"Cinematic VFX" Particle Effects Addon (3.7)

Cinematic VFX is a high-fidelity visual effects replacement addon. It swaps default, low-resolution particle effects with state-of-the-art visual effects taken from AAA games, VFX production websites, and Unreal Engine Marketplace assets. No more 2006 stock photos of nebulas as anomaly effects. With textures up to 4k in resolution this pack elevates fire, explosion, impact, muzzleflash and anomalies to new heights, while still retaining great performance and minimal FPS cost wherever possible.

Currently updated to version 3.7. It's been tested on Anomaly 1.5.2 but must work on legacy versions as well. It is compatible with:

Boomsticks and Sharpsticks
TAZ 3.0
Contract Wars Weapon Pack
EFT Weapon Pack

1. New f%&*ing everything.
2. Reworked explosion, muzzleflash, bullet impact, anomaly, monster, blowout, and many other effects.
3. New blood effects with choice up to 3 different intensity kinds.
4. All effects went through a rigorous QA to make sure they stay in lane with STALKER's signature gloom aesthethic.

1. Put contents of 00. Core Files into Root Anomaly folder.
2. Put either one or none of the 01. folders into Core folder for different blood effects.
3. Put 02. Blood Decals on Characters to get giant blood marks to appear on characters when they're shot.

If you want to increase your performance even further with this effect pack, go to your Settings > Advanced, and turn down dynamic and static objects render to around 60-70%. It will prevent the engine from spawning particle effects (it treats them like physical objects) in the far areas of the map which you can't even see.

Changelog:

Version 2.0:

1. Revamped Explosion effects.

2. Fixed red mist over acid pools.

3. Removed psy fields effect - it's just a low quality distortion shader that was nothing but an annoyance.

3. Cleaned up effects marked as disabled which seemingly optimized the pack a little.

4. Reduced dust from the carousel anomalies.

Version 2.1:

1. Water splashes now have correct orientation.

2. Added lots of dust to explosions.

3. Cut explosion resolution in half due to most of it being occluded by dust anyway.

4. Fixed particle flicker. However don't rejoice as apparently there were 2 bugs in one. The particles would flicker AND they would z-fight. Now they just z-fight. It's still much easier on the eyes though. Like I stated it's an engine bug and the Anomaly devs would have to fix it themselves.

5. Restored burner sparks for non-deadly-anomalies version.

6. Reworked handgrenade explosions. Handgrenade explosions no longer produce fireballs.

Version 2.1 Hotfix 1:

1. Applied all the new effects to IEDs and exploding helicopters.

2. Toned down explosion dust.

3. Fixed campfire flickering. (The number one particle effect in stalker and I forgot to fix it?)

4. Removed "miniature flamethrower" muzzleflash in BaS.

Version 2.1 Hotfix 2:

1. Further diminished dust effects, should look best now.

Version 2.5 because who cares about the correct version labeling:

1. New explosion effects.

2. New muzzle flashes.

3. New blood effects.

4. New surface hit effects.

5. Smoke grenade now violates the Geneva Convention.

Version 2.5. Update 1:

1. Introduction of the Mild Edition that features more toned down effects.

2. The Mild edition at the moment has some expanded campfire effects but they'll transition to the Crazy edition too.

3. Muzzleflash "flash" in the Crazy edition has been removed for causing retina damage.

Version 2.6:

1. Introduced Realistic Edition.

2. White Phosphorous grenade has been removed for breaking the balance of the game to hell.

3. Muzzleflash smoke is returned to legacy version which obstructs the vision much less.

4. Lingering dust effect without much performance cost.

Version 3.0

1. New explosion effects that do not z-fight or flicker.

2. Some effects for campfires are updated.

3. New bullet impact effects from Far Cry 4.

4. New blood impact effects also from Far Cry 4.

5. Muzzleflashes are more realistic now.

6. 50 cal weaponry has a new huge muzzleflash effect.

7. Revamped burner anomalies.

8. Gravi anomalies' dust has been removed until the devs fix the stupid flickering bug.

9. New Pulse and Psy-storm effects.

10. Bloody edition is introduced that spawns more exaggerated blood puffs when shooting people.

11. Legacy 2.6 version is included into the main archive.

12. Sparks were made smaller across the board.

13. More sweetener to electras.

14. Removed no fragmentation-rounds patch as fps doesn't really dip anymore from explosions.

Version 3.0 Update 1: removed 50 cal muzzleflashes for being assigned to some low-caliber weapons as well. Information for modders: there's still a new 50 cal muzzleflash effect that you can use on your high-caliber weapons. It's under the name of generic_weapon10. There's also an unused "full-auto-gauss" muzzleflash that you can use called generic_weapon07_auto.

Version 3.0 Update 2:

1. New explosion effects (Again).

2. Some effects for campfires are updated (Again).

3. New bullet impact effects that somewhat simulate Cryengine effects. Attention: They ARE NOT performance friendly, but they are quality.

4. New blood impact effects from Crysis 3.

5. New muzzleflash and smoke effects. Can choose between brighter and darker.

6. Revamped Burner anomalies. Now with a more realistic color palette.

7. Revamped Acid anomalies.

8. Gravi anomalies' dust has been removed until the devs fix the stupid flickering bug.

9. New Pulse and Psy-storm effects.

10. New Emissions.

11. The Gauss rifle can now join the Avengers.

12. There's no "Invisible anomalies options" as the addon now keeps the anomalies hidden safe for the anomalies that are supposed to be visible by default - Acid, Electra.

13. Access Port violation crash at the Generators has been fixed. (At least I'm no longer getting it.)

14. TAZ 3.0 compatible now

Version 3.0 Update 3:

1. Vastly improved muzzleflash and explosion effects.

2. Brushed up effects of various kinds.

3. Fixed distortion shaders.

Quick update fix:

1. Made gravi anomalies just tiiiiiiiny bit harder to notice.

2. Fixed invisible cigarette smoke.

3. Removed WIP explosions that were never supposed to be seen in the first place.

4. Fixed glitchy muzzleflashes that would appear with delay.

Version 3.5:

1. Tweaked muzzleflash effects.

2. New impact effects and explosions.

3. New blood effects with choice up to 3 different intensity kinds.

4. Performance improvement.

5. Color palette tweak.

6. New various effects of many kinds (poltergeist effects, burer effects, pseudogiant effects, psy-storm effects, anomaly effects, etc.)

Update 1:

1. Performance improvement.

2. intensity downgrade for some effects.

3. Particle color palette tweaks.

Version 3.6:

1. New muzzleflash effect (dark and realistic).

2. Optimization for impact effects and explosions.

3. New blood effects with choice up to 4 different intensity kinds.

4. Electras are back to blue. Over the top gauss blast is restored.

5. Extras and bonuses in the zip.

Version 3.7:

1. Reworked explosion, muzzleflash, bullet impact, anomaly, monster and many other effects.

2. New blood effects with choice up to 3 different intensity kinds.