Thanks.

Seems I wasn't too far off trying all of them, to date. Still experimenting with Godrays' settings, but I like that one (in particular) a lot.

I get the same problem.

I get this all the time when working on the SSAO shader. It usually means one of the shaders failed to compile. If you were tweaking the effect's settings, you may have accidentally boogered it up somehow. Take a look at the TestShaderV3 text log in the Oblivion directory to find which one failed, where, and why.

It could also be a graphics card incompatibility. If you have an older GPU that can't run Pixel Shader 3.0 effects, for instance, and the effect you're trying to use requires it, that could also cause this problem. Again, check the log file for details.

I tried it today for the heck of it and it worked. I don't know...

I've uploaded a new version of my DoF shader http://cid-465896b69b9940e8.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Oblivion%20Shaders/DepthOfField.fx. Could the OP be updated?

Changes are:
- Weapon blur toggle added. Now you can choose whether you want your weapon to be blurred too.
- Distance blur toggle added. Turns DoF into a distance blur so the further things are away from you, the blurrier they get.
- Comments for variables expanded upon, hopefully it should be a bit easier to understand what they do.
- Fixed some potential compiling errors (apparently you can get negative depth).
- THE SHADER IS NOW A PIXEL SHADER 3.0 SHADER. You need a Shader Model 3.0 compliant graphics card to run it. (The same as for Godrays)

Hopefully that should address some of the concerns raised with the previous version, at least partially. A full solution isn't possible until I can pass variables to the shader on the fly.

Off topic: Nothing like working on shaders to put off doing my differential equation and multi variable calculus revision.

Real time static shadows cast off of buildings and trees next?

I love it!

Great work. A nice, gentle effect that I personally think beats qarl's and OMG's DoF by far. I just couldn't resist a few screens...

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8996/dofv2.jpg
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6130/dofv2a.jpg

I think I'm in love with the new DoF shader

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW......
I think I did everything correctly, but when I type in showtestshader my screen goes black if indoors, or blue if outdoors. I can still see my hud and stuff, but I can't see anything else. Does this mean I need a new video card? I'm getting a new one for Christmas, so its not a big deal.

(My current one is a GeForce 8600! I know, ancient right?)

i'am not shore if this is your DepthOfField. or godrays so iam going to report this here and in All Natural ill let the http://www.xfire.com/video/1a586e/ do all tha talking.

Many people they had to remove testshader.fx and depth.fx from there shaders folder to remove a cerain... undisirable effect, but now the shader crashes and I get a blue or black screen. I will put them back and see what happens.

Tried it and I just got the staticy effect.

@ Cogstar

I don't see any bug in your video...please describe it in detail. I use Depth of Field, Godrays, and All natural and I experience no bugs. EDIT: I saw the bug but thats not due to shaders.

@ Dudish

Blue screen effect usually comes from a graphics card error. If your card isn't a shader model 3.0, you can't run godrays. Since thats the only PS 3.0 shader we have, im guessing your using it and your card does not support PS 3.0. If it does however, it could be an error with specs. Try downloading the DX9 in the OP, or even Downloading the C++ from the MGE page in the morrowind forum. Could possibly help.

The NVIDIA 8x00 generation (including 8600) is DirectX 10 compliant, which means Shader Model 4, so the problem isn't due to pixel shader version. And now both Godrays and DoF are PS3.0.

The bug Cogstar reported is All Natural related, not to worry.

If you are having problems with the shaders, try looking in your DepthShaderTest.txt file in your Oblivion folder. It's generated each time you load the shaders, and it'll contain any messages about errors that may have occurred.

To whoever asked about the real time shadow generation: It is a logical possibility, and from what I've been reading about the matrices on offer it should also be doable. Since it's something I've been dying to see ever since I saw that Oblivion in CryEngine 2 video, I'll give it a shot.

Thanks everyone for the help!
A stupid mistake! I forgot to change the shaders in the shaderlist text document. :banghead:
Dang Cogstar. A bit off topic, but what sword are you using?
And wrinklyninja, I would very much like to see this video. Is there a link around here somewhere?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zu_dh5Hbgw

I'm just mucking about with the godrays shader, seeing what does what, and I happened across a number of blue screens in my fiddling. If you get a blue screen, it is because the shader has failed to compile. Check your DepthTestShader.txt log in the Oblivion folder for details, and reverse any edits you made to the shader.

Shadows aren't really that great unless they can be drawn when the sun is off screen. Does anyone know of a way to get the sun's position in relation to the camera when it is off screen? I'm not too hot on all this position stuff yet, hence why I'm asking. As extra incentive, it would also enable godrays when you can't see the sun too (like through a forest canopy).

Oh, and is it possible to get a shadow map from the sun's position? As in, to render the scene from the sun's point of view?

The only problem I have at the moment is that the rays come in vertical and diagonal, which creates an extremely annoying game experience. Here's a crude drawing of what I'm trying to say.
http://filesmelt.com/downloader/Clipboard012.jpg
And a screenshot; you can see the vertical rays coming down a little to the left of the center of the screen, even though though it's 7 AM and the sun isn't directly above me.
http://filesmelt.com/downloader/213123123.jpg

http://ccgi.garrettn.plus.com/ is dead but I can fill you in on why shadows on statics won't work.

OK then, why not? It would seem I have missed something.

Appears oblivion.exe itself maintains a list of shadow caster/receivers. Object types for casters are limited to rigged items (ie PC/NPC and creatures) and some info from skeleton.nif bounding box is used to qualify a caster. Basically the only way to get a static to cast shadows is it rig it with at least one bone and tell the CS its a creature (and script it to stand still). Even then the item's bounding box can't be bigger than 500x500x500 and the engine further limits the number of objects in the scene that can cast shadows at the same time. I was hoping we could overcome some of the limits by using DLL injection but it never came to pass.

I don't think that those problems would apply in this case. I'm hardly an expert, but I'd be doing it with post-proccessing shaders, which wouldn't interact with the engine, only look good (hopefully). Also, I'm thinking along the lines of not just static shadows, but having anything that's in sunlight cast shadows, including mountains and the such.

Regarding the shadows, I did ask for a shadow map, as that's what I read that the simplest technique would require, but I think that it would also work, if rendering the screen from the sun's POV and being able to access that as a texture is impossible, if I could get a transition matrix from the camera basis to the sun basis, or vice versa. I could then compare each point (by using projection matrix on pixel) from the camera basis to its relative point in the sun basis, and see if it is visible or not (using depth). If it is visible, I don't do anything. If it isn't visible, then I darken the pixel.

I hope that makes sense and is possible. I'm using maths language (transition, basis) because I don't know what the anologue is in shader programming is called. If anyone spots a problem with such an approach, please do tell.

Just a question, how do you make the SSAO more intense? It looks great currently, http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/4336/screenshot9f.png, but I think it would look even better if it was more intense. I've tried editing the .fx file with notepad++, but I fail at modding shaders and can't figure out it's structure, so... How do I change it? Anyways, keep up the good work, you are doing great! :tops:

You are attempting to post-process an entirely new lighting system?

:drool:

Sunlight creating godrays, full shadows from buildings and objects, AND shadows from mountains!? The thought of how much more beautiful Cyrodiil would look is overpowering. I really hope you're right, and this can be achieved.

I remember checking this mod project out... maybe 6 months ago (I think it was this one)? I recall it wasn't going very well, and too many limitations were being reached, particularly in regard to a realistic water overhaul. I'm so happy to have taken another look and seen all this! The only regret I have is that all my time in questing for knowledge has been to further my artistic abilities. I would love to offer help here, but I have no knowledge in programming at all... I will provide as much support as I can though!

I do have a question, if you don't mind taking the time to answer:

Do these shader improvements (mainly the godrays) put more stress on the CPU or the GPU? I'm unlucky enough to have purchased a quad-core a year ago, so Oblivion apparently only reads my CPU as a single core 2.4ghz processor (curse you Bethesda), but on the flip-side I have a GTX280 which allows me to use the most amazing texture packs without any loss in frame rate. The CPU becomes a choking point when I have long view distances, or more than a few NPCs on screen at once, so I'd like to know if this mod would likely put more stress on my CPU, or be something that my GPU can deal with instead. Presumably both are used to some extent?

I don't really know what I'm doing, I just think: OK, what is it that I want to get, and how do I get there? Then I attempt to get there using whatever strategy I thought of (or read about). By the tone of your reply, I'm obviously either doing something really stupid, or something really impossibe, or something really awesome. I doubt it's the latter, otherwise we'd be seeing an attempt a lot earlier. But I'm doing this to learn about shaders and stuff, not because I can already do it. And learning involved making mistakes.

And I don't think I'm trying to post process an entire lighting system. I've seen what true optics is and it is g**-da**ed hard and complicated. I'm not bothering with anything lighting wise aside from the most simple of geometrical optics - matrix ray propogation through one optical medium. I'm not thinking of diffraction or refraction or reflection or anything - just "Light goes in straight lines. It hits something, it stops.". Pretty simple really, IMHO.

Of course, I could be overestimating the average computer's processing power when it comes to matrix multiplication, and so I could be in for a rather nasty performance hit, but even if it turns out to be virtually unplayable, I'll have learnt something, and that was pretty much the whole point anyway.

@ Darkstorne: Don't get your hopes up, see above (and probably Hel Borne's reply) for why, as well as the fact that my proposed methods are theoretical. I can answer your question, and I believe that shaders are applied through the GPU. I could be wrong though.

I'm not wanting to discourage you. I'd love to see full dynamic lighting but I think what you're envisioning (even the simplest hard stencil shadows) is going to to be a severe challenge. We already know the engine can render stencil shadows (out-of-the-box). The game knows 'how to' draw shadows but it was told 'not to'.