Taj's Graphical Overhaul possible bugs and questions
I haven't touched any settings with the mod, they're all at default, and shadows cast by my model look a bit broken. No other mods currently btw. Also, are the lumen changes supposed to make things like this so dark? I feel like in broad daylight, some things seem extremely dark but I could be wrong. Like many shadows seem overly dark, or just straight up black. I thought I also saw some LOD/detail pop-in that wasn't there with the mod disabled, but after disabling the mod and testing again, it seems I was wrong about that lol
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I noticed it's the virtual shadow maps. they seem to break the capsule shadows
Hey there, thanks for the feedback - Character shadow being borked with VSMs is a long standing issue (#9) with how the player model is made and it's still somewhat pretty low on my priority list. I've seen that there's a mod called Character Replacer (or smth like that) - so depending on how it achieves this, might be a temporary workaround for this.
I'm looking into ways to improve shadows. If there are places, where it's too dark - you might try disabling "Enhanced Autoexposure" option in mod settings.
It's funny that you mention the LOD popping, cuz I've been fighting with it since the beginnings, but at the same time it looks like it's vanilla-game behavior, but I feel like it wasn't that bad before, so I might have to look into that again (#21)
GitHub
Incorrect player shadow with VSM · Issue #9 · tajemniktv/TajsGraph
Can be possibly fixed by implementing a custom player mesh
yeah that's fair! last night I also found some other things, like the recommended reflection settings not really working, etc. The non-vsm shadow settings were also showing some pretty strange behavior, such as shadows being overly simple/blocky until I was within a few feet of the object.
Hm, I can definitely see the issue with DFS being... kinda blocky and CSM working only on really close distances (Although I believe it's more of a vanilla issue, although not sure if it's so... visible? - Will have to check how vanilla game looks now lol). I've created an issue on GitHub #54 and will see what did I break this time
About reflections - yeah, some of the recommended values might be outdated, but just to be sure - what do you mean by not working?
GitHub
[Bug] CSM and DFS - short distance, blocky shadows · Issue #54 · ...
via Threxi0n Mod version: 3.3.0 Bug Report Description CSM - really short distances DFS - hence CSM are working only on really close distance, DFS seem blocky when they should be mostly used for di...
after double checking vvanilla just now, i can confirm that compared to vanilla, the shadows are very broken rn, and for the reflections, the reconstruction setting seems to not be working, like there's no visual difference between that setting on and off, and many reflections, especially on water, are missing without the screen tracing setting. Also, if you try using the flashlight over water at night(just as an example), with the reconstruction setting toggled on, the lighting/reflection updates are delayed /slower
one thing your mod fixes though that's pretty huge for me, it fixes that annoying sparkle/flicker with lumen on surfaces
Odd, on vanilla the issue is even worse for me...? And for CSM to work I have to get even closer? Are you on 1.1?
Screen Space Reconstruction works only when Screen Tracing for reflections is also enabled
Reflections are sadly very limited, mostly because of their performance cost - many objects are not "opted in" into Lumen, hence they are lacking colours in reflections. Reflections in water are generally very limited because of distance between objects. I will add a setting for extending that distance, but when comparing it to vanilla, that's still a worthy improvment (Photo 3&4 - Vanilla renders nearly all of the reflections of objects only in the screen-space)
Oh! that was my issue with the reconstruction then, I just got confused because the tooltip on the mod mentioned turning off screen tracing when reconstruction is enabled, and the mod turned it off by default for me. I also just saw you updated this morning, so I'll check that out now. my findings were based on last night
yeeeeah, the tooltips really need some refreshing...
yeah that's what confused me haha
btw how would I get the mod settings back to the defaults the mod comes with? I kinda messed with settings last night and forgot what was set by default lol
btw are there any specific settings I need to adjust in the in-game video settings for things to work as intended in the mod?
I really should add a button for that;-;
If you go to SatisfactoryInstallFolder->FactoryGame->Configs, there should be a file called TajsGraph.cfg which you can remove. Although the defaults I would recommend now have changed, but haven't made them "mods defaults" tho...
also I gotta head out of the house for a bit, but I'll do more testing when I get back! and oh gotcha! yeah I figured as much since the defaults toggled off the screen traced reflections haha
Not really, personally I have everything set to medium (screen attached) but the mod settings should override in-game "vanilla" settings eitherway
no worries, I'll look into that shadows issue then, hit me up when you have any more issues or want to discuss stuff
also ty for the help and looking into things! but yeah I'll test more when I get home, and I'll get more screenshots/comparisons if needed
always happy to help and listen to the feedback:D
is there a specific reason related to the mod that you use those video settings? or is that just due to hardware?
also aside from the tooltips regarding reflection settings, are the other tooltip recommendations still the correct recommendations?
the other thing regarding vsm with the mod, is there are also just so many situations/instances where the shadows look incredibly unnatural, like completely black and super sharp. so dark that the shadows even show through with the flashlight shining on them.
interesting enough, details like on the storage box I showed before, are controlled by that foliage LOD slider.
I used medium as a baseline as that felt the most sensible thing to do, to balance visuals and performance. My goal going even further, would be to replace at least some of the vanilla graphics settings with more complex settings in the mod. For example when you set "Light Quality" it changes all light shadow quality, light relevancy and maximum active lights. With breaking it down to all these individual settings, I can allow players to exactly control how the game looks and performs.
I will provide you with a screenshot of my personal mod settings at the moment, when I wake up a bit more lol
They should™ be mostly correct, although I honestly don't remember XD
Hm, yeah, adding VSMs without going into the game assets was a bit tricky, I will see what I can do to further improve these shadows...
Right - some details/objects are considered "foliage" by the game, hence they are being controlled by the slider you've mentioned. Although it quite visibly mostly impacts foliage, so the name will stay the same, but if I remember to do that, I'll add a note to state that
Makes sense. And all good, tbh i don't know if I see myself using VSMs anyway since the performance hit is just too massive to be worth it imo
tbh I mostly wish I could get the lumen improvements, and maybe the draw distance sliders, without messing up the shadows xD especially since every shadow setting seems to at least break something compared to vanilla shadows rn. I imagine those could probably be done via ini tweaks, but I'd have to research and test a lot lol
oh! also I did just test the new update you put out today. I could be wrong bc I didn't compare, though it seems like frametimes might be worse, but also it seems like shadows might be behaving better, like DFS 🙂
@TajemnikTV Have you seen any posts about framerate drops when looking down and away from the sun?
top left for framerate
It seems like its any time my character models shadow enters screen vision
does it stay that low or does it go up? :thonk:
is it in every biome/location/everywhere basically?
Everywhere I have gone it has happened
It stays that low while looking in the direction and turning off VSM fixed it
Looks like it may also be linked to vsm not playing well with the player shadow
I think I was able to reproduce this, although haven't tested thoroughly - Made a github issue #59 to keep this in mind.
For now I'm having trouble getting back my modding environment back, as I had to do some stuff cuz my pc was crashing and bsoding all the time :Sadge:
GitHub
[Bug] Lower framerate when looking at a player shadow with VSMs · ...
Mod version: na Bug Report Description nd Screenshots nd Environment: Operating System: nd GPU: nd Additional context nd