W3Clouds - Volumetric Clouds (DX12) - BETA

W3Clouds - Early BETA

Volumetric clouds for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Remastered (DirectX 12)

BETA / WORK IN PROGRESS

This mod is in early beta and still being worked on. It was made and tuned with the vanilla (unmodded) game lighting in mind. Lighting, weather or colour mods, and heavy ReShade presets, may make the clouds look too bright, too dark or out of place. Expect changes between versions.

It's my first REAL mod, so go easy in the comments :)

What's new in 0. 18. 21

• []Better GUI

  Clearer, double click on slider to write the number manually.[/]

  []Dithering selectors

  choose between gradient, white noise or blue noise.[/]

  []The sun hides behind the clouds.

  The sun and moon fade with the cloud in front of them, and a hidden sun lights the cloud around it with a soft, bloomy glow.

  No more dark circle around the sun.[/]

  []Dynamic transitions.

  When the weather changes, the clouds blend into the new weather over 30 seconds (default) instead of jumping - and without rebuilding anything.[/]

  []High clouds.

  Real 3D cirrus, cirrocumulus ("mackerel sky") and altocumulus above the main clouds. Off by default - the new High clouds presets switch them on.[/]

  []Ultra detail.

  For strong GPUs: cauliflower billows and detailed self-shadows on close-up cumulus, behind its own on/off switch.[/]

  []Ride under the clouds.

  Sky scale shrinks the whole cloud sky to fit the game's compact map, so you can pass under a cloud and see it from the other side.[/]

  []Builds in seconds.

  The clouds now build with the game's own DirectX shader compiler - seconds instead of a minute. Changing a setting or a mode starts the new build at once.[/]

  []More control.

  Cloud brightness and "Save as preset" in Follow game weather, blue-noise dithering, a Complexity slider, and double-click any slider to type a value.[/]

  []More stable.

  Fixed a crash on game exit - an error while building no longer closes the game.[/]

  Coming next

  Various fixes, more weathers hooked in, GUI enhancements, more regions, volumetric clouds around the mountains of Skellige and Kaer Morhen in place of the painted cards, and eventually a new renderer for sharper, more detailed clouds at lower cost.

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  What it does

  The Witcher 3 draws its clouds as flat painted pictures on the sky. W3Clouds hides those and draws real 3D clouds in their place: they have depth, light and shadow, they drift with the wind, and they can sit in front of mountains.

  • []Follow game weather (recommended) - the clouds follow the weather the game is showing:

    []Clear = blue sky[/]

    []Light clouds = small fair-weather clouds, weak wind[/]

    []Mid clouds = more and bigger clouds[/]

    []Heavy clouds = large towering clouds, strong wind[/]

    []Storm clouds = a low, dark, lumpy deck[/]

    []Rain = a dark grey cover with some breaks[/]

  Every weather has its own settings ("profile") that you can change if you want. Weather changes blend smoothly.[/]

  []Custom look - your own sky, always the same: pick one of the 9 presets or move the sliders.[/]

  []High clouds - cirrus, cirrocumulus and altocumulus layers above the main clouds (optional).[/]

  []Uses the game's own light - sunrise, sunset, night and storms colour the clouds like the original sky.[/]

  []The sun and moon hide behind thick clouds, thin ones dim them, and a hidden sun makes the cloud glow.[/]

  []Clouds also show in reflections (water, sky reflections).[/]

  []F7 switches between the original clouds and the new ones, so you can compare.[/]

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  Before you start - 3 things you MUST have

  []The game running in DirectX 12. In the launcher, pick DirectX 12 (the game file is bin\x64_dx12\witcher3.exe). DirectX 11 does not work.[/]

  []ReShade - the version called "with full add-on support". It is the second download button on reshade.me. The normal ReShade download does NOT load this mod.[/]

  [*]The 3 things from this mod's download: W3Clouds.addon64, w3_clouds.hlsl and the