First off, I need to give credit to CMDR AD for his initial work in this field, as detailed in his original thread
located here. He is the giant whose shoulders I stand upon. Continuing his work, I have further modded Elite Dangerous to provide the following changes:
- BLACK Space - That's right, space is now BLACK. The clouds of interstellar dust have been removed. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how realistic you want space to mirror the night sky you see IRL, this also removes the galactic core and the few distant galaxies normally visible. All stars, however, are clearly visible. If you normally operate in the Bubble, you may appreciate the black and realistic night sky over the default. If you're an explorer, you may wish to disable this particular option. See the thread below for screenshots (in particular post #16).
- BLACK Shadows - A perfect complement to the black sky is black shadows. This modification removes ambient light from space, making the dark side of objects (stations, outposts, ships, landable planets) black as night. This is more realistic to how shadows look in the empty void of space when there are no sources of reflected light like planetshine. Don't worry, it looks better than I make it sound. Think of is as HDR Mode. Again this assumes you're operating in the Bubble, as closer to the core you would expect ambient light from the high density of stars. This feature is can be turned on and off separately from black skies.
- No External HUD Elements - All circles and labels around planets and ships are disabled, making it feel like you're looking outside a simple glass window. I find this much more immersive, but it also adds a challenge as you'll need to use your cockpit HUD (radar, compass, etc) to navigate. It will also make combat much more challenging without the targeting reticles. Not for the faint of heart, but for those desiring an immersive world outside your spaceship along with the challenge of IFR flight, this mod is for you! Also disabled is the blue "TRON" glow around mapped planets along with the bright, crazy "comet trails" for ships in Supercruise.
- Cleaner HUD - Normally our instrument HUD and side-panels have a "drop shadow" behind them, which this mod removes. The result is a cleaner look that doesn't block your view, but it may be harder to read the side panels in certain bright locations. I've also removed those lines that do nothing but clutter the view.
- Space Snow Removed - The "snow" in space and the blizzards over planets have been removed. However I have retained the "flying warp stars" effect in Supercruise. Like all modifications, you can turn off this mod to keep the "space snow" in the game if you depend on it for your vectors.
- Cockpit Smoke Removed - No more fires in the cockpit when your ship is only at 80% heat. This also removes smoke in certain places inside the stations, but not others. For example, humidity still can be seen coming from overhead vents, but the mailslot is no longer boiling with smoke.
- Sun Modifications - Some minor sun modifications made, other more "invasive" mods provided but turned off by default. Experiment and see which combination of sun effects you like the most!
- Remove Fog From Rings (OPTIONAL) - Per request, an entry (disabled by default) is provided to remove fog from ring systems once you drop on them. I don't use this feature, so it may require some testing.
- Turn Off Cockpit Lights (OPTIONAL) - If you want a dark cockpit, or you are annoyed by those flashing red lights while mining, there is an entry (disabled by default) that will allow you to turn these lights off.
The way this mod works is that it intercepts calls to Windows graphics subsystem, allowing certain pixel shaders to be turned off. It does not replace or change any of ED's files, rather it adds some new files which ED will use when present. AFAIK this is in accordance with Frontier's EULA, as it's not changing the game files in any way, nor does it allow or promote cheating in any way that I can imagine. If anything, it makes the game HARDER to play, but in a way us realism nuts will enjoy.
The program you need is called
3Dmigoto. Click the name to download the file (version 1.3.16). Extract the file and then copy the CONTENTS of the x64 directory to your elite-dangerous-64 directory (in my case this is found at D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\Products\elite-dangerous-64). Next you need to download the d3dx.txt I've attached to this post, rename it to d3dx.ini, and save it to the elite-dangerous-64 directory, replacing the one that comes with 3Dmigoto. That should do the trick! To disable any particular modification, just insert a semicolon ( ; ) in front of the 3 lines of code for that specific mod, thus commenting it out and turning it off.
DISCLAIMER - Whatever you do, you do of your own accord. If your computer catches fire and your Arx disappear and Stigbob knocks on your door demanding cookies, I am not responsible! Blame TJ, or better yet, don't blame anyone. AFAIK there is no risk, but a prudent person would research all of this before installing "alien" software on his/her computer.
NOTE - If you want things like haze in stations removed, see CMDR AD's original mod as linked above. You can copy-n-paste settings from his .ini file to mine to remove haze, "warp stars", etc.