[WIPREL] Oblivion Graphics Extender : IV - Oblivion

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 11:37 pm

Takes 10 minutes per texture. Though I'd like to have the spec. gone.

Like I said, you need to actually add specular map support (preferably working like normal maps do, by matching the diffuse's name with a _spec tag on the end) much like you did with POM...

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:08 pm

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9459/swamprays1.jpg http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/421/swamprays2ad.jpg. http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7857/swamprays3.jpg

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 8:56 pm

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9459/swamprays1.jpg http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/421/swamprays2ad.jpg. http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7857/swamprays3.jpg

Gorgeous. I like the effect you're getting!

What shaders are you using? Godrays obviously. Using PCS?

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 3:08 pm

Volumetric SSAO, MLAA, and ColorEffects with a 0.2 saturation boost.

I'm not using PCS currently, I disabled it along with POM when I was tweaking my game's performance and haven't re-enabled them yet. I'm kind of torn between the beautiful PCS sky and vanilla Oblivion / All Natural's more colorful mornings and evenings. I kind of want like a ~fantastical~ PCS, but then I guess it wouldn't be physically correct hehe

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 10:45 pm

Volumetric SSAO, MLAA, and ColorEffects with a 0.2 saturation boost.

I'm not using PCS currently, I disabled it along with POM when I was tweaking my game's performance and haven't re-enabled them yet. I'm kind of torn between the beautiful PCS sky and vanilla Oblivion / All Natural's more colorful mornings and evenings. I kind of want like a ~fantastical~ PCS, but then I guess it wouldn't be physically correct hehe

I know what you mean!! I so miss the powerful reddish orange sunsets / sunrises

On a side note, is All Natural fully compatible with PCS?

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 10:52 pm

Yeah, but you may end up with situations in the evenings where everything is cast in an orange-reddish glow but the sky is still quite blue.

I mean, the PCS sky does get some red in it during sunsets, but it doesn't cover the sky the same way and it occurs later when everything else is already pretty dark.

It's possible I haven't been exposed to it enough and there's more variation to it I haven't seen.

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:35 pm

Yeah, but you may end up with situations in the evenings where everything is cast in an orange-reddish glow but the sky is still quite blue.

I mean, the PCS sky does get some red in it during sunsets, but it doesn't cover the sky the same way and it occurs later when everything else is already pretty dark.

It's possible I haven't been exposed to it enough and there's more variation to it I haven't seen.

I'm really curious to know more about this. I wonder if anyone with some knowledge on it could shed some insight. On another side note, I've noticed the nights don't seem quite as brilliant while using PCS. The stars look slightly bigger and more spaced out, but kind of low resolution.

» Sat Jul 14, 2012 3:38 am

You know, I was thinking and I find godrays to be a pretty good example of how realism doesn't always need to be the goal with graphics. The effect as it's seen in real life occurs rarely and not at all to the extreme it's represented in the game, where it actually functions a lot more like a replacement sunglare, I think. But in my opinion at least it improves most any scene, even if it's not really an accurate representation of a real optical phenomenon.

But will godrays become the lens flare of the 2010s? Will it look hopelessly outdated in a few years when rendering power is able to model light and the [virtual] eye's interaction with it more accurately? Are we losing forever unrealistic but novel graphical approaches in our relentless pursuit of modeling perfectly the genuine physical world? Why isn't there a mod that lets me add a million lens flares??? What about those newer lens flares in hip hop videos and JJ Abrams movies why can't I have those???????? Deep questions

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 2:18 pm

Huh?

Yeah I jumped the gun on that post, I just tried out the shader for myself it doesnt look like it's based on the crysis 2 shader at all

On that note, it would be nice to see a godrays shader more similar to the crysis 2 sun rays! Or even to morrowind's sun shafts.

» Sat Jul 14, 2012 2:36 am

This something I asked in the last thread:

I'm using PCS. I've added the LightShafts.fx to the shader list, but the sun seems pretty weak.

I can look straight at the sky and it's just a small bright orb. Where is the super bright glare of vanilla sun? How do I increase the glare? How do I increase the lightshaft intensity since there's no in-game option for it?

Sounds like you activated the godrays sunglare fix with OBGEv3 that removes the vanilla sunglare completely. if you opt out of that part you will still have the vanilla sunglare with your godrays, along with replacement mods as well that can lessen or heighten the sun glare.

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:19 pm

Like I said, you need to actually add specular map support (preferably working like normal maps do, by matching the diffuse's name with a _spec tag on the end) much like you did with POM...

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/DDS_Files

» Sat Jul 14, 2012 12:27 am

...Why isn't there a mod that lets me add a million lens flares???

Isn't there, though? I found http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=38777, but I was sure I had seen more variety in the past. Maybe they took them down because they thought godrays was more "modern"? You never know what the mentality is until you ask people about it. Is lens glare not pretty to people anymore?

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 6:24 pm

Volumetric SSAO, MLAA, and ColorEffects with a 0.2 saturation boost.

I'm not using PCS currently, I disabled it along with POM when I was tweaking my game's performance and haven't re-enabled them yet. I'm kind of torn between the beautiful PCS sky and vanilla Oblivion / All Natural's more colorful mornings and evenings. I kind of want like a ~fantastical~ PCS, but then I guess it wouldn't be physically correct hehe

Can you believe I detected that in closed cities the sky is a solid color, and the shader is skipped ... :shakehead:

» Sat Jul 14, 2012 5:22 am

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/DDS_Files

I don't think you understand. Yes, Oblivion uses the normal maps to determine specular, not the parallax, but by the way you seem to suggest having to set each NIF to read a specular map is very tedious and can be avoided. If you make a detector that works like the one for normal maps, but it automatically reads and uses specular maps when found, and if not reads the normal map instead, would that not be an easier alternative? Messing around with NIFs just to add a more accurate specular should be avoided!

Tell me, if you have POM working, and it's more complex than specular, why can't you just make something that actually reads and applies specular maps? Does it not make sense that specular maps would be more accurate for specular shading (and have a sharper effect) rather than referring to normal map detail and alpha?

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:24 pm

The four AOs we've got:

http://paradice-insight.us/stuff/oblivion/AOs RingSSAO.jpg
http://paradice-insight.us/stuff/oblivion/AOs VolumetricSSAO.jpg
http://paradice-insight.us/stuff/oblivion/AOs HDAO.jpg
http://paradice-insight.us/stuff/oblivion/AOs HBAO.jpg

Quality scales inverse with speed.

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 3:34 pm

I don't think you understand. Yes, Oblivion uses the normal maps to determine specular, not the parallax, but by the way you seem to suggest having to set each NIF to read a specular map is very tedious and can be avoided. If you make a detector that works like the one for normal maps, but it automatically reads and uses specular maps when found, and if not reads the normal map instead, would that not be an easier alternative? Messing around with NIFs just to add a more accurate specular should be avoided!

No, it simply can't be done similar or equal to what you suggest.

Tell me, if you have POM working, and it's more complex than specular, why can't you just make something that actually reads and applies specular maps? Does it not make sense that specular maps would be more accurate for specular shading (and have a sharper effect) rather than referring to normal map detail and alpha?

I didn't change a thing in the engine to have POM. If I wished I could compile POM into a shaderpackage and deploy it fully functional without OBGE.

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 9:21 pm

I read that the vanilla shaders can now be replaced in v3, does it mean that the night eye shader could be changed to a 'variable magnitude' one?
I have no idea to write or manipulate shaders though, and it seems quite a bit more difficult than simple scripting. To start with something simpler, if I wanted to create a simple shader that darkens the screen in a scale from 1 to 100, with 1 being no difference from no shader and 100 a totally black screen, manipulating the magnitude from a script, how should I proceed? Even a direction to a general tutorial would suffice me.

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 3:23 pm

Okay, I can′t get OBGE to work.

Issuse:

With Wrye bash/Bain-install I can get into the game, but when I open OBGE through my inventory and try a shader with shift+click, nothing changes.
When I do a manual install, whenever I start a new game all I get is a black screen, but with the game playing in the background and with the hud visible. I made sure I installed them correctly and have tripple-checked the readme′s.

I have OBSE 0.20 and the directX download.

The packages I′ve used are:
OBGE_Core-30054-3-0-1.7z
OBGE_Standalone_Effects-30054.7z

There is no obge.ini created in "My Documents\My Games\Oblivion"

Oblivion-location: c:\oblivion\
A fresh install with lots of oblivion mods, texture replacers and such, but non that I can think of that would conflict with a plugin like this.

win7 64-bit, ati hd5750 (sm3 supported)

OBGE log:

Hooked: kernel32.dll
Hooked: kernel32.dll
Hooked: user32.dll
Hooked: d3dx9_27.dll
Hooked: d3dx9_43.dll
Detoured GetRenderedSurfaceParameters(); succeeded
Replacing the built-in shaders.
Detoured GetShaderBinary(); succeeded
Detoured LoadTextureFile(); succeeded
Init: D3D9.DLL queried.
Init: D3D9.DLL loaded.
Init: Took over Direct3DCreate9.
OD3D9: Driver queried from 0x00bd76d7
OD3D9: Driver 0x03128fc0 constructed from 0x00bd7643 (1 drivers available)
OD3D9: Driver 0x03128fc0 destructed from 0x00bdd7c5 (0 drivers left)
OD3D9: Driver queried from 0x00bd76b8
OD3D9: Driver 0x03128fc0 constructed from 0x00bd7643 (1 drivers available)
OD3D9: Device queried from 0x0076a547
OD3D9: Device 0x03037990 constructed from 0x00bdd8bb (1 devices available)
Loading texture (data\textures\shaders/unbound.dds)
Pre Hook
RESZ format supported.
Depth buffer texture (INTZ) (1920,1080) created OK.
Depth buffer attached OK. 0
Init: ATIMGPUD.dll queried.
Starting a new game.
Creating effect vertex buffers.
Creating full screen textures.
Width = 1920, Height = 1080
Format = A16B16G16R16F
Loading the effects.
Added to list OK.

Thanks for any help

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 9:40 pm

New godrays shader for obge v3:

http://www.4shared.com/file/p0N2TKrb/Godraysv6.html

alternative download link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?m7m36d9rrzaaril

When using this new godrays.fx my fps drops by 10+ (compared to the godrays that came w/ OBGEv3) when outdoors (3.6ghz quad core with 2x 8800GT SLI) =( It sure looks good though....

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:32 pm

No, it simply can't be done similar or equal to what you suggest.

I didn't change a thing in the engine to have POM. If I wished I could compile POM into a shaderpackage and deploy it fully functional without OBGE.

I'm a bit confused... Could you explain why you can't make Oblivion's specular pass read specular maps?

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 6:31 pm

I'm a bit confused... Could you explain why you can't make Oblivion's specular pass read specular maps?

There are already specular maps. In the alpha of normal maps. (It isn't an easter egg, that's the real deal.)

PS. Next godrays shader update will be about optimization. Blue sun is intended, it simulates retina burn. Don't look at the sun directly.

» Sat Jul 14, 2012 4:30 am

Like I said, you need to actually add specular map support (preferably working like normal maps do, by matching the diffuse's name with a _spec tag on the end) much like you did with POM...

Are you referring to colored specular maps? I would love support for those added, but the specular pass in oblivion does work through the alpha of the normal map which renders it B&D

**EDIT: Any chance for a similar rain effect? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVBiF-hlkso&feature=related

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 11:19 pm

Any chance the new godrays could be made to work with PCS?

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 10:34 pm

There are already specular maps. In the alpha of normal maps. (It isn't an easter egg, that's the real deal.)

PS. Next godrays shader update will be about optimization. Blue sun is intended, it simulates retina burn. Don't look at the sun directly.

If that's the case then it just kicks in too early when using PCS. You can see a blue sun even when you're not looking directly at it. It might have something to do with not having the correct Brightpass settings, but I fiddled with it a bit and couldn't find the correct values. And seeing as I also had the grid bug with PCS, for now I went back to using the optimizedvanilla sky textures. That said, the godrays are simply beautiful. Great work.

» Fri Jul 13, 2012 2:49 pm

Any chance of a dev to upload new obge dll with AF support please? I'm having poor performance with forced AF cause water reflections are calculated and AF applied to them through landmass even with no water around, or so I heard.

Edit: Or is it possible to download all source from http://codaset.com/ethatron/oblivion-graphics-extender/ and compile it in C++ or something to get latest build?