Issue with Single Pass Shader + Projected Diff/norm maps

[Aranin]

Hi There,

i am just seeking some support for a single issue in a large patch/almost a mod that i have been working on for a while. I have tried to find a solution on my own through research and trial and error without too much luck.

The mod: Essentially a large patch combining Seasons of Skyrim & Simplicity of snow. This adds no snow decals to…a lot of meshes throughout skyrim that are affected by Seasons Winter swaps (basically all of the southern cities + other stuff). Additionally the patch forces multi-pass snow shaders and corrects alpha on a number of structures to work with Simplicity of Snow. (also some custom meshes etc to clean up ugly seams etc that are visible with snow). I have also made patches along the way for JK’s skyrim, Open Cities and a few other things but don’t have perms sorted for those yet and they are further from being done.

The Issue: Seasons of skyrim will force multipass shaders where possible before defaulting to single pass shaders where necessary. This doesn’t work perfectly and many statics need to be forced to multipass in xedit which is easy. The problem is that for things such as containers single pass shaders are applied and these cannot be forced to a material shader (that i know of). The snow on these objects when effected by Seasons of Skyrim's single pass snow shader appears Grey when bEnableProjecteUVDiffuseNormals=1.

(yes projected Diffiuse, Normal maps etc is all correct/matching  for my testing - double and triple checked)

Failed workarounds:

These are mostly shitty workarounds that I tried knowing they would not address the underlying issue.

1)      Forcing Seasons single pass to a multipass shader only. = resulted in CTD.

2)      Attempted reference object swap of containers to snow alternates found in skyrim.esm = resulted in CTD.

3)      I have explored alteration of BSLightingShaderProperties in an attempt to rectify the issue without luck thus far.

                   a.       I have explored adjustments with Specular intensity & color without luck

Possible HORRIBLE fix:

1)      Colour matching “fake snow” textures for various orientations (standing, laying on side etc) creating form ID’s and replacing objects individually with world space edits … (ewwwww for many reasons..) probably not worth discussing beyond acknowledging that yes I thought of this.

 

Finding a workaround would be ok, but I would really like to try and solve the underlying issue if possible in the way the projection of diffuse and/or Normal maps interact with the base single pass shader.

Any input or pushing me in the direction of some further info/learning would be greatly appreciated. I have been through most if not all of the arcane university info I can find on the topic.  

Edited September 29, 2022 by Aranin

[z929669]

4 hours ago, Aranin said:

Hi There,

i am just seeking some support for a single issue in a large patch/almost a mod that i have been working on for a while. I have tried to find a solution on my own through research and trial and error without too much luck.

The mod: Essentially a large patch combining Seasons of Skyrim & Simplicity of snow. This adds no snow decals to…a lot of meshes throughout skyrim that are affected by Seasons Winter swaps (basically all of the southern cities + other stuff). Additionally the patch forces multi-pass snow shaders and corrects alpha on a number of structures to work with Simplicity of Snow. (also some custom meshes etc to clean up ugly seams etc that are visible with snow). I have also made patches along the way for JK’s skyrim, Open Cities and a few other things but don’t have perms sorted for those yet and they are further from being done.

The Issue: Seasons of skyrim will force multipass shaders where possible before defaulting to single pass shaders where necessary. This doesn’t work perfectly and many statics need to be forced to multipass in xedit which is easy. The problem is that for things such as containers single pass shaders are applied and these cannot be forced to a material shader (that i know of). The snow on these objects when effected by Seasons of Skyrim's single pass snow shader appears Grey when bEnableProjecteUVDiffuseNormals=1.

(yes projected Diffiuse, Normal maps etc is all correct/matching  for my testing - double and triple checked)

Failed workarounds:

These are mostly shitty workarounds that I tried knowing they would not address the underlying issue.

1)      Forcing Seasons single pass to a multipass shader only. = resulted in CTD.

2)      Attempted reference object swap of containers to snow alternates found in skyrim.esm = resulted in CTD.

3)      I have explored alteration of BSLightingShaderProperties in an attempt to rectify the issue without luck thus far.

                   a.       I have explored adjustments with Specular intensity & color without luck

Possible HORRIBLE fix:

1)      Colour matching “fake snow” textures for various orientations (standing, laying on side etc) creating form ID’s and replacing objects individually with world space edits … (ewwwww for many reasons..) probably not worth discussing beyond acknowledging that yes I thought of this.

 

Finding a workaround would be ok, but I would really like to try and solve the underlying issue if possible in the way the projection of diffuse and/or Normal maps interact with the base single pass shader.

Any input or pushing me in the direction of some further info/learning would be greatly appreciated. I have been through most if not all of the arcane university info I can find on the topic.  

I for one am ignorant with respect to shader config/handling in the mentioned context. I can think of a number of mod authors that may be familiar with this use case. @sheson may be one such person.

[DoubleYou]

There is a snow material object in the plugin that you can change the color from the gray color to the correct white color. I can't remember which it is atm. At any rate, you're unlikely to find much help on this subject. It honestly sounds like you are recreating Better Dynamic Snow but using Simplicity. You should test whether all your fixes are not already covered by BDS. I could, of course, be completely off base here, as this is something I have very much avoided working with. 

[Aranin]

5 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

There is a snow material object in the plugin that you can change the color from the gray color to the correct white color. I can't remember which it is atm. At any rate, you're unlikely to find much help on this subject. It honestly sounds like you are recreating Better Dynamic Snow but using Simplicity. You should test whether all your fixes are not already covered by BDS. I could, of course, be completely off base here, as this is something I have very much avoided working with. 

I would say there are some differences here between simplicity and BDS. Either way the issue exists if you are using projecteddiffusenormalsUV=1 which is required for BDS 3.0 anyway. So if you are using seasons which applies the single pass shader the same thing will occur. The issue is more related to the interaction of projecteddiffuseNormal and the single pass material snow shader rather than the snow mods themselves that leverage projected diffuse. 

IO have tried altering the RGB values of the seasons material object for the single pass shader without success. I have also ensured that the snow texture i am testing with is saved as BC7, Linear DX11+ to ensure that sRGB textures aren't the issue. There is one thing that you may be able to direct me to though? 

Single pass shaders direct to a model path of Shadertests/shaderbox...for the life of me i cannot locate this in any base game BSA's. there is a shadertest folder, but no shaderbox model...any thoughts on this?

Edited September 30, 2022 by Aranin