openmw.org

Here is an example of what I am seeing. Most of the shadows appear blocky or "chunky." And when they move, which you cannot see here, they look terrible.

Shadow maps are set to 3 and increasing shadow map resolution does not seem to have an effect.

And just for the record, in case it helps, here are the shader and shadow settings from my settings.cfg:

[Shaders]
auto use object normal maps = true
auto use object specular maps = true
auto use terrain normal maps = true
auto use terrain specular maps = true
clamp lighting = false
normal height map pattern = _nh
normal map pattern = _n
specular map pattern = _spec
terrain specular map pattern = _diffusespec
force shaders = true
force per pixel lighting = true

[Shadows]
enable shadows = true
number of shadow maps = 3
allow shadow map overlap = true
split point uniform logarithmic ratio = 0.5
split point bias = 0.0
enable debug hud = false
enable debug overlay = false
compute tight scene bounds = false
shadow map resolution = 2048
minimum lispsm near far ratio = 0.25
polygon offset factor = 1.1
polygon offset units = 4.0
normal offset distance = 1.0
use front face culling = true
actor shadows = true
player shadows = true
terrain shadows = true
object shadows = true
enable indoor shadows = true

Been experimenting with some of the other settings I've added to my settings.cfg file over time, and this appears to be part of the problem:

[Camera]
small feature culling = true
small feature culling pixel size = 16.0
viewing distance = 66666

I don't remember why I added this or when, but it was probably recommended by a mod. Not really even sure what this does.

Small feature culling is a feature from OpenSceneGraph that culls nodes that are too small to be visible on the screen. In this case the normal value of 2 pixels has been increased to 16, so model parts of roughly 16x16 apparent area will not be visible. This may or may not improve the performance. The setting is not likely to affect shadows, other than the culled nodes probably not affecting the shadowmaps anymore.

Viewing distance, though, controls... viewing distance (surprise). Your value is 10x of the default max. Very large viewing distance is not handled well by shadows at the moment so the one shadow map that gets stretched over the rest of the visible world may get borked.

I've done lots of testing with 100x the default value, so it should work okay-ish once the log ratio is set to one-ish.

Also, you might want to update the imperial towns pack...

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Yes, increased view distance seriously borks the shadows. They even sway a lot more when the distance is set higher. At this point, it seems like an either/or situation: shadows or extended view.

You've tried with the split point uniform logarithmic ratio at 1.0, right? Also, disabling terrain shadows is an option for a reason.

AnyOldName3 wrote: ↑24 Feb 2019, 01:48 You've tried with the split point uniform logarithmic ratio at 1.0, right? Also, disabling terrain shadows is an option for a reason.

Well, no. Not sure how I would know to try it. But it does increase framerates significantly without a noticeable loss of quality. Thanks.

clocknova wrote: ↑23 Feb 2019, 21:44 Yes, increased view distance seriously borks the shadows. They even sway a lot more when the distance is set higher. At this point, it seems like an either/or situation: shadows or extended view.

To be honest, I have significantly reduced viewing distance again, not so much for performance or shadow quality reasons, but because Vvardenfell is simply not designed for large viewing distances. There needs to be fog (as well as tediously slow walking speed) to hide the fact that the world is world is smaller than it pretends to be. (In Tamriel Rebuilt, i.e. the mainland, it is a bit different, though.)

haloterm wrote: ↑24 Feb 2019, 06:48To be honest, I have significantly reduced viewing distance again, not so much for performance or shadow quality reasons, but because Vvardenfell is simply not designed for large viewing distances. There needs to be fog (as well as tediously slow walking speed) to hide the fact that the world is world is smaller than it pretends to be. (In Tamriel Rebuilt, i.e. the mainland, it is a bit different, though.)

I've done the same thing. Not all the way back to vanilla levels, but enough that the fog still hovers just out of reach. I'd be interested to know what your camera and cells settings are. Currently I'm running with a view distance of 14285 and an exterior cell load distance of 2. Seems to be a good balance at the moment, but I've not tested it much outside of Seyda Neen.