NEW IN 1.1.0

• Passive / no aggro: player-side bit replaces repeated enemy scans. Solo-only. Normal restores our flag; AI keeps running. So uh... don’t get too comfy.
• Independent photo camera: removed the ActionCam adapter/dependency, with camera/input recovery fixes.
• Performance: no enemy scans for Passive; bounded Dummy work and cheaper transform-only light-follow updates.
• Follow Player: moves the complete lighting rig, including newly added lights.
• Hoverpack: restoration clock and pause-entry fallback corrected; native hooks remain removed.

No-aggro flag tested live; integrated ownership/lifecycle and package checks passed. Wider mission, respawn, damage and objective testing remains limited. Preserve settings, presets and screenshots; deploy matching bundled assets and restart.

THANK YOU to everyone sharing photos and testing!

GitHub: BSL / MDL / LLL and full notes
Nexus: BSL / MDL

WAR JOURNALIST 1.0.1
A Helldivers 2 Photo Mode

1.0.1 — Actually 1.0 this time.

• BSL startup fixed with supported ActionCam: the verified ActionCam 2.3.1/2.4 callbacks are found through loader wrappers. Exact compatibility signatures remain required.
• Pick your tab layout: Composition → Menu layout → Tab layout now offers Slim or Stacked, saved through restarts. The global controls stay within reach.
• Cute new icons: Director gets a clapperboard, Subject a helmet, and Controls a cross.

BSL startup and both layouts were confirmed in-game. MDL and LLL passed package startup checks. The accepted compositor and shader assets are unchanged.

The full 1.0 release notes remain below; their verification counts describe the 1.0 release. All features and testing limits remain included.

A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone submitting photos, testing builds and reporting bugs. Seeing what you're making with these tools has been amazing. Your shots and feedback helped get us here. Please keep the photos coming!

New tools

• Static Cinema action shots: place the camera, then control your Helldiver while the view stays put. Press your Photo Mode key to reposition.
• Up to 32 scene-local camera path points, adjustable segment durations, Smooth travel or Cuts. The final view remains held.
• Reachable Freeze Action, Slow Motion/speed, Lock Camera and solo AI controls, with a mission-faction icon.
• Action shots retain slow motion, temporarily unfreeze, and restore your previous Freeze setting on return. The Cinema hint fades after three seconds.
• Controls-drawer visibility, open/docked state and layout survive restarts.

Bugs fixed

• The reported frozen ragdoll spin at exact zero time now holds its captured pose and resumes normally; Subject pose switching still works.
• Gameplay camera and cursor recovery after native-menu handoffs; Escape/settings and chat take priority.
• Buffered double-click focus, camera cursor confinement, and held ADS input preservation.
• The additional floating-cape outfit variant and Maxigun ammunition-feed visibility/restoration.
• Temporary unavailable scene reads no longer discard camera path points. Saved lens restores report partial failures accurately.
• Supported standalone ActionCam 2.3.1/2.4 coexistence. The Radeon shader-registry repair is retained.

Everything is bundled: 213 sampled pose frames/variants, Native DoF, shader bokeh preview, autofocus, lights/presets, scene effects, artwork and five saved Director cameras. No Link addon, MCM, HUD or ActionCam prerequisite.

Choose one loader. Preserve settings/presets/screenshots, replace the older Photo Mode package, deploy its matching assets and restart.
GitHub — complete BSL, MDL and LLL bundles
Nexus — BSL and MDL

All 63 fixture groups, three standalone loader startup checks and package/asset closure checks passed. Public GitHub downloads match the release checksums. Action-shot return and the reported ragdoll freeze/resume were verified live.

Lighting: Not tested fully. Shader DoF remains a preview. Broader scenes/equipment/camera-mod transitions need coverage. HDR/SDR switching is not claimed fixed. Solo AI suppresses behavior; it does not stop all AI processing, physics or damage.

Camera foundation: HuedPurple's ActionCam. Native reader work credited to CowboyBingus and Link. Thank you again to everyone sharing shots, tests and reports!

WAR JOURNALIST 1.0
A Helldivers 2 Photo Mode

A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone submitting photos, testing builds and reporting bugs. Seeing what you're making with these tools has been amazing. Your shots and feedback helped get us here. Please keep the photos coming!

New tools

• Static Cinema action shots: place the camera, then control your Helldiver while the view stays put. Press your Photo Mode key to reposition.
• Up to 32 scene-local camera path points, adjustable segment durations, Smooth travel or Cuts. The final view remains held.
• Reachable Freeze Action, Slow Motion/speed, Lock Camera and solo AI controls, with a mission-faction icon.
• Action shots retain slow motion, temporarily unfreeze, and restore your previous Freeze setting on return. The Cinema hint fades after three seconds.
• Controls-drawer visibility, open/docked state and layout survive restarts.

Bugs fixed

• The reported frozen ragdoll spin at exact zero time now holds its captured pose and resumes normally; Subject pose switching still works.
• Gameplay camera and cursor recovery after native-menu handoffs; Escape/settings and chat take priority.
• Buffered double-click focus, camera cursor confinement, and held ADS input preservation.
• The additional floating-cape outfit variant and Maxigun ammunition-feed visibility/restoration.
• Temporary unavailable scene reads no longer discard camera path points. Saved lens restores report partial failures accurately.
• Supported standalone ActionCam 2.3.1/2.4 coexistence. The Radeon shader-registry repair is retained.

Everything is bundled: 213 sampled pose frames/variants, Native DoF, shader bokeh preview, autofocus, lights/presets, scene effects, artwork and five saved Director cameras. No Link addon, MCM, HUD or ActionCam prerequisite.

Choose one loader. Preserve settings/presets/screenshots, replace the older Photo Mode package, deploy its matching assets and restart.
GitHub — complete BSL, MDL and LLL bundles
Nexus — BSL and MDL

All 63 fixture groups, three standalone loader startup checks and package/asset closure checks passed. Public GitHub downloads match the release checksums. Action-shot return and the reported ragdoll freeze/resume were verified live.

Lighting: Not tested fully. Shader DoF remains a preview. Broader scenes/equipment/camera-mod transitions need coverage. HDR/SDR switching is not claimed fixed. Solo AI suppresses behavior; it does not stop all AI processing, physics or damage.

Camera foundation: HuedPurple's ActionCam. Native reader work credited to CowboyBingus and Link. Thank you again to everyone sharing shots, tests and reports!

WAR JOURNALIST 0.9.9 — A Helldivers 2 Photo Mode

Removed 198 inherited shader registrations that referenced libraries absent from a clean Photo Mode install. The bundled registry now contains the game’s 77 native entries and the 44 Photo Mode libraries actually shipped. Runtime Lua, native DLLs, GPU shaders, lights and artwork remain unchanged from the registry-only test.

Affected Radeon testers report stable Alt-Tab, fullscreen, bloom and DoF changes, both before and after opening Photo Mode. HDR/SDR switching and unrelated crashes still need separate confirmation.

All 0.9.8 features and fixes remain, including steady Native DoF, held ADS, fixed poses/capes, persistent solo AI, photo lights/presets, autofocus and Director cameras. Lighting: Not tested fully.

Replace the older Photo Mode package, deploy its bundled assets and restart. Preserve your settings, presets and screenshots.

Complete BSL download
Complete MDL download
GitHub release and LLL download

WAR JOURNALIST 0.9.7 — A Helldivers 2 Photo Mode

Everything since 0.9.5, in complete BSL, MDL and LLL bundles.

New tools

• 213 fixed pose frames while solo pause stays at zero, with Reset. Sampled frames and variants, not 213 store emotes.
• Persistent solo Normal, Passive and Dummy controls, including newly discovered enemies and Reset to Normal. Disabled in multiplayer.
• Draggable numbered light indicators, Shift precision, subject aiming, three lighting rigs and five saved lighting setups.
• Stronger shader DoF, saved menu opacity, and an Apply button with live swatch and HEX color preview.

Bugs fixed

• Floating cape: FIXED for supported capes. The original cape follows posed shoulders and restores on Reset and exit.
• Poses remaining unavailable while paused.
• Enemies staying hostile in Dummy/Passive. Both modes were re-tested and confirmed in game.
• Lights lost after reopening Photo Mode in the same scene.
• Nested equipment left floating after hiding the subject.
• Retryable cleanup and safer scene transitions.

FIXED — this is the old floating-cape bug before the correction.

54 fixture groups and all three standalone package checks pass. All required assets are bundled.

Lighting: Not tested fully. Stronger shader blur, broader cape/mission coverage and SDR compositor parity still need more testing. HDR/SDR switching and display-setting crashes remain unresolved. Passive/Dummy leave AI processing and physics running.

Downloads, checksums and full release notes
Nexus: BSL and MDL (virus scans pending at upload)

War Journalist 0.9.5 is here.

Native focus/aperture, double-click and center autofocus, a movable studio menu, five player-relative Director shots, subject visibility, photo lights and new Helldivers/Super Earth logos. Shader bokeh and scene effects now share the corrected full-resolution compositor.

The bug-fix list is substantial:
• Native adjustable focus/aperture and current-camera instance recovery.
• Double-click focus, center autofocus, lens presets and fine focus controls.
• Full-resolution compositor allows Shader DoF with scene effects and grading; fixes HDR tint/exposure.
• Movable/resizable studio menu, persistent placement, contextual controls dock and Shift slider scrubbing.
• Five player-relative Director camera presets and subject visibility controls.
• Three point/spot photo lights with placement indicators; dedicated mission light asset fix: Not tested fully.
• Updated Helldiver crest, Super Earth insignia and seven curated Helldivers logo variants.
• Reported hoverpack+melee pause/resume crash passed reproduction with the data-only guard; active-hover controller pause is refused.
• Missing animation-graph guards for ragdoll/respawn, held-input release, chat activation guard, menu reopening and Tab jitter fixes.
• Corrected SDR screenshot channels and HDR PNG conversion; configurable Pause screenshot binding and WARMING UP SCENE status.
• Complete runtime and assets bundled; BSL main and MDL alternative on Nexus. See full description for testing limits.

Mission light fix: Not tested fully. The dedicated asset is included; broader mission coverage is still needed. Hoverpack/melee passed the reported reproduction, not every loadout. Native remains the blur-quality baseline; SDR compositor parity is not fully validated.

Nexus: BSL + MDL
GitHub: all packages, full changelog and checksums

Every loader download includes its runtime and all required assets. Choose one runtime, preserve settings/screenshots, deploy the included assets and restart. MCM and Link's addon are not prerequisites.

Thanks to everyone helping test this. Go make something worth framing.

Download availability: BSL and MDL are now available on Nexus. The MDL ZIP was repacked without nested archives and cleared scanning. Runtime, shaders, lights and artwork are unchanged. For MDL, copy dbf_freecam into MDL Mods, then import the complete ZIP into Arsenal for its GameData assets, deploy and restart.

War Journalist 0.7 Preview — BSL and MDL only

NOTICE: When Shader DoF is enabled, scene effects and color controls are GRAYED OUT. The menu says "Shader DoF Enabled. Scene Effects disabled". Turn DoF OFF or select Native camera mode to use scene effects.

Choose Shader preview for working depth-aware focus distance and aperture/f-stop, with 32/64 samples and round/hex bokeh. Blur uses the game’s 960×540 color source; focused pixels retain the original full-resolution scene. Final bokeh quality remains under review. Focus/aperture response and typed-value saving were confirmed in-game.

Native game engine DoF remains nonfunctional for manual focus/aperture control. Numeric native controls remain disabled; the native toggle only uses the existing engine effect.

The complete package includes 40 decorative overlays plus DoF and scene shaders: 42 shader libraries, 42 materials, and 317 registry IDs. Private menu/input, camera runtime, and HDR-aware PNG capture are included. No separate shader download, DBF-HUD, MCM, or ActionCam download is required. MCM remains optional.

In menu focus, W/S selects rows and A/D adjusts values or cycles dropdown options without mouse hover. Shift+A/D provides 0.001 m focus steps. Valid typed values save when leaving the field. Escape cancels. Mouse Exit followed by P reopens Photo Mode.

Scene previews: Negative, Monochrome, Posterize, Duotone, Solarize, Inverted depth, Thermal depth, Depth contours and Depth fog, plus exposure/contrast/saturation. Scene visuals remain unverified; their color source is also 960×540. They are disabled during Shader DoF because the passes do not yet share grading.

BSL v15+ / API 1: import into Arsenal, enable, deploy and restart normally.
MDL API 2: install BOTH dbf_freecam into MDL Mods and the included GameData patches. See INSTALL.txt for manual steps.
Disable original ActionCam, older Photo Mode packages, the LLL addon and separate DoF asset candidates. Install one Photo Mode package. No unrelated alt-tab crash fix is claimed.

BSL: https://github.com/HWG90/DBF_PhotoMode/releases/download/v0.7-preview.1/War-Journalist-0.7-BSL.zip
MDL: https://github.com/HWG90/DBF_PhotoMode/releases/download/v0.7-preview.1/War-Journalist-0.7-MDL.zip
Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/helldivers2/mods/17248

Validation: 25/25 fixture groups and source-unavailable BSL/MDL startup checks passed; this does not establish unverified scene visuals.

War Journalist 0.6 Preview

Sorry about the missing shader assets in 0.5 — I forgot to bundle them. They’re included in 0.6.

All runtime/native/menu components and all 40 decorative overlay assets, materials and shader registrations are now bundled. The only prerequisite is your chosen Lua loader: BSL v15+ for the main package, or MDL Pro 2.0.8 / API 2 for the alternative. No MCM, DBF-HUD or ActionCam download is needed.

HD2 Arsenal is optional; manual installation steps are included in INSTALL.txt. MDL users must install both included parts: dbf_freecam into MDL Mods and GameData patches into Helldivers 2/data. Install one Photo Mode package and disable the original ActionCam before installing.

BSL: War-Journalist-0.6-BSL.zip
MDL: War-Journalist-0.6-MDL.zip

Package-only standalone startup checks and 16 runtime fixtures passed. This release fixes the packaging and standalone startup; no new in-game validation is claimed. Focus distance, aperture/f-stop and scene color/depth effects remain disabled pending the shader registration fix.

Full release notes and source