The beauty of Age of Conan`s world

saranka · 2020-05-18T21:20:58.852Z

Still my favorite world design. For all the technological engine and details the likes of ESO, GW2 & SWTOR have, for me they lack the spark of life and realistic vastness of this misterious world.

And the fact that it’s supposed to be our Earth circa 10,000 years ago, takes it from the realm of fantasy to an archaeological dream.

Psypunk · 2020-05-19T20:22:41.326Z

Have not been able to find a working Reshader file with presets…

stiiixy · 2020-05-25T02:25:14.724Z

It’s a damn shame Jawn took down his Postcard series of AoC footage from all content from all those years ago. He went to a lot of effort making them (all filmed in DX10 when it was barely even supported), and they looked GOOD.

There used to be an online AoC music player as well. A quick search didn’t reveal it, but the audio in this game really makes it something. Footsteps crunching on the snow always made this Stygger’s spine tingle.

remunantsu · 2020-05-30T13:57:39.462Z

Old dx10 was a WAY better then dx10 afer Dreamworld upddate in 2011.
Just look at this and compare to present

Force · 2020-06-09T13:00:51.034Z

I found some very old screenshots (2011 and 2012) on one of my USB sticks, this one I found really beautiful and wanted to share it:

AoC_11920×1080 934 KB

During the morning hours in game the godrays become slightly pinkish-rose colored (same with the clouds in the sky), in combination with the already red colored “Red Forest” in the Province Chosain it creates really beautiful sceneries.
This was taken completely without any graphical mods like SweetFX or ReShade, purely in game graphics (though I played around with gamma and brightness in the graphical settings back then I think).

remunantsu · 2020-06-14T01:08:48.819Z

Comoare old engine to new one and see, that new is crap

stiiixy · 2021-01-27T11:21:05.824Z

Godray setting used to have a 1-10 setting didn’t it? And the the new engine essentially distilled that aspect to on/off?

And obviously made it terrible in ways I can never understand, but we’re stuck with it seemingly.

Force · 2021-01-27T13:44:31.822Z

You can still set the godray intensity with a chat command.

/setoption RenderSetting_GodraysIntensity X
Replace X with a number from 0 - 100 (0 = godrays disabled). I don’t know what the default is, could be 50 maybe, 100 is very bright.

There are many of those commands that let you change the game in different ways, on Steam I saw a few screenshots where PvP players pretty much had only grey textures and just high quality player models.

stiiixy · 2021-01-28T05:46:14.988Z

Yeah, nice. I’ve noticed a lot of those setoption sub-commands over the years (I used chat-macro all the time), but never bothered to play with them.

Velovar · 2021-02-07T23:40:34.156Z

Came back to the game. Managed to bypass a lot of UI so shaders like Ambient Occlusion or RayTracing (depth based) would work with HUD. Softer Reshade this time.
proof

20210207230018_11920×1080 646 KB

Velovar · 2021-02-09T20:44:16.215Z

20210209182449_11920×1080 543 KB

20210209230645_11920×1080 531 KB

20210209225835_11920×1080 819 KB

20210209230022_11920×1080 449 KB

20210209230458_11920×1080 878 KB

Velovar · 2021-02-18T01:05:40.490Z

Onyx Chambers traumas

AgeOfConanDX10_Onyx1920×1080 413 KB

stiiixy · 2021-02-19T08:26:03.010Z

Nice work there. I really love Ardashir got the visuals.

I think however sometimes there’s TOO MUCH extra graphics processing and it’s starting to show how old the engine is! The Onyx Chamber picture shows the distinct disparity between the pillar and floor, like some cheap 3D RPG.

Velovar · 2021-02-19T15:46:22.234Z

Agreed.
On some cases original graphics look better, but on most I believe a finely tuned Reshade gives better results. I spent a lot of days configuring shaders, sadly what would look fantastic in most areas, it would look less so in others. Main issue is that game`s lightning and materials are inconcise, white point on textures goes crazy if you turn bloom on etc, it tends to look very unrealistic (there are even meshes with missing textures in Aztels Approach).
Onyx picture is a personal meme for my friend (oh the pain we endured), not really a showcase, contrast there is gained with a dynamic contrast shader which I rarely use yet the picture was too dark. I still think I may have used a bit too strong sharpening shader.
PS. my advice:

turn off enhanced ocean waves & bloom

stiiixy · 2021-02-20T05:57:26.922Z

I’ve been reporting those missing texture’s in Atzel’s since the game’s release…same with the horse in low texture settings and the disappearing Necro in Lich form after zoning.

Thanks for the pic’s. I understand the difficulty in getting an all-rounded setting working, as you can see the incredible differance between zones from Tortage to Old World to the newer content which looks amazing.

Velovar · 2021-02-26T03:37:00.615Z

Old Tarantia is a neverending source of inspiration, testing my custom Reshade preset, a bit blurry but I felt like sharing (if you are using chrome, right click Open image in new tab & press F11):

image1920×1080 362 KB

AgeOfConanDX10 2021-02-26 03-32-351920×1080 2.49 MB

AgeOfConanDX10 2021-02-26 03-33-291920×1080 3.03 MB

AgeOfConanDX10 2021-02-26 03-33-491920×1080 3.35 MB

AgeOfConanDX10 2021-02-26 03-35-111920×1080 3.29 MB

AgeOfConanDX10 2021-02-26 03-37-541920×1080 2.66 MB

frame compare:
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=dfce8ed2-77e5-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df

Velovar · 2021-02-27T00:18:09.727Z

AgeOfConanDX10 2021-02-26 17-54-341920×1080 4.62 MB

Malediluna · 2021-03-01T21:05:50.500Z

It’s hard to admit to myself but my desire to play Age of Conan is fading and since a bit is not more my main mmo (even if I still enjoy dungeons and raids if I have the occasion).
So this evening, logging - this really after a long while on the forum - and reading this thread, I thought that if I didn’t try today to capture some of colors and the shades of Hyboria, I wouldn’t have done anymore.
I tried to play with graphic settings to have a nice result, but I can’t match the beautiful shader of Velovar. Anyways this is my Khemi. Me and Xerzex in the third photo (wasn’t staged so even more nice)

Luna_picture0721920×1080 3.48 MB

Luna_picture0731920×1080 2.49 MB

Luna_picture0741920×1080 2.68 MB

Malediluna · 2021-03-01T23:13:35.204Z

A composite picture of the sunset over the canyon for the Wyrm.

Luna_picture084-85comp1893×2040 2.51 MB

Malediluna · 2021-03-02T08:34:07.357Z

Another shot taken last night, but I hadn’t the time to post. This one has some post-work (color correction and lights/shadows editing, a crop on the right side) to enhance details (the original atmosphere of the crater, for emotional reasons, is blurry with a dominance of cold colors).

Luna_picture093-edited1702×1080 2.9 MB

Same with perspective correction

Luna_picture093-edited21702×1080 2.68 MB