AndreySer

Testing Screen Space Ray Traced Global Illumination on Kotor

Recommended Posts

      This mod is made by Pascal Gilcher, and it works on any game which has Depth Buffer access. The mod in the beta stage right now, and only available to patreon users, but it will be available for free for all once its done. This mod adds Ray Traced Global illumination to the screen space(depth buffer) to lit the scene. Global Illumination is consists of 2 things, Indirect shadows(ambient occlusion) and Indirect light. I will post bellow few comparison shots bellow, it worth mention that it is very option heavy, for example you can choose how long your shadows are, or how bright or dark indirect light are, and I choose setting which I felt are right for this game.

Comparison shots:

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPKWPNNX

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J2F0CNNU

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPKYLNNX

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J2F1JNNU

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPKY7NNX

  • Like 7

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
12 hours ago, AndreySer said:

      This mod is made by Pascal Gilcher, and it works on any game which has Depth Buffer access. The mod in the beta stage right now, and only available to patreon users, but it will be available for free for all once its done. This mod adds Ray Traced Global illumination to the screen space(depth buffer) to lit the scene. Global Illumination is consists of 2 things, Indirect shadows(ambient occlusion) and Indirect light. I will post bellow few comparison shots bellow, it worth mention that it is very option heavy, for example you can choose how long your shadows are, or how bright or dark indirect light are, and I choose setting which I felt are right for this game.

Comparison shots:

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPKWPNNX

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J2F0CNNU

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPKYLNNX

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J2F1JNNU

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPKY7NNX

I wasnt aware that it works for Kotor/TSL - this is certainly a most awesome turn of things! Especially when combining it with texture packs...

Just to understand correctly - the lighting of animated textures like adboards & panels is reflected in Realtime, right?  That means, in theory if you mod an area e.g. Nar Shaddaa pitch black with only the light sources emit light, every change to  intensity of lit objects (like lights switching on & off) would dramatically impact the environment, right?

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
18 hours ago, Jorak Uln said:

I wasnt aware that it works for Kotor/TSL - this is certainly a most awesome turn of things! Especially when combining it with texture packs...

Just to understand correctly - the lighting of animated textures like adboards & panels is reflected in Realtime, right?  That means, in theory if you mod an area e.g. Nar Shaddaa pitch black with only the light sources emit light, every change to  intensity of lit objects (like lights switching on & off) would dramatically impact the environment, right?

 

    Yes, those are real time lights, some pics from Ebon Hawk which kinda have similar dark environment you are describing, I made lights extra bright there to show effects.

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J20BMNNU

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPWLPNNX

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J20BCNNU

plus old pic

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPWLLNNX

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This definitely has a lot of potential. I think at least to some degree its even possible to eliminate fake lightsources and only illuminate  areas with RT.

I wonder if/how those rays react on shiny (cubemap) surfaces - are reflections similar to those shown in Unreal Engine 4 possible?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ooh, this looks very promising! I love the diffusion of the blue light in the cockpit. Never thought I'd see something like this for Kotor/TSL.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
22 hours ago, Jorak Uln said:

This definitely has a lot of potential. I think at least to some degree its even possible to eliminate fake lightsources and only illuminate  areas with RT.

I wonder if/how those rays react on shiny (cubemap) surfaces - are reflections similar to those shown in Unreal Engine 4 possible?

    There is a thing called "Screen Space Reflections" is what I think you are looking for. Its been available for reshade for a while. I just tried it, but I am getting a lot of visual artifacts,  did not tried to fix it due to time, but I will post screens anyway, I set shininess to the max for demonstration.

SSR with SSGI

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J209CNNU

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPWKLNNX

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J20FJNNU

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I am definitely seeing a lot of potential with this as well. The effect makes the visuals a bit darker than I think the game designers intended, though.

Perhaps running a Tonemap shader and boosting the gamma would help?

Alternatively, you could edit the Lightmaps to increase the brightness and/or add color to better take advantage of the Ray Tracing effect.

Just some thoughts..

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Very, very interesting indeed. This could be a major breakthrough for Kotor similar to those dx11 mods for games like Gothic or Morrowind.

Even if SSR has visual artifacts its should be very cool for wet surfaces.

Is there by chance a possibility to display "wet puddles" or rain?

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
11 hours ago, Malkior said:

I am definitely seeing a lot of potential with this as well. The effect makes the visuals a bit darker than I think the game designers intended, though.

Perhaps running a Tonemap shader and boosting the gamma would help?

Alternatively, you could edit the Lightmaps to increase the brightness and/or add color to better take advantage of the Ray Tracing effect.

Just some thoughts..

   There is full control on how dark your ambient occlusion is, you can even turn it off. So the darkness is my fault, I set it a bit darker than default setting,  its hard to explain what is AO if the can not see it.

7 hours ago, Jorak Uln said:

Very, very interesting indeed. This could be a major breakthrough for Kotor similar to those dx11 mods for games like Gothic or Morrowind.

Even if SSR has visual artifacts its should be very cool for wet surfaces.

Is there by chance a possibility to display "wet puddles" or rain?

    Biggest drawback for this SSR is that it makes every surface shiny, that might work for some planets like Taris, but for others will not. SSR shader is available at the link bellow for anyone to try it out.

https://github.com/martymcmodding/qUINT

1. Install ReShade

2. Put those files into shaders game folder

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
19 hours ago, AndreySer said:

   There is full control on how dark your ambient occlusion is, you can even turn it off. So the darkness is my fault, I set it a bit darker than default setting,  its hard to explain what is AO if the can not see it.

   

Ironically, I was just in a long drawn out argument/discussion with someone specifically about Ambient Occlusion, so I had to do a bit of research on the topic. It turns out that shader AO or at least Screen Space AO has that problem with darkening the image too much due to its technical limitations. 

Quite interesting to be having so many conversations about these graphical advancements with Reshade when only a few years ago we could only change the colors and contrast.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi to everyone,

I also recently played around with the resahde rtgi and from my point of view the results vary a lot in Kotor II. I used to play a highly modified Kotor II with many texture mods for the modules. The funny thing is that ray tracing needs light sources and I personally don't really understand how they are handled in game. For example, in one of the pictures

On 2/5/2020 at 1:23 PM, AndreySer said:

    Yes, those are real time lights, some pics from Ebon Hawk which kinda have similar dark environment you are describing, I made lights extra bright there to show effects.

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J20BMNNU

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPWLPNNX

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J20BCNNU

plus old pic

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/DPWLLNNX

 

we have the beautiful blue light emitted by the Ebon hawks displays. I use a texture mod on them and now they don't emit light. Can someone comment on how light emitting works in Kotor?
Second, what really bothered me in my testing was that in Kotor Lightsaber don't emit ambient light like in Jedi academy or other modern star wars games. Is there a way to change that? Assumably  with ray tracing lightsaber would look much more realistic.

Thanks for the your time and I hope some has some answers to my questions. (Hope for @Jorak Uln to finish his awesome Movie style overhaul, maybe including ray tracing option. Keep up the good work.)

PS. I would very much give the light emitting blades a try myself if someone tell me how you can achieve that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

   From what I know, this mod(reshade rtgi), uses pixels brightness relative to the surroundings to draw indirect lights.  It is possible that the textures you are using from the mod is not bright enough.

For example:  http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/9JJ1MNNU

Not all blue screens have ambient light, only the brightest one does. I can only suggest put indirect light slider to the max in the RTGI options.

Speaking for lightsabers, I just tested it, and it appears that lightsabers do not cast ambient light, checking depth buffer shows why.

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/9JJ9MNNU

Lightsabers blade does not have any 3d geometry, so RTGI does not know the position of the light to cast, at least that is what I think is happening.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for the reply.

I did some testing and your absolutly right about the indirect light. With another texture mod and vanila textures I get the same results in Kotor II as you do in Kotor I. I guess if one wants to do the rtgi serious, one would need a dedicated texture pack with new lightmaps optimised for the shader.

With the lightsaberblade I made the observation what it indeed cast light but only white light from the core, and that it is projected parallel to the blade not orthognal as you would think. So I guess for a good effect here one really needs a new lightsaberblade model.

Thanks for the pics and I am very interested in the advancement we will see in the furture for rtgi.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.