Hey there, you might have noticed the radio silence. You're probably thinking:
"Oh no! He disappeared."
I was deep in shader hell. Wrestling with post-processing settings like they owed me money.
And you know what? It started simple:
"Let’s just upgrade the visuals. A little shader polish. Nothing wild. Instant glow up!"

THE PLAN - 
I got Hanmen Next Gen Shader 3.96.
GraphicsMod 1.95.
Next Gen Eyes 2.5.
Threw in a fresh cubemap and bumped raw renders from 1080p to 1440p for clarity.
A modest upgrade.
In my mind:
"Make Recall Destiny look like a cyberpunk god made it in Blender."
Spoiler: that's not what happened.

THE FALLOUT -
My knowledge of lighting in the studio?..... Gone.
The preset I spent months crafting for RD?..... Up in flames.
Shadows?...... On strike.
Tone mapping?..... Didn’t even know I was using it but it somehow ruined everything.

I spent six days fixing one scene. 
ONE. SCENE.
Hair looked like a PNG stuck in a blender.
Skin glowed like radioactive pudding.
The lighting was either:
“nothing exists” or “everyone’s getting abducted by neon deities.”

Turns out, “shader upgrade” means:

• Relearning lighting
• Discovering subsurface scattering is a cryptid
• Watching your main character’s skin pixelate like an NFT
  

THE BREAKTHROUGH -
Eventually, I started to understand how this new pipeline breathes.
Hair and skin now respond to lighting like they belong in the same universe
No more weird glow-ups or pixelated faces in close-ups.
Clarity is up.

A WORD ON EXPECTATIONS - 
Are the visuals radically different? Not exactly.
But they’re cleaner, more consistent, and a hell of a lot less janky.
Lighting now reacts properly to hair and skin.
No more “random glossy face” or “looks like a bad sticker edit” moments.
So don’t expect an art style shift but do expect refinement. A vibe that finally fits. I'm still figuring out the nuances.

WHAT'S NEXT?
Now that the visual overhaul is locked, , I’m diving back into scene building.
I'll probably upgrade the skin textures by the 3rd or 4th chapter.
Right now, the goal is simple:
Don’t delay Chapter 2 any further. No more rabbit holes.

Release window soon.

TL;DR:

>Upgraded to Hanmen Shader 3.96, GraphicsMod 1.95, Next Gen Eyes 2.5 - Broke everything -> rebuilt lighting from scratch.
>Visuals now cleaner, more stable, hair + skin react properly to lighting.
>Raw renders are now in 1440p.
>No major art shift, but way less jank.
>Skin textures upgrade coming later (Chapter 3 or 4).
>Chapter 2 is back in motion--release window soon.

Thanks for following, rating or lurking. You keep this ride going!