Effect Packages & Shaders Explained

This page provides a detailed breakdown of all the effect packages and shaders used in Elora’s Personal Presets for Guild Wars 2 ReShade. For each effect package, you’ll find:

  • What the package is for
  • What each shader does
  • Typical settings/sliders and what they control
  • Tips for tweaking for visuals or performance

Table of Contents

  1. qUINT by Marty McFly
  2. Zenteon Shaders
  3. prod80 Shaders
  4. ReShade Repository Shaders
  5. Nice Guy Shaders
  6. Quark FX
  7. ReshadeEffectShaderToggler Addon

qUINT by Marty McFly

A suite of advanced post-processing effects designed for realism and cinematic visuals. qUINT GitHub

MartysMods_MXAO.fx (MXAO)

  • Purpose: Adds ambient occlusion for realistic shadowing in crevices and around objects.
  • Key Settings:
    • Sample Radius: How far AO spreads from edges.
    • Sample Quality: Higher = better quality, lower = faster.
    • AO Amount: Strength of the ambient occlusion effect.
    • Indirect Lighting Amount: Strength of the bounced light (Global Illumination).
    • Indirect Lighting Saturation: Colorfulness of the bounced light.
    • Debug View: Visualize the AO or indirect lighting mask.
  • Tips: Lower quality for performance, increase radius for softer AO. MXAO is a cornerstone for realistic depth.

qUINT_dof.fx (DOF)

  • Purpose: Depth of Field, blurs background/foreground for a photographic look.
  • Key Settings:
    • Focal Plane: Where the image is sharpest.
    • Blur Amount: How strong the blur is.
    • Far Blur Curve: Controls how quickly the background blurs. A key setting for separating subjects.
    • Bokeh Shape/Quality: Style and quality of out-of-focus highlights.
  • Tips: Lower quality for gameplay, increase for screenshots. Use the autofocus options to track a point on screen or set the focus plane manually for precise artistic control.

MartysMods_LAUNCHPAD.fx

  • Purpose: The central configuration hub for many qUINT effects, allowing you to manage them from one place.
  • Key Settings:
    • Enable/Disable toggles for various qUINT effects.
  • Tips: Use to quickly enable/disable qUINT suite features.

Zenteon Shaders

A collection of modern, performance-friendly post-processing effects. Zenteon Shaders GitHub

Zenteon_Framework.fx

  • Purpose: Core framework for Zenteon shaders, may provide global toggles or shared settings.

ZN_LC.fx (Local Contrast)

  • Purpose: Enhances local contrast for a sharper, more detailed look.
  • Key Settings:
    • Strength: How much contrast is added.
    • Radius: Area affected by the contrast boost.
  • Tips: Too high can cause halos; adjust for subtlety.

Zenteon_Sharpen.fx

  • Purpose: Sharpening filter for crisper visuals.
  • Key Settings:
    • Strength: Sharpening intensity.
    • Clamp: Prevents over-sharpening artifacts.
  • Tips: Use moderate values to avoid noise.

Zenteon_XenonBloom.fx

  • Purpose: Bloom effect for glowing highlights.
  • Key Settings:
    • Threshold: Brightness level to start bloom.
    • Intensity: Strength of the glow.
  • Tips: Lower threshold = more bloom; too much can wash out image.

prod80 Shaders

A set of high-quality color grading and bloom effects. prod80 GitHub

PD80_02_Bloom.fx

  • Purpose: Adds bloom (glow) to bright areas.
  • Key Settings:
    • Threshold: Minimum brightness for bloom.
    • Intensity: Bloom strength.
    • Radius: Spread of the bloom.
  • Tips: Lower intensity for subtlety; adjust threshold to control what glows.

PD80_04_Color_Temperature.fx

  • Purpose: Adjusts color temperature (warmth/coolness) of the image.
  • Key Settings:
    • Temperature: Warmer (red/orange) or cooler (blue) tones.
    • Tint: Green/magenta shift.
  • Tips: Use to match lighting mood or correct color cast.

Nice Guy Shaders

A collection of shaders focusing on lighting and screen-space effects. Nice Guy Shaders GitHub

NGLighting.fx

  • Purpose: An advanced lighting shader that can simulate global illumination and other complex lighting phenomena for a more realistic and dynamic scene.
  • Key Settings:
    • Lighting Intensity: Controls the overall strength of the lighting effect.
    • Light Color: Tints the color of the simulated light.
    • Radius: Defines the area of influence for the lighting calculations.

ReShade Repository Shaders

Official and community shaders included with ReShade. ReShade Shaders GitHub

AmbientLight.fx

  • Purpose: Adds a soft ambient light/glow to the scene.
  • Key Settings:
    • Strength: Intensity of the effect.
    • Color: Tint of the ambient light.
  • Tips: Good for brightening dark scenes.

MagicBloom.fx

  • Purpose: Simple, fast bloom effect.
  • Key Settings:
    • Threshold, Intensity, Radius (see above).
  • Tips: Use for a dreamy or fantasy look.

Vibrance.fx

  • Purpose: Boosts color intensity without oversaturating skin tones.
  • Key Settings:
    • Vibrance: Amount of color boost.
    • RGB Balance: Adjust which colors are boosted.
  • Tips: Subtle values prevent cartoonish look.

Reinhard.fx

  • Purpose: Tone mapping for more natural highlights and shadows.
  • Key Settings:
    • Exposure: Overall brightness control.
    • White Point: Sets the level at which whites are clipped, preventing blown-out highlights.
  • Tips: Use to prevent blown-out highlights.

SmartDeNoise.fx

  • Purpose: Reduces image noise/grain.
  • Key Settings:
    • Strength: How much noise is removed.
    • Sensitivity: How aggressively noise is detected.
  • Tips: Too high can blur details.

CAS.fx (Contrast Adaptive Sharpening)

  • Purpose: Sharpening filter that adapts to contrast.
  • Key Settings:
    • Sharpness: Intensity of sharpening.
  • Tips: Good for upscaled or blurry images.

NeoSSAO.fx

  • Purpose: Screen-space ambient occlusion (shadows in crevices).
  • Key Settings:
    • Radius, Intensity, Quality.
  • Tips: Lower quality for performance.

HexLensFlare.fx

  • Purpose: Simulates lens flares from bright lights.
  • Key Settings:
    • Intensity, Threshold, Color.
  • Tips: Use sparingly for realism.

PPFX_SSDO.fx

  • Purpose: Screen-space directional occlusion (advanced AO).
  • Key Settings:
    • Quality, Radius, Intensity.
    • FadeStart: Distance from the camera where the effect begins to fade out.
    • FadeEnd: Distance from the camera where the effect is completely faded out.
  • Tips: More realistic than basic AO, but more demanding.

GloomAO.fx

  • Purpose: Another ambient occlusion shader, often softer.
  • Key Settings:
    • Strength, Radius.

FGFXLargeScalePerceptualObscuranceIrradiance.fx

  • Purpose: Large-scale ambient occlusion and lighting.
  • Key Settings:
    • Strength, Scale.

LocalContrast.fx

  • Purpose: Enhances local contrast (see also ZN_LC.fx).
  • Key Settings:
    • Strength, Radius.

BloomingHDR.fx

  • Purpose: High dynamic range bloom effect.
  • Key Settings:
    • Threshold, Intensity, HDR Mode.

lilium__rcas_hdr.fx

  • Purpose: Robust contrast adaptive sharpening for HDR.
  • Key Settings:
    • Sharpness, HDR Mode.

pCamera.fx

  • Purpose: Camera simulation (exposure, vignette, etc.).
  • Key Settings:
    • Exposure, Vignette, Film Grain.

pColors.fx

  • Purpose: Color grading and correction.
  • Key Settings:
    • Brightness, Contrast, Saturation.

Shading.fx

  • Purpose: Adds stylized shading and lighting to enhance the painterly or cartoon-like look of the scene.
  • Key Settings:
    • ShadingIntensity: Strength of the shading effect.
    • SamplingArea: Area over which shading is calculated.
  • Tips: Use for a more artistic, less photorealistic look.

VolumetricFog.fx

  • Purpose: Simulates volumetric fog and light scattering for atmospheric depth and god rays.
  • Key Settings:
    • Intensity, Radius, SampleCount, Exposure, Gamma.
  • Tips: Increase intensity and sample count for denser, more dramatic fog; lower for subtle haze.

ReflectiveBumpmapping.fx

  • Purpose: Adds reflective bump mapping for enhanced surface detail and subtle reflections.
  • Key Settings:
    • FresnelMult, ReliefHeight, SampleCount.
  • Tips: Use moderate values to avoid overly shiny or artificial surfaces.

GaussianBlur.fx

  • Purpose: Applies a soft blur to the image, useful for dreamy or atmospheric effects.
  • Key Settings:
    • BlurRadius, BlurStrength.
  • Tips: Use sparingly to avoid loss of detail; great for soft focus or haze.

GBloom.fx

  • Purpose: Adds an additional bloom layer for glowing highlights and enhanced fantasy lighting.
  • Key Settings:
    • BloomIntensity, BloomSaturation, BlurRadius, LuminanceThreshold.
  • Tips: Stack with other bloom effects for a magical, ethereal look.

Anti-Aliasing Suite

A collection of shaders to smooth jagged edges (“jaggies”).

cDLAA.fx (Contrast-aware Directionally Localized Anti-Aliasing)

  • Purpose: Advanced anti-aliasing technique for reducing jagged edges while preserving detail.
  • Key Settings:
    • ContrastThreshold, PreserveFrequencies.
  • Tips: Use with other AA for best results in screenshots.

DFTAA.fx (Directional Filtering Temporal Anti-Aliasing)

  • Purpose: Temporal anti-aliasing to smooth out shimmering and flickering in motion.
  • Key Settings:
    • EdgeThreshold, Lambda.
  • Tips: Best for video or animated scenes; may slightly blur stills.

DTAA.fx (Directional Temporal Anti-Aliasing)

  • Purpose: Another temporal anti-aliasing shader for reducing aliasing artifacts over time.
  • Key Settings:
    • blendRate, mixRate.
  • Tips: Combine with other AA for maximum smoothness.

Quark FX

A collection of effects by Zenteon. Quark FX GitHub

Quark_Local_Contrast.fx

  • Purpose: Another local contrast enhancer.
  • Key Settings:
    • Strength, Radius.

Quark_Xenon_Bloom.fx

  • Purpose: Bloom effect variant.
  • Key Settings:
    • Threshold, Intensity, Radius.

ReshadeEffectShaderToggler Addon

A ReShade 5+ add-on that allows you to prevent ReShade effects from applying to specific parts of the screen, like the UI. Its primary purpose is to ensure that effect packages (like bloom, DOF, AO, etc.) are not rendered on top of the in-game UI, menus, or HUD elements, preserving UI clarity while keeping the visual enhancements for the game world.

  • Purpose: Prevents ReShade effects from affecting the UI by toggling effects only for the game world.
  • How it works:
    • Lets you create toggle groups for shaders that draw the UI or HUD.
    • When the UI is visible, the addon disables selected effects for those UI elements.
    • Configuration is done in-game via the ReShade Addons tab, where you can mark shaders associated with the UI and assign them to toggle groups.
    • Saves its configuration to ReshadeEffectShaderToggler.ini for reuse.
  • Typical Use Case:
    • Open the ReShade overlay, go to the Addons tab, and use the Shader Toggler area to create a new toggle group.
    • Mark shaders responsible for the UI using the provided hotkeys (see the addon’s documentation for details).
    • Assign a toggle key or let the addon automatically manage toggling based on UI visibility.
    • Save the group to persist your settings.
  • Reference: ReshadeEffectShaderToggler on GitHub

Tips for Tweaking

  • Performance: Lower quality, radius, or sample count for AO and DOF effects to improve FPS.
  • Visuals: Increase bloom, vibrance, and color grading for a more stylized look.
  • Sharpening: Use moderate values to avoid noise and artifacts.
  • Color Grading: Adjust temperature, tint, and vibrance to match your taste or the scene’s mood.

References

This guide should help you understand and tweak every effect in Elora’s Personal Presets. For more details, see the official shader documentation or the ReShade forums.

Copyright © 2025 Elora/AlteredM1nd. Distributed by an MIT license.