The post is so old, but everything still works. Thank you for creating such a simple but brilliant solution. You will have to render the previous three scenes for your project.

GENIUS!

This fix worked WONDERS. Thank you so much! a transparency value of 59 was the sweet spot for me, with a particularly dark scene at 2160p(4k) with harsh volumetrics. I can't thank you enough for this! <3

I have never in my life heard of comment banning

Thanks!

it might be perfectly normal if you can't see the difference

i could be wrong but you may have to be a "tetrachromat" to see the difference

which is rare, especially for men




...which means i'm special, ah kee kee kee

@TNT_NINJASHARK If you genuinely cannot see a difference in the image, your screen may require calibration or have a low luminance.

As is, I actually boosted the contrast in the example image to make it clearer, and yet many people still see the problem at its normal contrast level.

Bro is it just me because i can't tell the differance on the picture

Beautiful effect for the volumetric lights, but it adds a lot of grain (I read the entirety of the description before, but I haven't now when I"m using it, so I may be using it wrong), alpha adjustments help though.

Why, when I turn on the volumetric light, is it missing in the rendered image? I can’t do the effect of the "stream of light" type now

so it's basically the same method used in Titanfall 2?

The effect is applied as an overlay to the scene, rather than to the light itself, using the process for applying overlays that is given in the official Valve SFM tutorials - linked in the description. (It is, effectively, a *very* faint grain overlay that breaks up the boundaries of colour bands, so is basically applied in the exact same way as the grain overlay they apply in that tutorial).

As far as the files not appearing, then I don't think that's a problem specifically with the workshop item, as I've not had similar complaints from anyone else; I would suggest the usual process of unsubscribing and resubscribing for when a workshop item hasn't downloaded properly.

I still dunno if I'm finding the right thing. If I am IDK how to change the settings of it. Do I right click effects in the timeline or right click on the actual light?

I've been using SFM for a few years. I did what the Valve video showed with overlays, but those files aren't appearing for me to choose.

@BlueFlameMoltres The exact filenames are given in the "Includes" section in the end of the description. Note that the 4K overlay is not called "4K", but "2160p", as this is consistent with other files.

(Possibly I could have named the files with more keywords, but I don't want to change anything like that at this point, as it would break it in any subscriber's existing scenes. You can of course rename the files yourself if you feel the names need to be more descriptive).

Beyond that, if you're a new user, make sure you have "Workshop" enabled in your "Edit Search Paths" in the SDK so that your SFM install can access workshop content.

I don't think it's appearing in my overlay list. What is it called when selecting an overlay?

I can't believe i haven't ever used this in my 4k hours of SFM. This is beautiful. I'm using the 2160p.

As far as I know, the underlying technique should therefore work fine when you've got both HDR and overlay support, but the thing is, that because it's per-pixel noise, the overlay material needs to match the exact resolution to get the best results.

Ergo, my assumption is that I'd need to make a material for every possible resolution people want to export from GMod in. That's not a file size problem, as these actually use tiling to make each material repeat the same 128x128 texture enough times to fill up the resolution, but it would still quite a lot of work if GMod has more than a few export resolutions. In practice, a GMod solution might actually be most viable to explain to the users how to modify the material parameters to work for a given resolution.

(Which isn't especially complicated - divide resolution width by 128, divide resolution height by 128, put those two numbers in the right place in the material file using a text editor).

(2/2)

It is a material overlay, but the trick is that it's applying sub-bit noise to each pixel; by doing so it slightly randomises the pixel values across the image. As a result, if there are any slow transitions in colour value, it stops Source rounding the values off into sharp steps.

When a map has HDR, it can calculate brightnesses between normal 8 bit-per-colour values - for example, a pixel value of 32.5

The intention is for the noise to mean half of those 32.5 pixels end up with a colour value of 32, and half with a value of 33, rather all getting rounded off to just one or the other. This creates the impression in the final image of that pixel cluster being halfway between brightness 32 and 33.
(Similarly, a nearby cluster with an average colour value of 32.7 should have about 70% of the pixels with colour 33, and 30% with colour 32).

This is a technique known as dithering, which can make these transitions appear smoother (at the cost of very slight noise).

(1/2)

Well I wasn't sure how exactly this fix can be applied. I assumed it was a texture overlay of sorts but if not then I have no idea. I use Gmod as a base for most of my artwork and it would be handy if I could fix this banding issue or the graininess of shadows.

To be honest, I don't know. I don't really use GMod enough to know what's necessary - my use of it is almost entirely to download workshop content to transfer to SFM.

I believe the actual technique used should work in all Source Engine games that support both HDR and overlays. (That in itself might be a bit of a problem, as I know a lot of GMod maps don't support HDR).

On a practical level, I think I'd need to put together a lot of different material files. For best results, the overlay resolution needs to be exactly matched to the image export resolution, and I'm assuming that that GMod has a much wider range of export resolutions than SFM...?
(Even if I added a few more for completeness, SFM only really has three that are regularly used - 1280x720, 1920x1080, and 3840x2160)

Is there a possibility you could export this to GMod for use there?

@Błüė go and add a material overlay clip and then search for volumetric fix and use it

It's work on movie>image sequence?

Question, how do you apply it.

Just a short answer please if there is one.

can you make a fix to volumetric lights for those who cant use them?

alright chill

No, it does not.

This is why the description states that it does not work in poster mode, states AGAIN that it does not work in poster mode, explains why it does not work in poster mode, tells you what to do instead of exporting in poster mode, and also tells you not to bother posting comments about it not working in poster mode.

this does not work for poster?

so, i add the material in the clip editor, i go in element viewer i select the material, but how do i know my quality or resolution for sfm? p

@OfficerFunks - It *does* work if your computer fully supports SFM, you're using an HDR map and you're using it in the correct export mode.

Rather than saying things like "the next part", you need to be specific about what you are doing and the exact stage of the instructions where you are having trouble - right now, I don't know whether you're saying you're having trouble adjusting the material (which you might or might not consider part of adding it), whether your issue is at the export stage (such as using a mode that does not support overlays), or whether you're referring to the section in the instructions talking about image compression (which is the section after how to apply the materials).

doesnt work

i add the material but i dont understand the next part

I said *much* more specific. Telling me one thing you have done doesn't tell me where you're struggling.

i add the matieral part

@WonderfulEmu - the process of using this is pretty painstakingly detailed in the description, including links directly to the right part of the Valve tutorials regarding how to apply overlay materials, and which export modes it is incompatible with (to repeat what the description already says twice, it WILL NOT work in poster export mode - you have to use export modes that support post processing and overlays, although this still allows exports at up to 4K resolution).

If you have a problem, you will need to be much more specific as to exactly which stage you are having difficulty following the instructions.

it didnt work

i dont know how to use this

i dont understand

havent been able to notice much but, lighting detail looks smoother now

used it and it really shows that lighting better thank you so much :3 i'll be using this alot on posters and animations (don't worry I render animations as 1 frame movies as an image sequence)

About time someone made this....thanks you :3

Thank you!

Haven't even used it yet and i already know this is worth 5 stars.

Why did someone say "thank you for spelling colour the correct way," when there are two correct ways, colour and color. I don't know why that triggered me. Lol. But yeah this is fantastic thank you.

this is the best workshop item yet

whats funny is just after seeing this i decided to not download it and i started to make a poster, and i saw horrible banding. ♥♥♥♥.

Directed by Larry David

thank you for spelling colour the correct way

THANK YOU my dude :)

Yeet