I really should take a good look their presets as soon as I get back from work, especialy since I’m trying to work toward a good solid pack myself.
It’s just that we all have our own design philosophies, and I’m particularly finicky with mine.
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I really want to achieve this effect, but I don’t know how to set it. Can you give a configuration file, thank you.
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It’s OK to go with a no-scanline config with this sort of mask.
Here are the parameters:
BP = "-20.000000"
brightboost = "1.000000"
brightboost1 = "1.000000"
gsl = "-1.000000"
scanline1 = "4.000000"
scanline2 = "5.000000"
scangamma = "0.500000"
no_scanlines = "1.000000"
h_sharp = "3.400002"
s_sharp = "1.000000"
shadowMask = "8.000000"
maskstr = "0.750000"
mcut = "1.150000"
slotmask = "0.750000"
slotmask1 = "1.000000"
slotwidth = "3.000000"
double_slot = "2.000000"
To sum it up where you start:
- mask 8
- slotmask width 3.0 and height 2.0
- no-scanline mode
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OK I gave them try and I still don’t really “see” the point of slotmask per se, but leaning back in my futon couch computer setup I think I " feel" it. I see it in sprites moving vertically. They pop out just a little bit more I think, not as much as with a sharp beam profile though.
While the phosphor mask breaks up the scanlines, restoring some horizontal sharpness (or perhaps just the illusion of it) and creating a sort of “dot effect” (which Opus is designed to lean into) the slotmask does something similar vertically, giving vertically moving objects just enough “pseudo-sharpness” to “pop out” a little… Or maybe I’m just tired.
I’m sure that’s not the reason for the obsession though. I don’t think most people are quite as sensitive to this stuff as I am. And actual vertical sharpness can be achieved with the scanline settings.The honeycomb of course has it’s appeal, but it can be a bit too much like a window screen laid over the image.
And of course, me being me, I put @Cyber and @sonkun’s presets through a selection of faces and flesh tones.
@sonkun’s “02-crt-guest-advanced-hd-slotmask-neutral-s-video.slangp” surprised me; I expected brightness setting to butcher some faces, but in many cases it actually preserves them very well, it fails the streets of rage title screen test though. For flesh tones I give this preset a B+. Great for most games but a tad saturated for my liking (not entirely sure why though, the saturation settings seem to be untouched).
@Cyber’s presets seem a little diluted, however, a very specific razer-sharp aesthetic shines through the entire pack that would be diminished if corrected. I can’t call it a fault when clearly sacrifices were chosen well. That being said, if i’m judging by flesh tones then Cotton’s mini-face in Panorama Cotton almost looks like another ethnicity just from being too dim. I give the entire pack a flesh tone grade of C+ with the exception of the “Computer-Monitor” presets which get a B.
I was originally going to give sonkun’s preset a A- but the SoR test knocked it down a grade. I was also going to give Cyber’s presets a higher grade, but then I started thinking about what D would like I realized work with too narrow a scale.
EDIT 2022/11/11: In making this post I was far too impatient with @Cyber’s presets and I didn’t even notice the “Console_Specific_Presets” sub-folder. The “Death to Pixels” pack was judged in a deeply unfair manner.
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I like nice slotmask presets, a bit more than compared with most aperture ones. But sometimes you can’t just rush in a slotmask to an existing preset, some finesse makes a huge difference.
Example:
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Interesting post and review, I want my A- back lol. So you tried out the svideo preset huh. I’ll tell you right off the bat that the svideo presets all use the the checkerboard dithering and sgenpt-mix shader combo so there’s a good chance that played a role in the “SOR title screen test” (what is the sor title screen test anyway?). Those two shaders aren’t perfect, you’ll get false positives in some areas but they get the job done for the most part and I keep them for “future proofing” in case one day they do get updated and work perfectly the way they should. I also plan on swapping those two shaders out and putting in the updated sgenpt-mix shader by @Hyllian when that becomes available upstream so maybe you’ll try the test once more when I put up a new shader pack with that shader in the chain.
Besides that I appreciate the score and critique, always interesting to read any kind of feedback on my presets.
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Using slotmask does something pleasant to my eyes when playing far from my screen,like some sort of dithering effect or smoothing. Mainly with big masks size,it tricks my brain even if I cannot see wich version of the mask is used (rgb-gm-bw) from that distance. But illusion is there ! 
Edit: 3x slotmask height looks good too
7 Likes
I downloaded your death to pixels pack and noticed each preset was specialized. You have a style however, and it shows throughout the pack, so I took it in more as whole. Admittedly Mega Bezel’s load time tested my patience; I don’t think I was 100% thorough, but I’m sure I went through most of them.
@sonkun’s pack seemed to be signal and tone variations of the same concept, so in that case I picked the one I liked the most and graded that.
I’m sorry I forgot to mention this, but yes I did. I checked them out separately. Sonic’s waterfall doesn’t spaz out on me anymore, I love it! It almost makes me want to stop making NTSC presets and just use your updated Blargg filter… almost.
Are they separate from pack V1.5.0_05-11-22?
For the record my screen is a 28" 4k “Acer CB282K smiiprx” sitting on a media center pretending to be a TV in a couch computer setup. My setup’s weird, but at least it doesn’t use a backwards pixel format.
Don’t.
The grade isn’t a measure of overall subjective quality, but rather how colors used in facial features remain true to “raw + chosen_signal” (I used to correct NTSC colors to try to match raw, but then I stopped and just accepted it as accurate). And for the above mentioned monitor because it’s my only one.
S = colors perfectly raw+signal (Probablynot possible)
A+ = trivial deviations from raw+signal
A = colors near raw+signal
A- = skin looks passable across all games and systems (when it should)
B = great
C = average
D = mediocrity - Player one should should see a doctor.
F = Get the protagonist to the ER.. NOW!
This became something of obsession of mine after seeing too many characters develop jaundice from either saturation or brightness settings, not too mention what happens to a mask after it undergoes full screen sharpening.
The human eye is extra sensitive when it comes to faces.
Making general purpose presets that address this issue demands compromise, and it’s a rabbit hole of a balancing act in what is already a rabbit hole of a balancing act. There are many things I’d like to keep that I have sacrifice in order to do this.
If you try to tackle my obsession with near raw colors you’ll find yourself faced with many of the same issues and might end up tearing your presets apart.
And besides, if everyone catered to MY specific interests the people who just lurk and download would find this community’s offerings dull! We don’t need everyone trying appease my insanity. We have me to do that.
I sincerely doubt that, given that both those things exist to get at the benefits of a NTSC signal without the extra footprint, and technically qualify as “chosen_signal” in my book.
I was lazy and didn’t wan’t to type “Streets of Rage” twice.
There have been several occasions were I iv’e thought I had thing set up perfectly only to bring up the Streets of Rage title screen and find my method for calibrating brightness was fundamentally flawed. Blaze’s hair is a good gauge for dark pixels. Adam is more sensitive to saturation. Axel’s face is also rather sensitive across the board. (The NTSC version of my own “Opus” preset only gets a pass by the “chosen_signal” rule. @Nesguy was not impressed.)
Another Test I’ve been using lately is in the Super Famicom game Alcahest. The character “Garstein” has a face that seems to have been designed with NTSC_J in mind. It’s nearly yellow already and on the edge of what looks still looks like skin.
And of course there’s Panorama Cotton which uses delicate and pastel colors rather frequently.
3 Likes
I see. Basically you have your own method to the madness when it comes to shaders. Also as far as saturation you’re right, I didn’t touch it all so that’s just how it looks. At first I actually lowered the saturation and got complaints that the saturation looked diluted so I just said to hell with it and left it as is. Anyway interesting posts, thank you for explaining the streets of rage title screen test as well.
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I don’t think it’s “correct” to target the raw colors, because these colors were chosen based on how they would appear on a CRT. The raw colors as displayed on an LCD aren’t the intended colors. You seem to have different goals, though, which of course is perfectly fine.
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luv this picture, care to share settings ? thanks.
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Here are the parameters:
SIGMA_HB = "0.400000"
SIGMA_VB = "0.400000"
bloom = "0.600000"
halation = "-0.100000"
gamma_c = "1.250000"
brightboost = "1.000001"
brightboost1 = "1.200000"
scanline1 = "0.000000"
scanline2 = "15.000000"
beam_min = "1.250000"
beam_max = "0.950000"
beam_size = "0.000000"
scans = "0.600000"
scan_falloff = "0.650000"
spike = "1.500000"
h_sharp = "3.200002"
sth = "0.300000"
bsize1 = "0.000000"
shadowMask = "6.000000"
maskstr = "0.900000"
mcut = "0.800000"
maskboost = "1.500000"
mask_layout = "1.000000"
mask_gamma = "2.399999"
slotmask = "0.800000"
slotmask1 = "0.800000"
slotwidth = "3.000000"
double_slot = "2.000000"
mclip = "0.250000"
gamma_out = "2.200000"
deconrr = "1.000000"
deconrb = "-1.000000"
deconrry = "1.000000"
deconrby = "-1.000000"
decons = "0.800000"
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New Release Version (2022-11-08-r1):
Notable changes:
- “mclip” parameter now defaults 0.0
- added a new option to clean up / adjust mask-scanline interaction in brighter tones when mask effects is too dominant between two of them
Download link:
https://mega.nz/file/Exh0Uapa#7BV6MlerVo8GnDeodcuDqxR9uP2uEy2_bEHo75JnL94
Effect comparison:
Before:
After:
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oh man, well done! That’s long been one of my gripes with the maskDark/maskLight method. Looks very nice.
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Nice. Can’t wait to get home and see how this looks on my presets.
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Another good one and necessary step.
Thanks.
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A screenshot of the new feature in use:
Subjectively it can look very nice as well with aperture as with slotmask presets.
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Looks really good… Is the preset maxed out? Just wondering. I want to use it with slotmask… 
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It’s using some slotmask strength, but not maxed out. New feature also looks good with slotmasks otherwise.
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