The Roadside - Cinematic Reshade Preset For Anomaly 1.5.1. addon

The Roadside is a highly cinematic reshade that makes heavy use of light, shadow and visual effects. While it stays in its own range of balance, if you value clarity of detail in your visuals, it is probably not for you. This preset is designed to work with Anomaly 1.5.1, but it will work on older builds and even when installed on other games.

Insertion notice: It is recommended to wake up at 7 AM as otherwise you'll be missing out on some sweet custom sunrises. I also recommend installing OPFOR HUD as it works really well with this reshade.

This installation guide will walk you through the setup procedure for this reshade to work.

WHAT'S NEW IN 1.6?:

The preset has been rebuilt from scratch that now eliminates some of the shortcomings of the original. It uses a different, and superior, tonemapper, whereas the old one used a double tonemapper hdr, uses multieffect files instead of separate dedicated effects, new very clean lens flares, and a different color scheme that has a much cleaner profile. All of this results in a much more better looking and optimized for performance preset. The new tonemapper also brightens the ui better, so there's no more issue seeing things clearly when trading / inventory managing.

ATTENTION: THIS PRESET OVERHAULS THE WEATHER PRESETS FOR A SIGNIFICANT VISUAL BALANCING OF THE PICTURE. IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER WEATHER PRESETS ALREADY INSTALLED THEY WILL CONFLICT WITH THE INTENDED LOOK OF THIS RESHADE. CREATE BACKUP AND THEN DELETE THE ENVIRONMENT FOLDER IN GAMEDATA/CONFIGS/.

PLEASE NOTE:

This is a heavy duty reshade preset that messes a lot with in-game lighting. As such, it replaces the user.ltx that contains in-game lighting settings. If you're an advanced user, you can copy-over the needed lighting parameters from those included in the readme file. But really replacing the user.ltx will at the very worst simply change some of the keybindings that you'll just have to reassign back.



INSTALLATION GUIDE:

There was an incredibly drawn-out installation guide but now it's all gone because installing this preset is now 10x easier. All you need to do is to drop the contents of the "RoadsideReshade" folder into your anomaly root directory! However, there are several important things to take note:

IF YOU HAVE ANY ALREADY INSTALLED WEATHER, LIGHTING, SHADER ADDONS THERE WILL MOST LIKELY BE INCOMPATIBILITIES AND CRASHES TO DESKTOP. THIS PRESET IS DESIGNED TO WORK WITH ANOMALY INSTALLATIONS THAT DO NOT TWEAK WEATHER, SHADERS OR LIGHTING. NORMALLY IT IS ENOUGH TO LOCATE YOUR "ENVIRONMENT" FOLDER IN GAMEDATA/CONFIGS/ AND RENAME IT "OLDENVIRONMENT". THIS WILL BOTH GENERATE A BACKUP AND CLEAN UP THE DIRECTORY FOR ROADSIDE'S WEATHERS.

It is IMPORTANT that you have the performance mode enabled while running this preset. Press HOME button and the performance mode tickbox will be at the very bottom right of the Reshade's GUI.

It is IMPORTANT to copy over the contents of the "Gamedata" folder into the root directory. Inside there are custom weather presets without which various places and times of day would look too bright, too dark, or otherwise out of visual balance. If you have any other weather addons already installed, it is recommended to head to gamedata/configs/and rename "environment" as something else, for example "oldenvironment", "backupenvironment".


IF YOU FIND THE BLOOM SETTINGS TOO INTENSE:

Disable these effects, and it will reduce the bloom effect from this reshade by 75%. There is a patch included in the zip that lessens the bloom effect. Maybe try that first.

IF YOU WANT TO DELETE THE JJ ABRAMS LENS FLARES:

Delete gamedata/configs/environment/suns.ltx and gamedata/textures/fx folder.

MOAR SCREENSHOTS:

Changelog:

Version 1.1: Introduced custom weather presets intended to balance out the visual output and keep it from going too dark/bright.

Version 1.2: Overhauled the weather presets yielding a significant improvement in visual balance. Removed lens dirt to further the clarity of the picture.

Version 1.2.1: Reintroduced lens dirt but a much better and much more naturalistic version. Fixed lens flares in the google drive link (it was actually an old version where the lenticular halo would linger on your screen like a crescent moon.) Fixed Prozhora's HUD for whatever reason not working when installed.

Version 1.2.2: Weather presets are brightened up again.

Version 1.3: Weather presets are overhauled... Again. And probably once again in the future. Anamorphic flares are now a part of the reshade itself. Added a CiNeMaTiC letterbox. Prozhora's HUD icons are now higher as to not be occluded by the letterbox.

Version 1.3 Hotfix 1: fixed disappearance of sun during sunrise section of Cloudy1

Version 1.3 Hotfix 2: Weird sun behavior at sunrise of Cloudy 1 is gone for good. Small tweaks to post processing and user.ltx improve the appearance of shadows, they are less intense. Super-fast cloud movement speed of Rain 3 at around 10 AM has been fixed.

Version 1.4: The preset now uses Prod80's Highlight pass at no performance cost (it was already there, just its opacity was set to 0) to shave off pixels going into extreme brightness. It eliminates strange visuals like your sky being completely white with blinding lens dirt for good. The reshade's baseline brightness is not affected. It means that some visuals will not get too bright, but the reshade itself did not get more dark.

Version 1.5: Tweaks to the core color-grading setup. Tweaks to the weathers, primarily cloudy and rainy. Comes with a brighter and cleaner version of UIM. Included BAS-compatible icons that are also bright and noticeable now. Included addons into the main archive. Split the Reshade into two editions, Complete (with addons installed), and Reshade Only.

Version 1.6: Remade from scratch. New tonemapper, new color-grading, new flares, optimization tweaks. Yeeted the letterbox. ADDED: A very quick fix that moves the rainbow flare out of the way.