Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Joined: Jul 2014
Z
Zewks Offline OP
apprentice
OP Offline
apprentice
Z
Joined: Jul 2014
The dynamic shadows in this game, imo, are the worst visual aspect of the game. Everything else about the game looks simply amazing.

However, the dynamic shadows, even on ultra, suffer from some pretty awful rendering issues, that are most noticeable when you are moving around (means they look awesome in screenshots, but awful in actual live gameplay). Trees, bushes, and things like fences and such, suffer the worst from these shoddy effects.

You can see an example of this in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-wSTT6iUxk

Notice how there seems to be a preset box around the characters (or center of the screen) where shadows are rendered well, and anything outside of this "box" is lowered in quality. This creates an obvious and ugly break in the visual appearance that is very distracting


I know WHY its done, its done to help improve performance (although, if the player selects ULTRA setting, this shouldnt happen, ultra should mean NO intentional reduced quality and players understand that ultra means: your system better be a beast.)

Lower quality shadow options really arent even an option, because once you start lowering the shadowmap size, the game just becomes absurdly ugly and hard to look at. Like adding 8 bit graphics on top of something that looks nearly real life. Thus, leaving the only option for people who cant stand the ugly shadows, to turn them completely off.

The problem with this is that the game looks unrealistically bright and sometimes even semi blinding with no shadows at all. Objects and characters lack visual depth, often looking like they arent really connected to the ground they are walking on.

A simple fix for this would involve two things:

1. A blob shadow option for characters. Putting prerendered, circular, semi blurred shadow circles under each character and npc.

No, this is not at all realistic as far as how shadows look, but plenty of games do this as a low performance option which keeps the games visual depth, without having even uglier shadows that look like they are made out of square, flickering bricks.

2. Impliment prerenderd, blurred/smooth, non-dynamic shadows to major objects in the game like buildings, big rocks, walls, etc.

The nice thing about prerendered shadows is that they can stay the same level of quality, because they dont have to be affected in real time by lighting effects, camera changes, or other things interacting with them. Again, prerendered shadows isnt a new thing. Its something many games do. Sure, its doesnt look nearly as good as dynamic shadows set on ultra... but again, even shadows on ultra in this game, suffer some pretty ugly rendering issues.

Now that I think more on the subject, it would be more visually appealing to me, if there wasnt that pre-determined, high quality "box" around the characters or screen center, where the shadows were higher quality. Even having ALL the shadows be lower quality, but maintaining the same quality level across the ENTIRE screen is something Id greatly prefer. Especially over the current, immersion breaking, eye twitching, flickering mess that are the dynamic shadows currently in the game.

Joined: Jul 2014
Location: Denmark
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2014
Location: Denmark
I have turned off shadows in the video options. It also increased frame rate quite a bit.

Being a game dev myself I can tell you that adding prerendered shadows to a game like this after release is probably not going to happen.

Last edited by Jacob Marner; 02/07/14 05:32 PM.
Joined: Jul 2014
Z
Zewks Offline OP
apprentice
OP Offline
apprentice
Z
Joined: Jul 2014
Originally Posted by Jacob Marner
I have turned off shadows in the video options. It also increased frame rate quite a bit.

Being a game dev myself I can tell you that adding prerendered shadows to a game like this after release is probably not going to happen.


Id be partially happy if they could just add blob shadows to the characters.... even if static shadows for other things never happened.

Im playing with no shadows too right now, not for performance reasons. Blob shadows would greatly improve my visual experience with the game.

Joined: Jun 2014
L
journeyman
Offline
journeyman
L
Joined: Jun 2014
Funny thing is, the weird shaped LOD box only appears when holding down the mouse button to move, which forces the camera to move with the character. If you use the single-click method to move your character, and then manually pan the screen, no LOD box. So I'm not sure if it happens for performance reasons, since it's only when moving around that way.

Joined: Jul 2014
Z
Zewks Offline OP
apprentice
OP Offline
apprentice
Z
Joined: Jul 2014
Originally Posted by lolwut77
Funny thing is, the weird shaped LOD box only appears when holding down the mouse button to move, which forces the camera to move with the character. If you use the single-click method to move your character, and then manually pan the screen, no LOD box. So I'm not sure if it happens for performance reasons, since it's only when moving around that way.


Interesting, I hadnt noticed that. If its true, and only happens when holding the mouse down to move, then it sounds like an engine bug.

Here is hoping that it gets the devs attention so they can look into it. Its pretty darn distracting.

Joined: Jun 2014
L
journeyman
Offline
journeyman
L
Joined: Jun 2014
I agree. It's why I don't hold the mouse button to move. It just bugs the hell out of me too much.

Edit: It can happen when single clicking, too, if the camera is locked on to follow the movement of the character.

Last edited by lolwut77; 02/07/14 10:49 PM.

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5