Good news, everyone! :)
Last post wasn't capable to contain all graphics features. So let it be another one.
- Improved shadow map resolution. Stalker engine uses cascaded shadow map technology, so quality of shadows depends on resolution of corresponding texture with shadow map. Normally you can choose this resolution by using keys for stalker shortcut: -smap1536/smap2048/smap2560/smap3072/smap4096, where number is shadow map texture resolution. Also, this resolution have huge influence on high quality shadow distance (r2_sun_near console parameter). Exceeding some max distance you will see annoying stripes on all of the surfaces. For example, for -smap4096 max r2_sun_near value is only 35-50 meters.
We manage to add new shadow map resolution - 8192x8192 (-smap8192). It works well on any videocards that support DX10 and have 512 Mb of videomemory (minimum GF 8xxx and Radeon HD 2xxx). On these screens you can feel the difference:
But that's not all :) There will be another key - -smap16384 which can improve shadows quality even further! But for get it working you should prepare videocard with DX11 support and 1,5 Gb videomemory on-board :)
- Thermal vision. Well, it is not actually infrared vision but some kind of it. We will add some devices with it so you can use new tactical moves in combat. Watch the video.
Whoah....! How neat is that!
Hot.
Really immersive. Nice one.
another extra stuff that makes me like this:
T2.gstatic.com
just perfect
That's really cool! Can you make it so the bodies slowly cool after death?
S the mod still alive?! Huray!
The thermal vision is great! Does it need modified binaries to work?
Yes and no. Initially it was developed without any engine tweaks except console command. Now there is a separate render mode with own pixel shader to save some fps. Anyway, shader is almost same.
Ah, ok. Good job - looks better than the thermal vision shader I had made a while ago.
The shadow blur has always been something I hated about SoC, specifically how there is more blurry shadows in the distance, and you get that "pop" in of the good shadows. I hope this higher smap feature will address that issue.