I've been posting loads of screenshots recently and people keep asking how I made the game look like this:

hi-res version[i.imgur.com]

This guide answers that question.

You will need a decent computer to get best results. Here's my specs:

* CPU: AMD Ryzen 2600X
* GPU: GTX 1080Ti 11GB
* RAM: 32 GB

I made some imgur galleries so you can see what's achievable:

* A forest fire in the mountains[imgur.com]
* Some random screenshots of terrain/networks[imgur.com]

The stuff listed here helps me get great screenshots, but it's not best suited to actual gameplay. Specifically, the shadow-side of buildings and terrain is very dark. So this stuff isn't without issues. I'm welcome to any suggestions to improve it in any way.

Let's start with the map - my favourite map of all time is Wildest Alaska, get it here:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/?id=666527334
An interesting terrain makes it much easier to make interesting screensots. And that map is filled with mountains, vallleys and all sorts of other interesting features.

However, I make various changes to the map each time I start a new game, notably:

* Remove all the road/rail networks - I replace them in-game
* Remove all the trees - I replace them in-game
* Add a bunch of rivers in the mountains

It's up to you whether you want to do that. I just prefer the extra level of custsomisation and detail from hand-picked workshop assets. While that type of detailing isn't really in scope of this guide, I'll just mention a few:

* Roads: UK Roads Revived
* Rails: Railway project
* Trees: Low Tri Pine Filler and Weeds (and many others)

I basically avoid vanilla stuff wherever possible.

hi-res version[i.imgur.com]

For the rivers, I use Extra Landscaping Tools to add water sources with 0.1 intensity. I put them in areas of the mountains that look like the sort of place where a river would form.



The blue spots in the image above are water sources. I shrink their height down so each river starts as just a trickle. The more rivers flowing in to a valley, the bigger the resulting river will be, which again gives natral look.

There are two side-effects of the rivers that help make the map look more realistic:

1. The game adds extra fog around the rivers, so by placing them in good locations you get the extra 'depth contrast' between mountains.
2. They alter the terrain textures in often interesting ways (this relies a lot on the custom theme mix shown later in this guide).

This is where I spent the most time. I couldn't find any map theme that really gave me the look and feel I was after, so I ended up creating a mashup using the 'Theme Mixer 2' mod:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1899640536
The mod has a huge number of settings, far too many to describe here - luckily, it allows them to be exported to the steam workshop!

Make sure you have all the required items (lots of other themes) as my mashup pulls textures from all of them:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2175810604
I've tweaked basically everything I could think of, even the colour applied at water edge, the color of lights at night, etc. It's all in that theme mix linked above.

Note: Having all those extra themes subscribed won't affect RAM; only one texture for each thing gets loaded, so it's same RAM usage as having just a single theme.

I use 'Environment Theme Changer' to set the map biome (to 'Boreal') and base theme independently of whatever the map was designed to use.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=611254368
Interestingly, it seems (I've not confirmed this, just a hunch) that if you use a hi-res (4K) base theme the resulting textures in-game seem to be higher quality. You can find a bunch of 4K themes in the workshop, give it a try. The Theme Mixer will override the vast majority of their textures and settings anyway. I'm currently using Laviante 2.0 as base theme (not sure if it's 4K res, but it seems to work well enough for my needs).

The sun is customised with 'Daylight Classic' mod:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=530871278
I use unconventional settings:

* Classic stock LUTs: Disabled
* Classic sunlight color: Disabled
* Classic sunlight intensity: Enabled
* Classic sun position: Enabled (somtimes I disable it during normal gameplay)
* Classic fog effect: Enabled (if you disable it, it prevents the cubemap from showing)
* Classic fog color: Disabled
* Allow classic fog effect if day/night cycle is on: Enabled

Note: There are additional tweaks to the sky in the Theme Mixer config which add to the overall effect.

The sky is customised using the 'Cubemap Replacer' mod:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1183931915
I'm using 'Evening Road' cubemap, which is by far the best cubemap I've seen for boreal environments:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2170999920
Both of those are mods, so remember to enable them in Content Manager > Mods screen after subscribing. I also recommend exit to desktop after enabling them, as sometimes the cubemaps don't work properly on initial activation (exit to desktop and relaunch game fixes that).

Settings for cubemap replacer mod:

* Day: Evening road
* Night: Vanilla (does nothing currently)
* Minimise horizon: Enabled (I just prefer it that way)

That gives us a sky that looks like this:



For me, that was a game changer. While there are other decent cubemaps available, nothing comes even close to 'Evening Road' IMO. Every direction you look in is vividly different and interesting in its own way.

There are lots of other cube maps available:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2092939146
The cubemap is static, the clouds won't move. However, you can get some moving clouds with the addition of this mod:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2077102792
For the LUT, I'm using Relight Average:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1539181199
Note: I'm just using it as basic LUT on its own, I'm not using the main Relight Mod.

Display settings:

* I've just maxed everything based on what my monitor can handle.

Preferences:

* Color Correction Override: Relight2Average (from "More Relight LUTs" linked above)
* Depth of field: Disabled (usually; just personal preference)
* Film grain: About 20% (again, personal preference)

Quality settings:

* Shadow Quality: Low
* Shadow Distance: Very far
* Texture Quality: High
* Level of Detail: Very high
* Anistropic filtering: Enabled
* Anti-aliasing: Disabled (personal preference)

In addition, I use 'Shadow Distance Fix' mod to increase shadow lengths (fixes an issue with 'Camera Positions Utility' mod that I also use):

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2126881996
Settings:

* Shadow distance: Max
* minShadowDistance: Vanilla

And I use 'Shadow Strength Adjuster' to make shadows softer:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=762520291
Settings:

* Slider at about 80%

I also use 'Sharp Textures' to improve texture rendering:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=793176674
Settings:

* Anistropy: 8 (High)
* Mipmap Bias: -0.2 (Sharp)

If you have food or drink in your mouth, finish that first before reading this section.

I don't want you to spit it out all over your computer.

You are probably expecting the usual mods, such as Relight, Ultimate Eye Candy, PostProcessFX, etc?

Nope.

I use Render It mod. Yes, you read that right. It's far from ideal, but it's part of how I got the game looking like the screenshots above.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1794015399
Settings:

* Anti-aliasing: FXAA
* Ambient Occlusion: Enabled
* Bloom: Disabled
* Color Grading: Disabled

FXAA settings:

* Quality: Quality

Ambient Occlusion settings:

* Intensity: About 30% on slider
* Radius: About 60% on slider
* Sample count: High
* Downsampling: Enabled
* Force Forward Compatibility: Disabled
* Ambient Only: Disabled
* High Precision: Enabled

I use 'Ultimate Level of Detail (ULOD)' to control the default LOD distances for everything.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1680642819
Settings (tweak to your personal preferences):

* Tree: 300m
* Prop: 1500m
* Decal: 1500m
* Building: 1750m
* Network: 2000m
* Vehicle LOD: 400m
* Vehicle render: 1500m

I also use 'Adaptive Prop Rendering Distance' which fine-tunes LOD distances based on asset dimensions:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=625608461
I left it at default settings, but you can play around with them to get best results.

I use 'Tree LOD Fix' to improve detail of tree LODs:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1349895184
Settings:

* Lod Resolution: High

On the subject of trees, I also use 'Tree Movement Control' to "randomly" rotate trees for a more natural look:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1388613752
Settings:

* Random Tree Rotation: Enabled
* Stop Distant Trees: Enabled (about 60% on the slider)

I use 'Transparency LOD Fix' to ensure transparent bits of buildings stay transparent at LOD distance:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=922939393

I use 'Camera Positions Utility' to get more flexible camera positions while taking screenshots:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=898480258
Settings:

* Disable _whatever_ collision: Enabled
* Ground proximity: 14
* FOV: I usually have it 50%-70% of the slider
* Near clip plane: 0.63

To get the best sun position for a screenshot, I use 'Time Warp Fix':
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=814698320
Normally I just set the time of day to get "golen hour" - there's one in morning and one in evening where sun is at just the right position in sky to get really amazing screenshots. It has a bunch of other features that let you tweak size, intensity, lat/long of the sun, but I generally don't use those.

Once I've got the camera and sun setup just the way I want them, there's one final task:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=812713438
That allows me to increase the render resolution. I usually set it to 400% or more, which basically fries my graphics card but gets the most detailed screesnhot possible.



So, there you go. Hope it helps you get better screenshots and if you can find any ways to improve on my settings let me know in the comments!