In last a few days I was working on lighting algorithm to make lighting improvements v2 compatible with default rendering pipeline.
First some information about the mod:
I will release it when it's ready to release.
Compatible with other mods including environment/weather/map/truck etc mods.
It will work on 1.54/1.55.
It will be released for free and later it will become 1 USD/Month.
It will support multimonitor/VR but performance is the problem with SSAO/rain reflections. Because of high resolution on multimonitor/VR, it will be harder to render them because they are screen space algorithms.
SCS changes a few things each update. Sometimes its fine but with all the changes I made inside game engine for lighting improvements v2 its pretty hard to keep it compatible with newer versions of the game. And I cannot just pass newer versions of the game and let you miss new features in the game. Using a new rendering pipeline always will be a problem to keep it compatible with new game versions.
So I made the changes to make it compatible. Now its fully compatible with default rendering pipeline. Also there are some other changes I made:
Now outside the cabin instead of using PBR lighting its using custom lighting algorithm looks like PBR but it doesn't lose details like PBR lighting. Because game textures are not PBR textures (doesn't have AO data for textures, proper normal maps and roughness information etc) it was washing out a lot of details. It doesn't do that anymore.
New custom lighting algorithm cannot handle wet surfaces so its using PBR lighting for wet surfaces like wet road, water etc.
Inside cabin its using PBR lighting.
Added default windshield rain drops, you can change them with mods as you want.
Improved rain particles. I didn't change the way they move or the particles but I made changes to make them look more realistic.
Added rain ripples to puddles.
Made a new rain reflection algorithm to improve performance. Proper rain reflection system is important to have realistic looking wet road but it must be also fast. Now its 5x faster to render. Its less accurate compared to before but its pretty hard to notice. Its worth the performance improvements.
Because its implemented to default pipeline, there are no shader/material problems like you cannot see some objects or they look incorrect.
Also;
Currently vehicles reflections handled by default system, I might implement them like I did with older versions. I will try to minimize modifications to avoid future compatibility issues.
Night lighting (headlights, streetlights etc) is still using default lighting algorithm.
Lighting Improvements helps to make the game look better but still game has low quality assets in older regions and mostly bad looking foliage/road textures. I might make a second mod in the future to replace old game assets with new PBR assets. ETS2 with old assets in northern countries and ATS with noisy looking bright textures almost everywhere.
Its still harder to render than default game because of the additional gbuffer data, realistic rain reflections and forced new SSAO system but its a lot faster compared to v1.
Now its almost ready to release but I don't know when. I can't say when I'm going to release because I wasn't going to do all these changes until a few days ago.
I gave up predicting the future, just wait for release. I'm the one who wants most to release it soon as possible but I don't want to release something broken or not good enough.
I don't want donations or subscriptions before release. Its probably going to be paid anyway. You can do that after release.
Sure there will be some problems with first release as always but doesn't mean I should set the bar low.
Thank you for reading, have a nice day.