Preset generation does not bypass driver capability checks. Pending/failed compiler preflight blocks hardware tessellation compilation and cache loading. Other supported effects and saved preset values retain their normal behavior.

Current beta 3 policy

Extra Quality sets active effect quality controls to Ultra and disables AVFX user LOD switches. Generated mirrors use floors and slopes only, no walls, with Ultra reflection quality rather than Extra. Ultra Quality uses Quality settings for the corresponding effects and also disables LOD. Generator tiers and individual effect quality names are different scales; no tier guarantees a particular FPS.

Surface Objects are selected separately from materials. Object shadows are generated and varied only at Quality and above. Leaves include separate falling amount and outdoor-only selection. Save the result as an ordinary AVFX preset.

Q2PRO-X document image

Independent material and object selection.

Metals in the generator: beta 2

Both Reasonable and Full Chaos can choose all 32 metallic materials for already enabled floor and wall coverings. Metals have a 20% category share, with the material selected from the complete category. This change does not enable disabled families. Other scene decisions and the selected quality limits remain intact. The resulting material is stored by normal AVFX preset saving.

Metallic Lustre can also be loaded directly from Extra Quality. Generating a scene and loading a specific factory preset are separate actions.

What the preset generator does

The AVFX preset generator creates one new random scene out of AVFX settings: weather, sky, celestial bodies, atmospheric effects, surface materials, water and puddles. One button, one finished combination.

This is not a "randomize everything" switch. The generator works with AVFX settings only, respects the quality tier you chose, refuses to assemble a scene that is impossible by construction, and never touches gameplay, damage, audio policy or map-authored content.

	Nothing happens until you press Generate. Every selector on the page is inert: it only describes the scene you want to get next time.

Why you would use it

get a fresh look for a level quickly instead of walking through hundreds of settings by hand;

see combinations you would never assemble yourself;

get a scene that is guaranteed to fit the load budget you chose;

save a result you like as an ordinary custom preset.

1. Where the generator lives

Menu path: Main menu → Advanced Visual Effects → AVFX Preset Generator

The page in full:

AVFX Preset Generator

Type	Section	Row	Variable or target	What it does
Section	Generation setup	Generation setup
List	Generation setup	Quality level	cl_avfxgen_quality	Ultra: Quality/High effects. Extra: Ultra effects and floor/sloped mirrors. Both disable all LOD on Generate. Applies immediately. [Ultra Performance / Performance / Balanced / Quality / Ultra Quality / Extra Quality]
List	Generation setup	Chaos level	cl_avfxgen_chaos	Full rolls ordinary-AVFX appearance, including RGB/Custom for 10 selected particle families and the selected sky-meteor, impact-meteor and comet palettes; it preserves family Enable switches and excludes global Standard and Contact controls. Reasonable keeps the original curated behavior. Changes nothing until Generate is pressed. Applies immediately. [Full / Reasonable]
List	Generation setup	Main atmosphere	cl_avfxgen_profile	Main AVFX atmosphere. Random lets the generator choose; a fixed choice is honored exactly. This selector alone changes nothing until Generate is pressed. Applies immediately. [Random / Off / Rain / Snow / Ash / Dust / Mist]
List	Generation setup	Airborne impurity	cl_avfxgen_air	Secondary airborne impurity mixed over the main atmosphere. The engine never mixes it over Off or over the identical main profile; an impossible fixed pair is refused with an explanation. Changes nothing until Generate is pressed. Applies immediately. [Random / Off / Ash / Dust / Mist]
List	Generation setup	Sky	cl_avfxgen_sky	Base-sky family. A fixed choice keeps its identity while Full chaos varies its appearance; space skies need Balanced quality, Sunny needs Performance. Changes nothing until Generate is pressed. Applies immediately. [Random / Map / Weather / Blue / Stars / Space / Nebula / Sunny / Mystic]
List	Generation setup	Celestial bodies	cl_avfxgen_celestial	Celestial bodies only: Sun, planets/Earth and Black Hole. Random chooses any tier-allowed subset; a fixed body is exact. Black Hole needs Ultra and supplies its required star backdrop. Inert until Generate. Applies immediately. [Random / Off / Sun / Planets/Earth / Black Hole / All compatible]
List	Generation setup	Meteors and ships	cl_avfxgen_traffic	Independent moving-sky selector. Random (default) chooses any tier-allowed subset; Off disables all; All compatible enables every allowed kind. A fixed kind is exact. Inert until Generate. Applies immediately. [Random / Off / All compatible / Impact meteors / Sky meteors / Comets / Spaceships]
List	Generation setup	Atmospheric effects	cl_avfxgen_atmosphere	Atmospheric effect families. Lightning requires Rain: a Random main resolves to Rain+Storm, a fixed incompatible one is refused. Clouds = flat + volumetric by tier. Inert until Generate. Applies immediately. [Random / Off / Lightning / Volumetric fog / Clouds / Fog and clouds / All compatible]
List	Generation setup	Surfaces	cl_avfxgen_surfaces	Preliminary material, covering and wildlife choice. Surface Objects have their own independent selector below. Applies immediately. [Random / Off / Materials / Coverings / Wildlife / All compatible]
List	Generation setup	Water and puddles	cl_avfxgen_water	Water and puddle families. Fixed Puddles require the Rain atmosphere: a Random main resolves to Rain, a fixed incompatible one is refused. Changes nothing until Generate is pressed. Applies immediately. [Random / Off / Water / Puddles / Water and puddles]
List	Generation setup	Surface materials	cl_avfxgen_materials	Final material policy. Random keeps the preliminary Surfaces result. Always enables at least two eligible Surface Material layers at full opacity. Off disables all seven eligible layers. Wildlife, Drawings and 3D grass stay separate. Applies immediately. [Random / Always / Off]
List	Generation setup	Surface objects	cl_avfxgen_objects	Independent 3D object choice. Random selects a bounded set; All selects every compatible category. Available from Balanced; shadows vary only from Quality. Ultra/Extra disable LOD. Applies immediately. [Random / Off / All compatible / Grass / Wall foliage / Ferns / Stones and rubble / Soil clumps / Fallen leaves]
List	Generation setup	Wildlife	cl_avfxgen_wildlife	Final wildlife policy. Random keeps the preliminary Surfaces result. Always enables fully opaque wildlife with random mixing of all species; Off disables it. Coverage never changes wildlife. Applies immediately. [Random / Always / Off]
List	Generation setup	Surface coverage zone	cl_avfxgen_coverage	Surface coverage zone. Full maximises the coverage of mold, greenery, brick, cracks and the floor and wall coverings and lays them out uniformly, so a level reads as finished rather than patchy. Random leaves those amounts to the generator. Wildlife and wall-water runoff are never touched. Applies immediately. [Random / Full]
Section	Action	Action
Navigation	Action	Enable AVFX defaults	q2prox_cfg_preset_apply; cl_avfx_defaults; set cl_avfx 1; q2prox_cfg_save_local	Reset all AVFX cvars to defaults, enable AVFX and save the local profile.
Navigation	Action	Generate	cl_avfx_preset_generate	Create one new random seed, validate one complete plan, apply it once and reset AVFX once. The console prints the seed, the plan hash and a compact summary.
Section	Presets	Presets
Navigation	Presets	AVFX presets...	q2prox_avfx_presets	Open AVFX preset packs, including standard and user presets.
Navigation	Presets	AVFX Player Contact presets...	q2prox_avfx_contact_presets	Open the AVFX Player Contact preset domain: blood, sprays, world stains, corpse pools, BFG vaporization and weapon impact marks. It is completely separate from the AVFX presets above.

1.1. The working order

1. Choose the quality tier — it sets the load ceiling and decides which effect families are available at all.

2. Choose the chaos level.

3. Optionally pin individual zones: atmosphere, sky, celestial bodies and the rest. Everything left on Random is decided by the generator.

4. Press Generate.

5. Look at the result in the game. If you dislike it, press again.

6. If you like it, save it as a custom preset.

The Enable AVFX defaults row next to it is a separate action: it resets every AVFX setting to its default, enables the AVFX master and saves the local profile. It is a convenient clean starting point before a series of experiments.

2. The six quality tiers

The quality tier is not "prettier or worse". It is the cost ceiling of the scene plus the list of permitted families.

Tier	What it means
Ultra Performance	Minimum load. The most expensive families are disabled.
Performance	Low load. The sunny sky becomes available.
Balanced	Medium load. Space skies, volumetric fog and volumetric clouds unlock.
Quality	God rays unlock; the realistic water stack becomes mandatory.
Ultra Quality	The render-scale and step caps on volumetric media are lifted; model reflections appear.
Extra Quality	The maximum: brick geometry and Mirror Surfaces.

2.1. What the tier actually limits

The rules below are the built generator's actual policy, not an approximation of it.

Capability	From which tier
Brick geometry (relief in the masonry)	Extra Quality only. Every lower tier is pinned to exactly zero, while brick itself stays available
God rays: sun, cloud beams, star and black-hole rays	Quality and above. Below it every enabling master is forced off
Volumetric fog — the effect itself	Balanced and above
Volumetric fog — full render scale and step count	Ultra Quality. Below it: scale capped at 0.5, at most 8 steps
Volumetric clouds — the effect itself	Balanced and above
Volumetric clouds — full render scale and step count	Ultra Quality. Below it: scale capped at 0.5, at most 10 steps
Water — the master switch	On at every tier without exception
Realistic water, water quality and scene reflection in water	Mandatory from Quality upward. Below it realistic water stays random
Model reflections (players, weapons, items)	Ultra Quality and above
Mirror Surfaces	Extra Quality only
Space skies (Stars, Space, Nebula, Mystic)	Balanced and above
Sunny sky	Performance and above
Black Hole	Ultra Quality and above

If you pin a family that is not available at the chosen tier, the generator refuses and changes nothing, saying plainly that the quality tier must be raised.

3. Full and Reasonable chaos

Chaos level	What it does
Full	Varies the appearance of every active family inside safe reviewed ranges: shape, colour, movement, surfaces, sky and celestial bodies. Two scenes with the same set of families will look different.
Reasonable	Keeps the original curated behaviour: the set of families varies, but their appearance stays close to the reference look.

Full chaos never leaves the boundaries that were reviewed as safe: it does not produce a value outside a variable's valid range and does not exceed the quality tier's budget. The number of varied values is printed to the console together with the plan.

4. The selection zones

Every zone has a Random option — then the generator decides — and exact options that are honoured literally.

4.1. Main atmosphere

Options: Random, Off, Rain, Snow, Ash, Dust, Mist.

This is the main character of the scene. A fixed choice is honoured exactly.

4.2. Airborne impurity

Options: Random, Off, Ash, Dust, Mist.

A secondary layer mixed over the main atmosphere. The engine never mixes an impurity over a disabled atmosphere, and never mixes an impurity identical to the main profile. An impossible fixed pair is refused with an explanation, and nothing changes.

4.3. Sky

Options: Random, Map, Weather, Blue, Stars, Space, Nebula, Sunny, Mystic.

A fixed choice keeps the sky's identity, while Full chaos varies its appearance. Map means the sky the level itself defines.

4.4. Celestial bodies

Menu row	Choices
Celestial bodies	Random / Off / Sun / Planets/Earth / Black Hole / All compatible

Celestial bodies only: Sun, planets/Earth and Black Hole. Random chooses any tier-allowed subset; a fixed body is exact. Black Hole needs Ultra and supplies its required star backdrop. Inert until Generate. Applies immediately.

cl_avfxgen_celestial

This selector covers bodies only: the Sun, the planets and Earth, and the Black Hole. Random picks any subset the tier allows; a fixed body is exact. The Black Hole requires Ultra Quality and supplies the star backdrop it needs.

4.5. Meteors and ships

Menu row	Choices
Meteors and ships	Random / Off / All compatible / Impact meteors / Sky meteors / Comets / Spaceships

Independent moving-sky selector. Random (default) chooses any tier-allowed subset; Off disables all; All compatible enables every allowed kind. A fixed kind is exact. Inert until Generate. Applies immediately.

cl_avfxgen_traffic

The moving sky is a separate, independent selector: impact meteors, sky meteors, comets and spaceships. Random is the default. Off disables them all, All compatible enables every allowed kind, and a fixed kind is exact.

	The two selectors are independent: choosing the Sun no longer drags meteors along with it. If you want both a body and movement in the sky, set both.

Both selectors are inert until you press Generate.

4.6. Atmospheric effects

Options: Random, Off, Lightning, Volumetric fog, Clouds, Fog and clouds, All compatible.

Lightning requires rain. If the main atmosphere is left on Random, the generator resolves it to Rain plus storm on its own. If the main atmosphere is pinned to something incompatible, the combination is refused.

Clouds means flat and volumetric clouds; which of them participate depends on the quality tier.

4.7. Materials, coverings and objects

Menu row	Choices
Surfaces	Random / Off / Materials / Coverings / Wildlife / All compatible

Preliminary material, covering and wildlife choice. Surface Objects have their own independent selector below. Applies immediately.

cl_avfxgen_surfaces

This selector controls materials and coverings; the former grass option is replaced by independent object selection.

Menu row	Choices
Surface objects	Random / Off / All compatible / Grass / Wall foliage / Ferns / Stones and rubble / Soil clumps / Fallen leaves

Independent 3D object choice. Random selects a bounded set; All selects every compatible category. Available from Balanced; shadows vary only from Quality. Ultra/Extra disable LOD. Applies immediately.

cl_avfxgen_objects

Objects can be Random, Off, All compatible, Grass, Wall foliage, Ferns, Stones, Soil clumps or Fallen leaves. Materials and objects are independent decorations and do not change damage or collisions.

4.8. Water and puddles

Options: Random, Off, Water, Puddles, Water and puddles.

Pinned puddles require rain. If the main atmosphere is on Random it resolves to Rain; an incompatible pinned atmosphere leads to a refusal.

Note that the generator turns the water master on in every case, regardless of the choice in this zone and regardless of the tier. The zone governs which water families take part in the scene.

4.9. Surface materials

Menu row	Choices
Surface materials	Random / Always / Off

Final material policy. Random keeps the preliminary Surfaces result. Always enables at least two eligible Surface Material layers at full opacity. Off disables all seven eligible layers. Wildlife, Drawings and 3D grass stay separate. Applies immediately.

cl_avfxgen_materials

Random preserves the preliminary Surfaces result.

Always is the default. At every quality tier it enables at least two eligible layers at full opacity. The candidates are mold, brick, cracks, greenery, wall runoff, and the floor and wall coverings; wildlife, Surface Drawings, and Surface Objects are excluded.

Off disables every material layer controlled here.

This policy decides material participation and opacity. The Surface coverage zone still controls how much of the level the active layers occupy.

4.10. Wildlife

Menu row	Choices
Wildlife	Random / Always / Off

Final wildlife policy. Random keeps the preliminary Surfaces result. Always enables fully opaque wildlife with random mixing of all species; Off disables it. Coverage never changes wildlife. Applies immediately.

cl_avfxgen_wildlife

Random preserves the preliminary Surfaces result.

Always is the default. At every quality tier it enables fully opaque wildlife and random mixing of all available species.

Off always disables wildlife.

Materials, Surface Drawings, and 3D grass remain independent. The Surface coverage zone never changes wildlife.

4.11. Surface coverage zone

Options: Random, Full.

Full maximises the coverage of mold, greenery, brick, cracks and the floor and wall coverings, and lays them out uniformly — the level reads as finished rather than patchy. Random leaves those amounts to the generator.

	Full coverage never touches wildlife or wall-water runoff. That is a deliberate exception: wall-to-wall wildlife and wall-to-wall runoff do not make a level look finished.

5. What the generator never changes

These areas are preserved completely, at every tier and every chaos level:

Surface drawings (map-authored content). The generator neither creates, deletes nor modifies them.

Volumetric steam and smoke (Surface Volumes) — also map-authored content.

Single-player AVFX-related settings.

Service settings of the AVFX layer: the backend and weather-renderer choice, CPU affinity and worker count, the competitive limit, multiplayer and demo behaviour, the overlay path, the coverage update rate, and the global AVFX disable — that is global policy, not part of a scene.

The reason is the same for all of them: either it is hand-made authored work for one specific map, or it is the user's decision about the environment, not "the look of a scene". A random scene has no right to erase either.

6. How generation is performed

Pressing Generate runs exactly one sequence:

1. One new seed is created. It is built from wall-clock milliseconds plus a per-session counter. Never from pointers, addresses or gameplay random numbers.

2. One complete plan is built. The plan is a finished list of assignments: which families to enable and with which values.

3. The plan is validated as a whole. If it is impossible, or does not fit the tier's budget, no application starts at all.

4. The plan is applied once. That is the single point where settings change.

5. The AVFX layer is reset once. Not once per family — exactly once after the complete apply.

An important property follows: a refusal changes nothing. If the generator said "impossible combination" or "the family is unavailable at this tier", your current settings are exactly as they were.

6.1. What is printed to the console

After a successful generation, a compact summary appears in the console:

the quality tier, the chaos mode, the weather and the airborne impurity;

the resulting scene cost and the tier budget;

the chosen sky and the list of enabled celestial bodies;

the enabled atmospheric effects, surface families and water families;

markers for model reflections, scene reflection in water, mirrors and full coverage;

the list of material variants, if materials take part;

the number of varied appearance values under Full chaos;

the seed and the plan hash, plus the number of assignments.

The summary is printed in both English and Russian.

6.2. Reproducing a result from its seed

The generation command accepts an optional argument — the seed:

cl_avfx_preset_generate 1234567890

With the same selectors and the same seed, the same plan is built, regardless of the state the AVFX settings were in beforehand. The console marks such a run as having used an explicit seed.

In practice: write the seed from the console next to your screenshot, and you can return to that scene later or hand it to another player together with the selector positions.

	A seed alone is not enough. The plan depends on the seed, on the selected zones and on the quality tier. Record them together.

7. Refusals and their causes

The generator refuses to assemble a scene in exactly three cases. In each of them it explains the reason and changes nothing.

Message	What happened	What to do
Impossible fixed combination of impurity and main profile	The airborne impurity is pinned over a disabled atmosphere, or over the identical atmosphere	Return the impurity to Random, or change the main atmosphere
Impossible fixed combination: lightning and puddles require the Rain atmosphere	Lightning or puddles are pinned together with an incompatible pinned atmosphere	Set the main atmosphere to Rain, or return it to Random
The fixed family is not available at this quality tier	The pinned family needs a higher tier (the Black Hole below Ultra Quality, for example)	Raise the quality tier, or return the zone to Random

Every message is printed in both languages at once, so it can be passed on as is.

8. Saving a result you like

A generated scene is simply the current state of the AVFX settings. It is saved the standard way, through custom presets:

1. Open Main menu → Advanced Visual Effects → AVFX Preset Generator → AVFX Presets.

2. Go to the custom slots.

3. Save the current state into a free slot and give it a name.

After that the scene comes back with one click and survives both new generations and a reset to defaults. Slots, global versus mod-dependent presets and the rest are covered in the AVFX presets guide.

	Do not save a scene "in your head for later": the next generation overwrites the current state completely.

9. Performance

The quality tier is the load control: the generator never assembles a scene more expensive than the chosen tier's budget. Even so, the actual frame rate also depends on the map, the resolution, the render scale and the graphics backend you use.

Practical advice:

start at Balanced and climb while the frame rate still suits you;

volumetric fog and volumetric clouds are the most expensive families; below Ultra Quality their render scale and step count are already capped by the generator;

Mirror Surfaces exist only at Extra Quality precisely because they are the most expensive part;

if you like a scene but it is slightly heavy, save it as a preset and reduce the cost selectively in the AVFX submenus — the generator is not needed for that.

General reasoning about frame cost, backends and shader preparation is in the AVFX settings guide and in the video guide.

10. Quick reference

Task	What to do
Get a new scene	Generate
Set the load ceiling	Quality level
Vary the look more	Chaos level → Full
Keep the reference look of each family	Chaos level → Reasonable
Guarantee rain	Main atmosphere → Rain
Guarantee puddles	Water and puddles → Puddles, plus the Rain atmosphere
Make a level look lived-in	Surface coverage zone → Full
Return to a clean state	Enable AVFX defaults
Repeat one exact scene	cl_avfx_preset_generate <seed> with the same selectors
Keep a scene permanently	A custom slot in the AVFX presets

Q2PRO-X 1.6 Beta 5 by ly — Q2PRO-X 1.6 Beta 5 AVFX Preset Generator Guide

Contents

Beta4: generated presets and tessellation