At long last, I've gotten my act together and updated this sorry thing. I'm calling this version 0.9, sort of the "beta" version, because it's only been partly play-tested, and there may have been a texture or two that I still missed. But as far as I've found from installing and play-testing it, the mod should be fully functional, with more lens flare textures removed than the previous "alpha" version, so download away!
As you can see, I made the switch to MassEffectModder as the modding utility of choice when making this version, although the old version should still be functional in case anyone wants to use it still. MEM still has a utility to convert TPF and MOD files made for ME3Explorer, into MEM files that can be installed alongside other up-to-date mods.
Please let me know if I messed anything up. I'm already aware of the issue with Liara's dream/memory scene during Priority: Earth, but that's an unfortunate consequence of blacking out the lens flare textures. Instead of using a proper light source, BioWare just used the lens flare texture as the background, so it will probably look weird.
Once I can more thoroughly test all this stuff, with a full play-through, and/or people give me feedback on whether they had any issues in their own play-throughs, I'll put up an "official release" 1.0 version as well.
Installed this mod with MassEffectModder v437 and it worked fine, OT from Origin. Next time I'll try to install it with ALOT because installer accepted the .rar file.
Sometimes you see a mod and just think "well I will try it" not realizing what an incredible needed change it brings to the game. I was just mod cruising when I saw this and wow did I luck out with this. Thank you !!! Keep up the good work!!!
I didn't realise just how bad this was in ME3 until I saw your comparison shots. I am really, really looking forward to using this mod in my next playthrough! Thankyou for your efforts and for sharing them with us :)
Ah, the essential mod... After playing with these textures installed in various combinations, I found the best balance was to only replace Stretchedflare_06 (long blue flare attached to light sources), ME_Flare_06 (floating blue flares that follow you) and, possibly, fx_flare04 (small white cross flare attached to some light sources, like floor lights in Normandy). The latter doesn't bother me, but it is still static and overused. This leaves the more unique flares. So, things like explosions, suns, and some cinematic beams are still in place, but the JJ Abrams level usage is not.
Well I'm using your Lens Flare reducer in all ME Games because it really hurts in the eyes (specially when I'm using reshades) but I think I have a little bug or error with your Mod.
In the Scene with Liara on Earth when she shares her Memories with you, there shoud be a light beam but it doesn't appear. I had ALOT Mod installed and some Complexion Tweaks for the Characters so I thought they might cause the Problem.
I then Vanillad my Game and only installed this Mod here and same issue, No Light beam. I can live with this issue though but I thought it couldn't hurt to mention this :)
Unfortunately, that's just a consequence of how this mod works, not really much I can do about it.
Basically, I just went through the game files for everything labeled "lens" or "flare" that I could find, and blacked out most of them. (I did leave some since I wasn't sure what they would affect and because many of them clearly weren't the really intense purple lines.)
However, I have no idea which texture is used for that scene, and I can't easily find out. So basically, you can have either the vanilla game, which uses the flare textures for that scene, or the modded game with no flares, but no light during the scene.
There is a "disable lens flares" option in the user configuration files, but unfortunately it was clearly never meant to be used, because activating it does deactivate all lens flares, but it also makes it impossible to push any buttons, open doors, check terminals, etc. So it looks pretty, but the game becomes unplayable in that state.
To install this in its current state with ALOT installer, you just need to rename the file extension from .metpf to .tpf (you'll need to have "Show file extensions" enabled in Windows to do this), and then drag and drop as normal. Hope this helps until we get a .mem version!
Thanks for making this mod, I never realised just how awful the lens flare was in ME3 until I installed this! Now I can't live without it. Best mod ever.
29 comments
At long last, I've gotten my act together and updated this sorry thing. I'm calling this version 0.9, sort of the "beta" version, because it's only been partly play-tested, and there may have been a texture or two that I still missed. But as far as I've found from installing and play-testing it, the mod should be fully functional, with more lens flare textures removed than the previous "alpha" version, so download away!
As you can see, I made the switch to MassEffectModder as the modding utility of choice when making this version, although the old version should still be functional in case anyone wants to use it still. MEM still has a utility to convert TPF and MOD files made for ME3Explorer, into MEM files that can be installed alongside other up-to-date mods.
Please let me know if I messed anything up. I'm already aware of the issue with Liara's dream/memory scene during Priority: Earth, but that's an unfortunate consequence of blacking out the lens flare textures. Instead of using a proper light source, BioWare just used the lens flare texture as the background, so it will probably look weird.
Once I can more thoroughly test all this stuff, with a full play-through, and/or people give me feedback on whether they had any issues in their own play-throughs, I'll put up an "official release" 1.0 version as well.
Well I'm using your Lens Flare reducer in all ME Games because it really hurts in the eyes (specially when I'm using reshades) but I think I have a little bug or error with your Mod.
In the Scene with Liara on Earth when she shares her Memories with you, there shoud be a light beam but it doesn't appear.
I had ALOT Mod installed and some Complexion Tweaks for the Characters so I thought they might cause the Problem.
I then Vanillad my Game and only installed this Mod here and same issue, No Light beam.
I can live with this issue though but I thought it couldn't hurt to mention this :)
Still love this Mod <3
Basically, I just went through the game files for everything labeled "lens" or "flare" that I could find, and blacked out most of them. (I did leave some since I wasn't sure what they would affect and because many of them clearly weren't the really intense purple lines.)
However, I have no idea which texture is used for that scene, and I can't easily find out. So basically, you can have either the vanilla game, which uses the flare textures for that scene, or the modded game with no flares, but no light during the scene.
There is a "disable lens flares" option in the user configuration files, but unfortunately it was clearly never meant to be used, because activating it does deactivate all lens flares, but it also makes it impossible to push any buttons, open doors, check terminals, etc. So it looks pretty, but the game becomes unplayable in that state.
Thanks for making this mod, I never realised just how awful the lens flare was in ME3 until I installed this! Now I can't live without it. Best mod ever.