Realmware BF3 Colour Tweaker 1.2

[tehfusion]

Realmware BF3 Colour Tweaker 1.2

This utility allows you to edit the Battlefield 3 game files by tweaking the colour and lighting settings for each map in the game. That is, for the base game maps, Back to Karkand, Close Quarters, and Armored Kill, you can adjust the following settings:

• Colour grading.
• Brightness.
• Contrast.
• Saturation.
• Hue.
• Sunlight colour.

Some people were asking for this in the colour correction mod thread, so Insanecrimsontid and I put this together. Basically, it does the hex editing with the .sb (and now .cas) files for you. It also has the default values for everything built-in, so you should be able to easily return to the original settings if you wish.

It doesn't allow you to modify sun glare or anything like that, as we want to stay strictly out of cheat territory. This is also not a replacement for Frankelstner's BF3 File Tweaker, as it only allows you to change basic visual settings. It should be considered a complement to Frankelstner's tool, for you to enjoy the game in full colour; until he can add support for the expansions to his own tweaker utility, the only tool that supports them is this one.

Note that if you have additional .cas files (cas_50.cas, etc.) created by Frankelstner's tool, then those files can override the changes made by our own tool.

A screenshot of this program is included below. If you would like to see more, then check out the screenshots page on our website.



System Requirements

This tool only really has two system requirements.

Operating system: For the greatest user experience, you should be running either Windows Vista, or Windows 7. However, you can still use this with Windows XP, as long as you have at least Service Pack 2 installed.

.NET Framework: As this program is written for the .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile, you will need that installed. It's a small download, far smaller than the full .NET Framework 4.0. If you are using the setup exe (which is recommended), you don't have to worry about it; it'll all be taken care of for you. If you are using the zip archive, you can download the .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile here.

Download

If you would like to download this program and try it out, then head over to the download page on our website. We recommend that you choose the setup exe option, but you can also download the program files as a zip archive if you prefer.

This tool includes an automatic update checker, so you will be notified within the program whenever a new update is available (unless you choose to disable this function). This means that you can stay up-to-date with the latest features and fixes.

Enjoy.


Edit: Reactions

Response from DICE:

A news post was posted on Battlelog in October warning that modifying game files for any reason is grounds for banning. However, that doesn't actually mean they'll do anything about it; they may or they may not. If they do, it'd probably come with the Aftermath patch.

DarkLord7854 from DICE said on Reddit a couple of days ago to "Look for an announcement when Aftermath drops".



Response from PBBans:

PBBans has publicly stated on their forums that they will not ban players for using BF3 Colour Tweaker:

http://www.pbbans.com/forums/battlef...s-t164651.html

We are not kicking for BF3 Colour Tweaker released by Realmware.

Response from GGC-Stream:

GGC-Stream has publicly stated at least three times on their forums that they will not ban players for using BF3 Colour Tweaker (but they are banning for Frankelstner's BF3 File Tweaker):

http://board.ggc-stream.com/showthre...ll=1#post98230

After writing with the developer of the colour tweaker I consider it as legal as it does not give any advantage and modifies nothing else than the map files.

This applies to the current version 1.1.

http://board.ggc-stream.com/showthre...ll=1#post98248

The one from Realware is fine as for now as it only changes the overall colours.

http://board.ggc-stream.com/showthre...ll=1#post99706

Let's start to differ between the "colour tweaker" from Realmware and the "BF3 tweaker" which does far more than just colour tweaking.

To answer your question: Nothing and noone got banned for the colour tweaker as named above.

[djne123]

WOW nice job ! really awesome

[DeltaHawk5]

Nice!

[BR4DDERS1986]

Awesome

[Mjolnir]

It's a shame something like this couldn't have been released to the general public INSTEAD of the BF3 tweaker; perhaps that way people could still use this on ranked servers.


Modern FPS games should come with options like these STANDARD; you should not have to hack the game files in order to do it.

[hwfanatic]

Can you make it so that it doesn't crash if I don't have CQ?

BF3 Colour Tweaker.exe Error: 0 : Dispatcher unhandled exception occurred: System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: Could not find a part of the path 'CProgram Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3\Update\Xpack2\Data\Win32\Levels\XP2_Office\XP2_O ffice.sb'.

Those files are probably overriden with 'CProgram Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3\Update\Patch\Data\Win32\Levels' anyway (my guess).

What I really wanted to ask you (though) is - are you absolutely sure x, y z are the RGB components in regards to SunColor? I've really had some weird result changing those values and they don't seem RGB at all.

Idea for improvement - some maps become too bright or too dark once the ColorGrading is disabled. I've found that changing MinExposure and MaxExposure in ToneMapComponentData really helps without messing around with contrast or saturation. Consider adding this option.

[tehfusion]

Can you make it so that it doesn't crash if I don't have CQ?

Sorry, this tool is for premium players only. Okay, thanks for pointing that out - we're working on a quick fix for it now. Sorry about that!

Those files are probably overriden with 'CProgram Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3\Update\Patch\Data\Win32\Levels' anyway (my guess).

Those files do override the content from the Xpack1 and Xpack2 folders, but they don't replace everything. In particular, the lighting for the parking area of Operation 925 is not overridden in those files. That's why the XP2_Office.sb file from the Xpack2 folder is needed.

What I really wanted to ask you (though) is - are you absolutely sure x, y z are the RGB components in regards to SunColor? I've really had some weird result changing those values and they don't seem RGB at all.

We're fairly sure that they are. It's always seemed to work like that for us. Do you have any specific example of settings you've used where you've got a strange result?

Idea for improvement - some maps become too bright or too dark once the ColorGrading is disabled. I've found that changing MinExposure and MaxExposure in ToneMapComponentData really helps without messing around with contrast or saturation. Consider adding this option.

Thanks for the suggestion. We'll consider it.

[mgsgrayfox]

Once the non premium is no longer a issue I will defiantly try it out. Till then I will keep the BF3 Tweaker.

[VoodooPPL]

Sweet!

[tehfusion]

We've just released version 1.1 which should fix that crash on start-up. Please try it and let us know how it goes!

[=XE=NOVA]

very nice now thats what the community needed right there not the tweaker at least we can add our own md5 checks and im sure the AC sites will have them in there updates. great job with those products they are genius.

[MadDog]

Holy crap mate, that is bloody brilliant.

[ShinyAfro]

Nice work!

[xzacutionar]

are there any plans of making this program available to the stock maps? i feel seine/metro etc would be better without the damn colour grading

[HashVapor]

This is fukkin awesome man!!

Can anyone share some values or screenshots of the values in the tweaker plus how it looks in-game?

i'm currently doing the same, so go ahead and post the best results you guys have achieved with this program.

Awesome work brahs!:ernaehrung004:

[tehfusion]

are there any plans of making this program available to the stock maps? i feel seine/metro etc would be better without the damn colour grading

We're considering it, but it wasn't a priority for the first version. We specifically focused on supporting the expansion maps due to Frankelstner's BF3 File Tweaker not working with them yet. At this current time, you can use BF3 Colour Tweaker to modify the visuals of the expansion maps, and BF3 File Tweaker to modify the visuals (and more) of the base game maps.

Can anyone share some values or screenshots of the values in the tweaker plus how it looks in-game?

See my earlier post for my Back to Karkand settings, screenshots, and a video.

[AdrIneX]

So this is basically that same tool but without the possibility to edit questionable settings like sunglare, fog and damage ratios on weapons? And we can achieve the same effects with this tool like we could with that tweaker?

[cronik123]

At least let us get rid of the vignette.

[hwfanatic]

We're fairly sure that they are. It's always seemed to work like that for us. Do you have any specific example of settings you've used where you've got a strange result?

I would enter the same values for all components but the color wouldn't be white. Seeing that it works through your tool it must have been something wrong with the way I did it.

Thank you (both) for creating the tool. I'm glad I've learned how to hex edit, but this is more my cup of tea. I'm still not happy with Valley though. It might need additional editing to remove all the Blue™ (especially the blue water reflections which really stick out). :-)

The thing that really, really amazes me is that DICE could have easily doubled the number of available maps by simply making day and night versions of them all. Valley looks pretty neat even with an actual sun.

[Slarlac249]

sweet tool, but am i correct in thinking it only does b2k?

[the_dan]

sweet tool, but am i correct in thinking it only does b2k?

It does xp every map ^^

Can someone share some nice setups?

[AdrIneX]

Can someone answer my question I posted above?

[Alph4Dawg]

It can only be used to enable/disable colour grading and to edit saturation and stuff, to fit your taste.

[Slarlac249]

It does every map ^^

Can someone share some nice setups?

ah rite, i can stop....fiddling with this damn hex editor....

[VoodooPPL]

Just had a quick run in all of the maps in B2K and AK, just with CC disabled. Some maps look very different (better) and in some maps the difference is very minimal. I need to mess around more with that tweaker, some maps actually suffered from lack of contrast now when CC disabled.

sweet tool, but am i correct in thinking it only does b2k?

First I thought so too but at least in armored shield the difference was very notable so I guess it's working with AK too. Don't know about CQ because I don't have it..


The whole situation around this file tweaking is rather interesting, it just blows my mind what dedicated gamers are capable to do. I really hope that DICE/EA would give unofficial seal of approval to this now that there's no damage tweaks or other malicious stuff involved.