faetal on 9/2/2012 at 09:21
Quote Posted by Yakoob
You know after reading several papers and listening to hour-long GDC speeches on shadow maps, cascading, filtering methods and related issues, I still give props to Beth for the shadows. It's much harder to make them look good than you think.
That's as may be, but when you consider that better shadow rendering does exist and Beth have got a few dollars floating around, you'd have thought they could have done better in keeping the shadow quality consistent with the overall graphical quality.
Painman on 12/2/2012 at 10:03
I like this texture pack. It finely rides the line between giving me better visuals, without blowing up my video card's "meager" 1 GB VRAM.
Load times are a tad longer, but framerates are unchanged. I haven't noticed any significant texture pop/thrash. I can jog from The Reach to Whiterun Hold without a bunch of freak-out as the scenery changes, for instance.
I'm happy with it; not overwhelmed, but it's welcome. Folks who have to pay for their bandwidth by the GB may beg to differ, since it's a ~3.2 GB proposition.
It certainly isn't going to melt your eyeballs, as the hype suggests.
Eldron on 13/2/2012 at 11:55
Quote Posted by faetal
That's as may be, but when you consider that better shadow rendering does exist and Beth have got a few dollars floating around, you'd have thought they could have done better in keeping the shadow quality consistent with the overall graphical quality.
It does, but not for cheap.
Bethesda could've just upped the shadowmap resolution, but not without consequences, not to mention the places where an omni-shadowmapped light will become increasingly lower-resolution the further the shadows are cast from the light.
Still, beats the hell out of using stencil shadows in this kind of a scenario, you'll find that most will use similar techniques, but they are fortunate to have much smaller scenes and thus requires way smaller shadowmaps and can keep the density up.
wonderfield on 13/2/2012 at 21:30
Quote Posted by faetal
That's as may be, but when you consider that better shadow rendering does exist and Beth have got a few dollars floating around, you'd have thought they could have done better in keeping the shadow quality consistent with the overall graphical quality.
You can't just throw money at a renderer and expect it to go faster. It just doesn't work that way.
faetal on 14/2/2012 at 13:15
I have not seen shadows with jaggies this obvious in a game with real time shadows for some time. Am I missing something obvious here? Why are the Skyrim shadows so visibly different from what I thought were standard real time shadow projections? If there is some technical subtlety I'm not aware of, then please explain so I can re-adjust my expectations. All I know is that every time I see one of the Skyrim shadows, it sticks out like a sore and very aliased thumb.
bikerdude on 14/2/2012 at 19:26
Quote Posted by Painman
It finely rides the line between giving me better visuals, without blowing up my video card's "meager" 1 GB VRAM.
This may have been mentioned already, but the official HD pack is a waste of time. Go over to "http://skyrim.nexusmods.com" and get the following:-
1. Nexus mod manager (nmm) -its like oblivion mode manage but supports more games.
Then I suggest the following core mods that are a basic must and will run fine on a 1gb gfx card.
Install them via nmm in the following order, this is because you will get messages warning that your about to overwrite textures installed by Skyrim HD, but ignore them.
1. SkyUI - (this gives you a much better interface on the PC)
2. Skyrim HD - 2K Textures - Skyrim HD v1_4 FULL
3. Skyrim Flora Overhaul - Vurts Skyrim Flora Overhaul v109a
4. Skyrim Sunglare V3 - Skyrim sunglare V3_0 HD
5. RWT: Realistic Water Textures - (this fixes the numerous bugs with water and makes it look better at the same time)
6. Realistic Lighting With Customization - Realistic Lighting v3_31 - (corrects the washed out look of skyrim)
7. Improved NPC Clothing - High Res - Improved NPC Clothing_1_8_1
8. HQ Towns and Villages
9. No More Blocky Faces - No_More_Blocky_Faces-1_50
10. Shadow Striping Fix - Shadow Striping Fix (fixes the annoying stipped shadows seen in Breezehome and other places)
11. Shadow Striping Fix - Shadow Striping Fix
12. A_Quality_World_Map_Installer-4929 - yjos is a huge improvement over the std map)
All of the above will improve Skyrim beyond recognition, see my posted images over on the TDM forums
- (
http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/13332-share-your-skyrim-screenshots/page__view__findpost__p__276496)
faetal on 14/2/2012 at 19:32
Aren't the texture and flora overhauls works in progress? If so, is it not better to wait until they are finished rather than have inconsistencies?
bikerdude on 14/2/2012 at 20:11
Quote Posted by faetal
Aren't the texture and flora overhauls works in progress? If so, is it not better to wait until they are finished rather than have inconsistencies?
Its only wip in that not all plants have been replaced yet.. but I have yet to find any yet..
wonderfield on 15/2/2012 at 02:23
Quote Posted by faetal
I have not seen shadows with jaggies this obvious in a game with real time shadows for some time.
There's a configuration option to increase the number of blur passes and shadow map resolution: that isn't a problem. Skyrim's default settings yield relatively hard-looking shadows, which yields aliasing on the edges at the relatively low default shadow map resolution.
There are contact-hardening shadow map techniques that yield better results for a significant performance hit, but Bethesda didn't implement them (for the aforementioned reason).
faetal on 15/2/2012 at 11:27
Ok, how do I implemented the extra pass config change? I've already increased the res of the shadows, but it hasn't really helped much.
