How do I disable the fog?

Question

I would like to disable the fog in the game, because I dislike it visually. I could not find an option in the video settings. Can I do that in any other way?

Answer 1

To disable the fog, you need to go to

Steam\SteamApps\common\SpaceEngineers\Content\Effects2

and find the file MyEffectBase.fxh.

Open this file with any text editor you have installed, e.g. Notepad or Notepad++ etc.

Find the following code:

float4 CalculateFogLinear(float3 sourceColor, float distance, float backgroundBlend)
{
    float fogBlend = saturate((distance - FogDistanceNear) / (FogDistanceFar - FogDistanceNear));

    return float4(FogColor, fogBlend * FogMultiplier);

    // This is no hack, it's just interpolator based on background blend and fog blend, it's pretty complicated, but right
    float i = (backgroundBlend * (fogBlend + backgroundBlend - 2) + 1) * FogMultiplier;
    //return lerp(sourceColor.xyz, FogColor, i);
    return float4(FogColor, i);
}

Replace this code with:

float4 CalculateFogLinear(float3 sourceColor, float distance, float backgroundBlend)
{
    return float4(FogColor, 0.0f);
}

Then open a command window in this directory by right clicking into explorer with shift held down and enter the following command:

del /s *.fxo

This will force the game to recompile all shaders. When you launch the game, your fog will be disabled:

If the game patches via Steam, you probably need to do it again, but this is only until the devs add an option to disable the fog in the settings.

Answer 2

These days if you want the stock skybox wit fog removed, you can just download a mod off the workshop called "Better Vanilla Sky" …or possibly "Better Default Sky", i can't check at the moment…