Post-processing

Post-processing changes the final image. The project has one post-process volume that applies everywhere, live in the viewport, in Play and in exported games. It covers exposure and tonemapping, bloom, colour grading, lens effects, motion blur and anti-aliasing, and stylized ink outlines. Fog and ambient occlusion are part of the environment, and toon shading is part of the project’s material settings.

Apply a look

1. Open Window → World & terrain → Post process.
2. Under Looks, click a look to start from: Neutral, Stylized, Warm storybook, Vivid, Cinematic, Cold moonlight, Faded film, Dreamy or Noir.
3. Fine-tune the sections below. Each slider has a reset button that returns it to neutral.

Stylized combines toon-friendly grading, ink outlines and soft bloom. For a complete lighting mood, including time of day and haze, use a lighting look instead; see Sky, weather and climate.

Exposure and tone

Setting	Field	Panel range	Default
Tonemapping	tonemapping	TonyMcMapface, AcesFitted, AgX, BlenderFilmic, Reinhard, ReinhardLuminance, SomewhatBoring, None	TonyMcMapface
Exposure (stops)	exposure	−4 to 4 (−8 to 8 by command)	0
Auto exposure (eye adaptation)	auto_exposure	On/off	Off
Bloom threshold	bloom_threshold	0–4 (up to 10 by command)	0

Under Bloom & exposure details:

Setting	Field	Range	Default
Bloom at strength 0 / at strength 1	bloom_intensity_min, bloom_intensity_max	0–1; 0–2	0.05; 0.35
Bloom soft knee	bloom_soft_knee	0–1	0.5
Bloom scatter	bloom_scatter	0–1	0.7
Auto exposure min EV / max EV	auto_exposure_min_ev, auto_exposure_max_ev	−16 to 24	−8; 8
Adapt to dark / Adapt to bright (EV/s)	auto_exposure_speed_brighten, auto_exposure_speed_darken	0.01–20	3; 1

The overall Bloom strength (0–1, default 0, which turns bloom off) and Exposure stops for the Physical sky (−3 to 3 in the panel, −6 to 6 by command) are on the Environment tab and stored in project.environment as bloom and exposure_compensation. Bloom strength maps onto the range set by Bloom at strength 0 and Bloom at strength 1.

Colour grading

Setting	Field	Panel range	Default
Temperature	temperature	−0.5 (cooler) to 0.5 (warmer)	0
Tint	tint	−0.5 (green) to 0.5 (magenta)	0
Saturation	saturation	0–2	1
Contrast	contrast	0.5–2	1
Midtone gamma	gamma	0.5–2; above 1 darkens midtones	1
Shadows lift	shadows	−0.2 to 0.2	0
Highlights gain	highlights	0.5–1.5	1
Hue shift °	hue	−180 to 180	0

Shadows, Midtones and Highlights each have their own saturation, contrast, gamma, gain and lift, multiplied onto the global values. Midtones from … to sets where the midtone range starts and ends.

Colour LUT

Pick a Colour LUT to grade with a lookup table, and blend it with LUT intensity (0–1, default 1). A LUT is a strip PNG of N² × N pixels, for example 256 × 16. Import a .cube file with texture.import and it is converted to a strip. Vignette, film grain and the LUT run after tonemapping, so they appear in the player, screenshots and thumbnails.

Lens

Setting	Field	Panel range	Default
Vignette	vignette	0–1	0
Vignette softness	vignette_softness	0 (tight) – 1 (wide)	0.5
Vignette roundness	vignette_roundness	0 (follows the frame) – 1 (circle)	0.5
Vignette colour	vignette_color	sRGB	Black
Chromatic aberration	chromatic_aberration	0–0.06 (up to 0.2 by command)	0
Depth of field	depth_of_field	On/off	Off
Focus distance m	focus_distance	0.5–200 m	12 m
Aperture f-stop	aperture	0.8–22	2.8
Bokeh highlights	bokeh	On/off	Off

Motion and quality

Setting	Field	Range	Default
Motion blur	motion_blur	0–1, the camera shutter angle	0
Anti-aliasing	anti_aliasing	Msaa, Smaa, Taa, Fxaa, None	Msaa
Contrast-adaptive sharpening	sharpening	0–1	0

Players can lower depth of field, motion blur and TAA with the Low graphics setting. Some effects replace MSAA with SMAA or TAA: ink outlines, screen-space reflections, bounce lighting and volumetric clouds.

Ink outlines and film grain

Ink outlines draw cel-shaded lines around shapes and creases. They are in Reflections and film.

Setting	Field	Panel range	Default
Ink outlines	outline	0 (off) – 1	0
Outline thickness (px)	outline_thickness	0.5–6	1.5
Outline colour	outline_color	sRGB	Near black
Silhouette threshold	outline_depth_threshold	0.005–1; lower draws more lines	0.08
Crease lines	outline_crease	0–0.3; 0 turns creases off	0.02
Outline fade (m)	outline_fade_distance	5–1,000 m	220 m
Film grain	film_grain	0–1	0
Grain size (px)	grain_size	1–8	1.5

Screen-space reflections and bounce lighting are covered in Lighting.

Ambient occlusion

Turn on Ambient occlusion (SSAO) in the Post process tab, or Ambient occlusion on the Environment tab. It is off by default.

Setting	Field	Range	Default
SSAO quality	ssao_quality	Low, Medium, High, Ultra	High
SSAO thickness (m)	ssao_thickness	0.01–4 m; thinner gives less halo	0.25 m

Fog

Feather Engine 2 has three kinds of fog:

• Distance fog fully hides the world at Fog distance m on the Environment tab (20–2,000 m in the panel, up to 5,000 by command, default 235 m). The weather thickens it, and the horizon settings can push clear-weather fog out to the edge of the view; see Landscape.
• Volumetric fog is a box of raymarched fog around the camera, lit by the sun or moon and by lights marked Volumetric. Turn it on under Volumetric fog on the Environment tab.
• Fog volumes fill one object’s box with volumetric fog. Add one with Add Component → Fog.

Volumetric fog setting	Panel range	Default
Volumetric fog (light shafts and halos)	On/off	Off
Fog colour	sRGB	Pale blue
Density	0–0.5	0.06
Scattering	0–1	0.35
Absorption	0–1	0.3
Shaft directionality	−0.95 to 0.95	0.55
Sun/moon in fog	0–10	1
Ambient in fog	0–2	0.1
Quality (steps)	4–256	48
Box half-width m	5–500	90
Box height m	1–300	30
Box floor m	−100 to 100	−4

The Low graphics setting turns volumetric fog off.

Toon shading

Toon shading bands the light from directional lights, including their shadows, into a few soft steps, tints the shade, and adds a rim light and a stylized highlight. Base colour textures, vertex colours, normal maps, alpha and emission keep working. Other lights, the sky and ambient light reach the surface unchanged.

1. Open Window → Materials & textures and select the Project shading tab.
2. Turn on Toon by default to draw imported models, and every material on Project shading, with toon shading. Materials set to Standard or Toon keep their choice.
3. Pick a Preset, then adjust the look.

Setting	Field	Range	Default
Light bands	bands	1–6 lit steps	2
Band softness	softness	0 (hard ink) – 1 (smooth)	0.12
Shadow tint	shadow_tint	sRGB; white keeps the shade neutral	Cool blue
Rim colour	rim_color	sRGB	Warm white
Rim width	rim_width	0–1	0.32
Rim strength	rim_strength	0–4	0.45
Highlight size	specular_size	0–1	0.25
Highlight strength	specular_strength	0–4	0.3

Preset	Look
Storybook	The defaults
Hard cel	One hard band, deeper shade, stronger rim
Soft painterly	Three soft bands, gentle rim
Warm sunset	Warm rim light
Flat	One band, no rim and no highlight

A material can override the project look; see Materials.

Note

Toon materials render forward. Screen-space reflections and bounce lighting do not apply to them, but ambient occlusion, fog and baked light probes do.

Limits

• One post-process volume per project.
• Depth of field, motion blur, TAA, volumetric fog and bounce lighting are reduced or off on the Low graphics setting.
• A LUT must be a project texture in the N² × N strip layout.

Automate it

This loads the Stylized look, adds a warm grade and a vignette, and turns on toon shading for the whole project:

feather-cli --connect .feather-session.json command project.post_process \
  --json '{"preset":"Stylized","temperature":0.15,"vignette":0.3}'

feather-cli --connect .feather-session.json command material.set \
  --json '{"patch":{"toon_by_default":true,"toon_preset":"Soft painterly"}}'

Command	Purpose
project.post_process	Patches the post-process volume; preset loads a look first
project.environment	Patches bloom strength, ambient occlusion, exposure stops, fog distance and volumetric fog
material.set	Patches the project’s toon shading
scene.update	Adds or edits a fog volume on an object
texture.import	Imports a PNG or converts a .cube LUT

See Agents & automation for connecting a live session.