World of Warcraft HDR Mod
AmateraWorld of Warcraft still looks good, but let's face it, it's running on a pretty archaic engine. Even with enhancements like dynamic shadows in 3.0, revamped character models sprinkled throughout several patches, and improved water visuals coming in Cataclysm, there's still a lot of things that the game can't natively do. And if Blizzard doesn't see fit to tweak the game so that it pulls off some of the latest graphical tricks, then you're out of luck.
Except if you're antsy for some high-dynamic range lighting in your Warcraft. What is HDR you ask? Well, it's easiest to think of it this way: in theory, it makes the the brights brighter and the darks darker, while preserving the details of both. Most games use simplistic lighting models that don't take into account how someone would naturally see things. While HDR can be applied to make the overall world look more realistic, one specific application you might be familiar with is to simulate the way in which the human eye adjusts going from a place of intense light to intense darkness, and vice-versa (think entering or leaving a tunnel).
An enterprising player by the name of Chronalis has taken some a freeware DLL, tweaked the values, and made it compatible with World of Warcraft, so that you can implement the feature just as easily as installing any other mod. Simply download the ZIP and unpack the files into your root game directory (the one with WoW.exe in it). The filter can then be turned on and off at will by pressing Shift-F12, and it's lightweight enough to not tax most systems.
In my rudimentary experience, it can make some area of the game look really nice, and others look like an absolute nightmare. Forget about flying anywhere in Northrend where there's a lot of snow and white terrain, unless you enjoy having your eyes bleed! I've included a few screens in this post, but it's probably worth checking out Chronalis' Youtube video to figure out whether or not this is something you want to use.
- Grizzly Hills with HDR.
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The mod is something I might turn on every once in awhile to fancy up screenshots, but I don't think it's something I can actually play the game with. The main problem stems from the basic fact that it's third party, and seems to use a bit of post-processing to achieve the effect. Since it's not built-in to the engine, it can also affect the user interface which is a major pain.
But hey, I'm all for more graphical effects in the game, as long as Blizzard can maintain the optimization. Even the Warcraft III engine can buckle under the strain of a few dozen characters running around on the screen at once.
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