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FSX Terrain Shaders

Misho

Misho

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ca-ontario
Has anyone had any luck playing around with FSX shader files? In particular, I'd like to specify shadows cast by terrain to be much deeper and darker (for instance, I'd like to darken a mountain slope in the shade). I looked at a few params that looked promising, but before I start breaking things, I was wondering if anyone did anything similar?

Misho
 
Interesting! I thought they were internal to the engine....but I agree, if you could make shadows a bit more defined that would make things a bit more realistic
 
Hi Folks

Misho -
Before editing shaders,
it might be worth trying Phil Taylor's posted tweaks.

Before starting,
ensure your videocard's Gamma Correction is zeroed,
then adjust your monitor's brightness & contrast.
Use a test utility e.g. CheckScreen, etc.

Tweak 1
IIRC, this will also affect terrain full-illumination to shadow-area contrast.
For the dusk/dawn textures some people feel, subjectively, the result is too dark or too light.
There are 2 items that allow the transition time to be changed:

[GRAPHICS]
DAY_THRESHOLD
NIGHT_THRESHOLD
acceptible values are 0 to 65535.

Defaults:
DAY: 32768
NIGHT: 4096

These represent the amount of 'ambient' light at the ends of the day/night blend threshold.
Zero is perfect dark, 65535 is full day sun at noon in the summer.
Click to expand...



Tweak 2
Improves the sharpness of shadows, (less stepped).
Note, it is possible to tweak the shadow quality somewhat.

Try adding this to the [DISPLAY] section of the FSX.cfg file:
ShadowMappingQuality=n
where n can be 0,1,2,3.

The 1st 2 values affect the size of the shadow map.
The 2nd 2 values affect the filtering algorithm.

In the D3D9 code path, this affects the external model shadow maps.
In the D3D10 code path, this affects the external model as the interior model ( VC ) shadow maps are hardcoded to the highest quality level.

You may be able to make the ground shadows look a bit better by tweaking this.
Click to expand...



HTH
ATB
Paul
 
Timmo - no - they are "compilable"... I just don't understand the syntax. There are "local" FSX shaders residing in one of the local FSX directories. If you make any changes to any of the files, FSX "notices" that on startup and re-compiles them. I was hoping someone had some experience with this.

Paul - Thanks - I'll play with those numbers and see what I get, but it seems to me they are defining overall ammount of light and darkness during night/day...

Misho
 
Hi Misho,
Did you have any luck playing with the HLSL files?

I want to go the other way for flat light. The shadows are killing me.
 
LOL - a year ago...

No, sorry, haven't played with them at all... more pressing matters are on my table.
 
Ya funny pulling up this thread a year and a day latter...

I played with the cfg tweaks that did not help. Looks like the ShadowMappingQuality=n is just that n 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 did not get rid of the shadows that are vexing me.

my playing with the HLSL terrain shaders goes horribly wrong quickly since I have no idea what I am doing :-)
 
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