What happens to the Mask in the Black areas of the screen when you raise the Black Level?
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No, black level is different, it applies to the scan lines. That is not what this ambient phosphor effect does.
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Just increase Slot Mask Strength Dark Pixels to 1 and it should be clearly seen in the background. This is at 0.12, 0.06, and 0.03. This should not show the slots as they’re situated behind the phosphor stripes.
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I don’t doubt you but for these things I think we should pull out our reference material just to verify and properly communicate how it’s supposed to look. Can you provide a clear image?
I’ll definitely go and see if I can dig one up.
What about you @RetroGames4K? Can you provide a clear gameplay photo of a dark area of the slot mask CRT screen showing how the unlit phosphors look!
This is an interesting shot:
It looks like I’m seeing the phosphors in front of the mask but due to the lighting and camera settings, it appears as though the slot mask wires are also visible.
Here are some more examples including different screen types:
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For me it seems it lits up the phosphors of the black areas, if I don’t use it, it remains totally black.
I made the photos the best I could to apreciate black phosphors of my CRT. Also to note, on bare eyes are more visible.
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Thanks for these pics!
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New Release Version (2023-07-14-r1):
Notable changes:
- Base (black) Mask strength fixes
Download link:
https://mega.nz/file/F9gWEDxC#_LbvK-4SyoYd4VjtnoGBAntMUzk_muL_d5OGTWO8em4
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Nice 
. In wich option does apply that?
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It’s related to glow and magic glow, mostly.
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It’s in the [CRT Mask Options]. The last one.
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Nice, this is what I’m talking about. Here’s a full-strength mask pic to show the base mask and Magic Glow working in tandem:
About the only thing I can think of that would improve this is making it so the slot mask does not show up on the base mask, but only the phosphors. Judging from pics, that’s what should happen on slot mask CRTs.
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New Release Version (2023-07-14-r2):
Notable changes:
- Base (black) Mask strength slotmask correction
- New grade version included with afterglow support
Download link:
https://mega.nz/file/J4ggAahC#vp1aSquWex8ii2wsbB2VE5TTbYw_bWHuID0omiE8eb0
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Perfection.
I did have to set Magic Glow Mask Strength to 0, though, as that was lighting up the slot mask.
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Oh damn, I didn’t expect this to come so soon. This is looking like the update that will get me back into the shader lab and start experimenting again. Can’t wait to try this update out, thank you once again @guest.r
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Yeah negative values of the regular glow still show the slots too. But it looks like that might be the last thing that needs tweaking and then this feature is good to go, except maybe individual color control to reduce the “gray” effect and help the green stand out more.
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Slotmask presence on magic glow mask strength feature is important for other magic glow applications, so it will likely stay in it’s current state. The only feature that might change is regular glow for it’s negative values.
Since we are talking about two different exposures of the phosphors, it might be authentic as it is now. First is external light source exposure (daylight, bulb, camera flash…), second are reflected electrons, which bounce back from the “thick glass” and light the phosphors.
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Yeah, those are both external though, relative to the slot mask at least. As far as I know the only thing that should affect that is the electron beam / scan lines, unless there’s something else inside the tube that can light the phosphors through the mask. Maybe halation? I’m not familiar enough with that one.
But most of this glow stuff isn’t “authentic” or “realistic” beyond very low levels anyway, so I’m mostly just concerned with what looks better. And I think a little of the negative glow looks great combined with the ambient-lit phosphors when trying it with slots turned off, so I’m confident it would be great with that change at least.
I actually might even want to use both positive and negative glow combined to different degrees, but I’m not sure that would be possible. Maybe I could just increase the halation a bit or adjust the bloom to balance it more. Not gonna go too crazy playing around with it until it’s in Mega Bezel though.
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New Release Version (2023-07-15-r1):
Notable changes:
- Ordinary (negative) glow doesn’t apply slotmask
- Some glow code optimizations
Download link:
https://mega.nz/file/UsYk0a4a#6uBw1KvuoSkgbyDxW_3oRv0FMinjzEh4fKQpWuq_mXI
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Very interested on this topic of black phosphors. Maybe you could take shots at different EVs to capture the whole range. Also if you take a RAW photo you can infer from pixel values the CRT nits, if someone is into replicating that.
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