Fixing The Graphics Of FINAL FANTASY XIV

A deep dive into building custom GShade shaders for Final Fantasy XIV, covering the full post-processing pipeline. The author implements and iterates on screen-space fog, color correction, HDR rendering via an injected buffer (a workaround for GShade's LDR back buffer limitation), bloom with tone mapping, auto exposure using a luminance histogram, contrast adaptive sharpening (CAS), and screen-space ambient occlusion (GTAO). Each effect is explained technically, including the math behind luminance histograms, normal reconstruction from depth buffers, and custom filmic tone mapping curves. The final preset is fully customizable and available for download.