DuckShader v0.1 - OpenGL Post-Effect Shader

[orangeduck]

Hi all,

I've created an OpenGL post effect shader you can give a try. It's intention is for general enhancement. In my opinion it looks pretty good on games intended to look realistic, and okay on cartoony games. But the result is still pretty subjective, so I won't say it is objectively better than having no post effects. Naturally it is some what configurable if you want to play with it. Just open in a text editor and change some of the defines.

There isn't much you can do with just the color channel for a post effect, but essentially what it does is something like the following - unsharp mask, fake hdr filmic tonemapping, skylight beveling, orange color compliment bias, and vignetting. It would be really awesome to open up the depth buffer for access in post effects. Then a whole host of awesome effects could be done. Perhaps I'll give the source code a download and see if I can make this addition myself!

Thanks to everyone for their awesome work on dolphin!

Download Here:

http://theorangeduck.com/media/uploads/other_stuff/DuckShader.glsl

To Install:

Place in your "Sys/Shaders" directory. It can then be picked from the "enhancements" tab of the graphics options when running in OpenGL mode.

Images Here:

http://imgur.com/a/2THCB

In the images I also included some comparisons to emulation at standard GC resolution, with no enhancements such as anti aliasing. Impressive to see how much nicer things look on Dolphin - not to mention the ability to run stuff at 60fps!

Be sure to post any nice screenies if you take em. In particular for Wii, which I've not tried yet.

Thanks,

Dan

[Oehr]

doesnt look good with cartoony games. its just not intended to look that way, after all^^

and the sharpening makes it looks worse for all games. do not use sharpening. ive seen plenty of screwed up sweetfx configs that supersharpened every subpixel... it just doesnt look good, natural or even. plus you get more noticeable bobbing, aliasing and so on. bottom line: dont use it.

without it, it might work quite well with resident evil, though im a bit concerned about dark areas. as your script considerably lowers the brightness in already darker areas, the picture might disappear completely within night scenes and dark rooms...

other than that, its always great to see more shaders popping up

[gamax92]

Hmm, I have to agree. Tested it on a few of my games, and overall the sharpness makes it worse. Same problem with brightness. It made dark areas even darker, ruining the atmosphere of the game. The slight tint is also odd and threw off my appeal.

[MayImilae]

When I saw the name of this, I imagined the asciiart plugin, except instead of composing the screen with letters, the Duckshader would compose the image entirely with ducks. I was very disappointed.

[pauldacheez]

^ needs moar dux

[xystus]

Thanks for your work and effort, but I think this doesn't look good at all; look at the blackcrush, almost no detail left in high-contrast spots. At first glance it might look real powerful, but totally at the expense of detail.

Reminds me of some bloom/HDR shaders, which alsof tend to go for that "wow effect", totally destroying fine detail in the process.

But hey, it's also a matter of taste!

[amozzz]

I would like it if the deep blacks were lessened a smidge. You want to hit the point where it heightens realism without obscuring too much of a scene.

For example, Twilight Princess ab #2. Notice how native the background path is easy to make out - in this it's almost lost. That has a lot to teach about the brightness cues you might retain.

Then I suspect it will handle not only realistic but cartoon art styles as well. I mean this Mario Kart looks like a bad acid trip...

I look forward to your source implementation.