If you are after a more coarse mask look, you can also try to lower mask gamma. High mask boost values can also produce an overly bright image and clipping, especially with mask mitigation techniques. Mask gamma support for ordinary bloom is only available since the latest version though.
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Haha the man himself sees my game plan, yes I’m going for the coarser mask look, always have been since the start, that look is the sexiest right there and I think I can finally achieve it with minimum moire this time around. Those first 4 pics I posted up there from mvsf are already obsolete to me, those Metal Sonic pics is the look I plan to put out in the next update.
Funny you mention the mask gamma setting as I still haven’t really touched it yet, since those mvsf pics I posted I lowered the crt mask boost to 1.40, at 2.00 or higher it was starting to produce this weird subtle greenish tint on the image. I also lowered the bright scanline setting from 1.00 to 0.90. Later on tonight I’ll play around with the new mask gamma setting you implemented in your latest update and see where that takes me. Hopefully I can put the finishing touches on these presets by tonight and get them ready for release as I really like how my presets are looking right now.
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Meanwhile i’m playing around with the “Magic Glow” a bit. I guess it can never look right lol, but i could still implement it since the performance hit is very small.
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What’s this Magic Glow? Sounds interesting.
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It’s an adaptation of the Reshade version of Magic Bloom. It’s doable without a notable performance hit, but the user shoud select if he wants ordinary glow or “magic glow”.
The catch is that glow passes alow a very large effect radius and are outputing to 800x600, so i can make good use of it effect and performance wise.
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Nice. I’ve heard Magic Bloom was good, never used it before but having a another new way to illuminate the image sounds fun, might be one of the ingredients needed to give a nice magic touch to our presets.
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Oh wow! You’re making my day! 
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New Release Version (2023-01-31-r1):
Notable changes:
- initial Magic Glow implementation (standard and ntsc versions)
Usage:
- select Magic Glow mode within the glow pass parameters
- increase filter range and sigma
- effect strength is controlled with the same glow parameter as ordinary glow
Download link:
https://mega.nz/file/11QzUbaA#f5OjdPHKEAjViZzzkUGU20vJQ6BFVsdmJukyaSWdnwk
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Damn didn’t think it was arriving this fast lol. I can’t wait to get home and play with this.
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Quite a different beast.
You really have to increase sigma, otherwise you won’t even notice the glow. Comparing it to the regular glow it seems to brighten up the image a little more, so it could be used in combination with bloom reduction.
Like, I’m using mask 11 now, and -0,40 for bloom is nice; with magic glow you could use -0,30, maybe even -0,20 (sigma at 3, like). Getting bloom as low as possibile a nice thing, because the amount we use is not something you see on a CRT.
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Magic Glow isn’t implemented in the hd version? I don’t see it anywhere in the settings. I see it in the standard and ntsc versions though.
Edit: I see you wrote in the post that it’s just for those two versions. I was in a rush to download it, well damn lol.
I think it’s the “black” area receiving some lighting. See pic.
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Yeah I’ve played around with it a bit, it’s nice
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Ok, the first image is my current preset, with regular glow. The second one is my preset but with magic glow, plus a change in glow value, 0,20 against 0,10, and a reduction in bloom, -0,20 instead of -0,40.
As you can see magic glow it’s way more bright with, ehm, bright colors, in a striking way (look at the whites, at the light yellows). It almost kills the mask, and, note well, with a more pronounced mask, as the bloom value it’s lower.
As glow being glowy, I would say classic glow it’s stil the best option, but I have to dig a little deeper with sigma.
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New Release Version (2023-02-01-r1):
Notable changes:
- Magic Glow overhaul (standard and ntsc versions)
- important: mask + slotmask alignment fixes (works fine with me, maybe needs testing)
- BGR layout adjustment for proper slotmask representation
- edit: small fix
Download link:
https://mega.nz/file/RlZERTCC#ZmhmjeoHc7pbRvCXLQKRvYvUutFfa6wUui8BECn50Qo
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Very curious about that one there, I’m about 90 percent ready to put out my next shader preset update so hopefully whatever that new alignment fix is puts the cherry on top of everything, when I get home later though.
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Yeah, you should now use masks 2.0 and 6.0 with slotmask properly. OTOH there have already been situations where driver/HW discrepancies were obvious with some coding approaches and i had to redo masks 7&8. Feedback is welcome ofc.
Here is also a magic glow demonstration screenie. I would say you can get used to it after a while lol.
Edit: small update for recent shader version
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Hi Guest, what I see with your work is amazing, and I’m seriously questioning what my beliefs and presets were thanks to your work. In particular could you please share the settings you used with Breath Of Fire 3 ? It’s beautiful ! Thank you with all my heart.
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You can start with these parameter values:
wp_saturation = "1.250000"
m_glow = "1.000000"
m_glow_cutoff = "0.150000"
SIZEH = "12.000000"
SIGMA_H = "3.899999"
SIZEV = "12.000000"
SIGMA_V = "3.899999"
glow = "-0.500001"
mask_bloom = "0.400000"
brightboost = "1.000000"
brightboost1 = "0.900000"
gsl = "-1.000000"
h_sharp = "3.600001"
s_sharp = "1.500000"
shadowMask = "6.000000"
maskstr = "1.000000"
maskboost = "1.400000"
slotmask = "1.000000"
slotmask1 = "1.000000"
slotwidth = "3.000000"
double_slot = "2.000000"
post_br = "1.100000"
You should use a standard version preset as base and ofc. the latest version of the shaders.
Example:
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Quick feedback: RGB mask is now BRG,green is no longer in the center.
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