Lens dust, a New shader effect

[samuncle]

Hello, I just finished to implement a new post processing effect. It's a dust lens flare simulation. Basically when a light source is strong enough, it will "lit" dust on the screen.

Currently you can test in the git branch lensdust

Here is a preview

Now, just before merging I need some feedback. Should this effect be:

1) Always enabled no matter what's happening
2) Always enabled but you can "choose" the dust texture per track (so for instance a track with rain would have different dust effect compared to a mine)
3) Disabled, this effect is ugly and I don't like it

Any suggestions are welcome.

[0zone0ne]

I like it a lot, however I feel the effect should be much larger + more transparent?

[charlie]

#2

[Eldermê]

I like the effect.

4) Enabled only if a dust texture is defined in the track?

I think lens dust effect does not make sense for every track: during a sunny day, you don't see lens dust.

[tuxkartdriver]

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[ArDanWol]

#2
I really like it!

[Akien]

Pretty cool effect! I'd be more for #2 too if you think that it would be worth the additional work, if not, #1 is already quite nice.

If it's something that might impact performance on lower-end hardware, or be a visual inconvenience to some users, you might want to consider make it possible to toggle it from the video settings.

[samuncle]

Some precisions:

1) Performance wise it's only a read 512*256 texture + some very basic operation (adding and multiplication)
2) You can already disable it by disabling the bloom. Disabling the bloom disable Bloom, lens dust and lens flare
3) The effect is really very subtle. It's almost noticeable (and it's intended because we don't want a dirty camera simulator).
4) Even enabled during sunny days the effect is invisible because it only happens when you look directly at strong light source. In the case of the sun, the god ray isn't affected by the lens dust effect.
5) You can test by yourself the effect on the branch
6) And yes an intermediate solution would be one texture but only enabled in certain tracks

[charlie]

Some precisions:

You probably want to say, "Some specifics:"

[XGhost]

Looks nice samuncle!
I would go with #1

[Arthur]

Option 2 would be my preferred one. Having rain drops in a rainy track would be nice.

Tbh, I am not a big fan of camera effects, since they kind of remind you that you are looking through a camera, which makes immersion more difficult. However since STK is in a 3rd person view that doesn't matter all that much in the end.