Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines

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Natural Lighting
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22 Jan, 2024 @ 1:40pm
13 Jul @ 9:25am
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Natural Lighting

Description
Overview
    A Cities: Skylines mod that adjusts in-game lighting to look more natural.




Natural Lighting
This mod is a "no-frills", "no performance impact", "no configuration needed" attempt to provide an instant visual improvement in the game by making the in-game lighting look more natural and the shadows on the buildings less harsh.

It is a replacement for Daylight Classic and Softer Shadows but made for the current version of the game (1.19.2-f3) and having some of the features removed that targeted the version of the game available in their day and age that work a bit janky in the current version or look out of place nowadays (in my opinion).

The mod provides translations for all it's settings menu items in all the languages supported by the game. If you find an incorrect translation, please leave a comment below or open an issue on GitHub, linked below.

Features
All individual features of this mod can be enabled/disabled in-game in Options > Mod Settings > Natural Lighting.

Color Correction (default: on)
This mod changes the default lighting colors in the game so everything doesn't look so tinted yellow anymore.

Softer Shadows (default: on)
Softens the shadows on buildings so they don't look so harsh anymore.

Natural Lighting LUT (default: on)
This mod includes the option to use a dedicated LUT for the best experience. You can enable/disable that option anytime in-game. But you can of course also use any other LUT you like.

Sun Shafts (default: on)
This mod includes the option to use a sun shafts or "god rays" effect. If you look at the sun in-game and it's light gets occluded by in-game objects, like trees and buildings, the sun shafts will follow this occlusion. Effect is only active when the sun is visible in the game.

Chromatic Aberration (default: off)
This mod includes the option to use a chromatic aberration effect. This shifts the color channels slightly for elements that are in the mid to center screen space to mimic a camera lense effect.
This effect is off by default.

Compatibility
Game Version: 1.19.2-f3
Uses Harmony: no
Changes Save Files: no

This mod has a built-in check for the presence of the following mods that provide similar functionality or would break it:
  • Daylight Classic - replaced by this mod
  • Softer Shadows - replaced by this mod
  • Sun Shafts - replaced by this mod
  • Sun Shafts (Chinese) - replaced by this mod
  • Render It! - much more options and scope
  • Lumina - much more options and scope
  • PostProcessFX - Multi-platform - much more options and scope
If one of these is detected, Natural Lighting will deactivate itself and show a message in it's settings panel in the game's options menu. You can then either disable these mods to use Natural Lighting or check the "Enable anyway" checkbox. In the latter case, Natural Lighting will apply its settings and possibly override the settings from the incompatible mods. This will not result in crashes but may result in the game's lighting becoming a mix between Natural Lighting and the other mod(s). However this might give you an interesting starting point: You can for example activate Natural Lighting in conjunction with Render It! or Lumina and use these mods to then fine tune the game's visuals to your liking. Recommended only for players who have more experience with the aforementioned mods.

Why not just use Render It! or Lumina?
I like both mods. I used them for quite some time as Daylight Classic and Softer Shadows are very old and have their quirks with the current version of the game. But I could never get exactly the look I wanted and both mods gave me option paralysis. I just wanted a no-config, instant improvement for the game's very yellow tinted lighting. So I created Natural Lighting for myself and decided to share it here.

The second reason is that both mods use the Harmony patching library which might cause issues[github.com] for people who play the game on Apple Silicon Hardware as it has some outstanding issues with platform support. Natural Lighting does not make use of Harmony.




Source Code
The source code of all my mods is available on
[github.com]

Feel free to report any issues and feedback there or here on Steam.
37 Comments
MrPapaBear 17 Jul @ 5:38am 
Sorry for not being more specific. Yes I use ACME and Sun Shafts are Visible during the day. What I meant was that I didn't play with time running because I just started a new City. Also I am still working on the perfect re-shade settings. :steamhappy:
Bomret  [author] 14 Jul @ 2:59pm 
@MrPapaBear I'm using the ACME camera mod. It allows the camera to be moved around much more freely. I specifically implemented the feature to only be active, when the sun is visible and am using a highly optimized shader.
MrPapaBear 13 Jul @ 7:56pm 
Sun Shafts so far didn't have a real way of testing/ seeing it, but at least FPS don't change with it enabled. The og Mod would tank FPS. The other new effect chromatic aberration is nice for Pictures. So the light drop in FPS is not Important.
CreatorOfWorlds 13 Jul @ 2:08pm 
💪 looking forward to trying it.
Bomret  [author] 13 Jul @ 9:55am 
Sun shafts and a subtle chromatic aberration effect have been implemented. The chromatic aberration effect is disabled by default. Go to the mod settings in the game's options menu. There you can enable/disable everything.
Bomret  [author] 13 Jul @ 1:01am 
@CreatorOfWorlds I’m currently testing an options sun shafts implementation. Stay tuned.

@Baldovino I’d need more information about the error you get. What’s the error message? Which other mods do you have active?
CreatorOfWorlds 15 Jun @ 1:39pm 
Would it be possible to add sun shafts as a feature but with an optional toggle?
Baldovino Trevisano 15 Jun @ 10:05am 
Hello; the mod is giving me an error when i start the game but it does not say [or at least i did not understand] if it is incopatible with the mods i'm using. Can somebody help me?
person 13 May @ 9:04am 
Lol it looks like someone remove the mexico filter
Bomret  [author] 2 Jan @ 12:01pm 
@darcula2000 Natural Lighting basically does the same thing as Softer Shadows. What do you miss?