some reason. I then enter my game, with building edges all jagged and stuff. Only when I enable AA through the regular settings, these issues disappear and my game looks normal. So I might be using SMAA instead of TAA without knowing it, I'm not sure...
#10
CuckADoodleDoo Dec 23, 2024 @ 12:17pm 
I'm having an issue where at certain zoom levels buildings and assets either disappear or flicker like crazy. I have this mod as well as ACME and no adjusting that I can do has not improved it. I don't quite know what I am doing so any possible ideas would be fantastic!
#11
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