Okay, so let me tell you about my time messing around with this ‘Ullr’ thing for FFXIV.
Getting Started
It all began when I saw some screenshots floating around online. Looked pretty neat, kind of a sharp, maybe slightly colder look? People were mentioning ‘Ullr’ preset, probably for GShade or ReShade, you know the deal. So I thought, hey, why not give it a whirl? Always looking to make the game look a bit different.
The Hunt and Install
Finding the darn thing wasn’t straightforward. It wasn’t listed in the usual places I check. Had to poke around some smaller forums, maybe it was a Discord thing? Took me a bit, but eventually, I got my hands on the `.ini` file, or maybe it was a collection of files. Downloaded it.
Next step, getting it into the game. Fired up my FFXIV GShade setup. Had to remember the right folder… yeah, navigated to the `gshade-presets` directory, made a new folder probably named ‘Ullr’ just to keep things tidy, and dropped the file(s) in there. Pretty standard stuff if you’ve done this before.
First Look and Fiddling
Booted up FFXIV. Loaded into Gridania, I think. Opened the GShade menu (you know, Shift+F2 or whatever you set it to) and scrolled through the list. Found ‘Ullr’. Clicked it.
Whoa. Okay. It was… intense. Way different from the screenshots. Much darker in the shadows, and the highlights were maybe a bit blown out? The colors felt really desaturated too, almost monochrome in some lighting. Definitely sharp, though, I’ll give it that. Too sharp, maybe? Edges looked a bit harsh.
It wasn’t quite what I wanted for general gameplay. Looked cool for posing, maybe, but running around felt off. So, time to tinker. That’s the fun part, right?
Tweaking the Settings
I dove into the GShade settings for the ‘Ullr’ preset. Looked at the active shaders it was using. Let’s see… there was definitely some kind of sharpening filter, maybe `AdaptiveSharpen` or `LumaSharpen`. I dialed that back quite a bit first. Made it less jagged.
Then tackled the contrast and brightness. Probably fiddled with `Levels` or `Curves`, trying to bring back some detail in the really dark spots without washing everything out. Lifted the shadows a touch, pulled the highlights down slightly.
The color thing needed work too. It was likely using `Technicolor` or maybe `Vibrance` turned way down. I gradually increased the saturation, trying to find a sweet spot. Didn’t want the super-vibrant look, but also didn’t want it looking like a black and white movie.
I probably toggled a few other effects on and off too. Sometimes presets come with stuff like `Bloom` or `Vignette` that I don’t always care for during normal play. Turned those off or reduced their intensity.
- Reduced sharpening effect.
- Adjusted levels/curves for better shadow/highlight detail.
- Increased color saturation slightly.
- Disabled or reduced bloom/vignette.
Testing and Final Thoughts
After tweaking, I spent some time just running around. Went to Limsa Lominsa (always a good test with the bright light), then maybe teleported to Coerthas to see how it handled the snow and colder lighting. Did a quick dungeon run too, just to check performance and visibility in combat.
Performance was okay, didn’t notice a huge frame drop after my adjustments. Visibility was much better. It still had a distinct ‘look’, sharper and a bit more cinematic than default, but it wasn’t getting in the way anymore.
In the end? I saved my modified version as something like ‘Ullr_MyEdit’. It’s not my daily driver preset, I still swap around depending on my mood. But it was a good learning experience. Taking someone else’s idea and bending it to fit what I like. That’s kind of the point of these tools, isn’t it? Just messing around, seeing what works. So yeah, that was my little adventure with the ‘Ullr’ preset.
