Will Better Dynamic Snow SE work with Skyrim Terrain Parallax?

[Surfwater401]

Does Skyrim Terrain Parallax affect any mods like Better Dynamic Snow? 

[ButchDiavolo]

1 hour ago, Surfwater401 said:

Does Skyrim Terrain Parallax affect any mods like Better Dynamic Snow? 

Yes it does. In the case of snow/ snowy landscapes, terrain parallax uses a different kind of shader. It is still early here, so I may be remembering it wrong, but regular Skyrim uses a single-pass shader and terrain parallax uses a multi-pass shader. And the two are not compatible.

So if you want parallax snow, you will need a snow mod that supports the multi-pass shader. Parallax snow texture mods are pretty much all compatible. The difference is in the snow meshes and shaders. You need parallax enabled meshes and said multi-pass shaders. There are two mods that I am aware of that use the correct shaders for terrain parallax: Better Dynamic Snow V2.11.0 (NOT v3!) and Simplicity of Snow. There is also a Patch hub specifically for the affected projectediffuse shaders, which has a whole list of patches for snow and terrain mods.

So recapping, you will need:

• BDS V2 or SoS
• A parallax texture mod, either snow specific or terrain.
• optionally a patch for your preferred texture mod.

[Surfwater401]

On 1/21/2024 at 8:48 PM, ButchDiavolo said:

Yes it does. In the case of snow/ snowy landscapes, terrain parallax uses a different kind of shader. It is still early here, so I may be remembering it wrong, but regular Skyrim uses a single-pass shader and terrain parallax uses a multi-pass shader. And the two are not compatible.

So if you want parallax snow, you will need a snow mod that supports the multi-pass shader. Parallax snow texture mods are pretty much all compatible. The difference is in the snow meshes and shaders. You need parallax enabled meshes and said multi-pass shaders. There are two mods that I am aware of that use the correct shaders for terrain parallax: Better Dynamic Snow V2.11.0 (NOT v3!) and Simplicity of Snow. There is also a Patch hub specifically for the affected projectediffuse shaders, which has a whole list of patches for snow and terrain mods.

So recapping, you will need:

• BDS V2 or SoS
• A parallax texture mod, either snow specific or terrain.
• optionally a patch for your preferred texture mod.

Thanks for that, I noticed that better dynamic snow has being updated to the latest version to 3.6 will it still work? 

[ButchDiavolo]

26 minutes ago, Surfwater401 said:

Thanks for that, I noticed that better dynamic snow has being updated to the latest version to 3.6 will it still work? 

As far as I know only version 2.11.0 works with the multipass shaders. @TechAngel85, is this still true?

[Surfwater401]

Gotcha, so If I want to use Parallax, I'd have to remove better dynamic snow version 3.6 and go back to 2.1?

[Surfwater401]

I've installed 2.1 and I've installed the Better Dynamic Majestic Mountains mod too as I have Majestic mountains too. 

[ButchDiavolo]

2 hours ago, Surfwater401 said:

Gotcha, so If I want to use Parallax, I'd have to remove better dynamic snow version 3.6 and go back to 2.1?

 

1 hour ago, Surfwater401 said:

I've installed 2.1 and I've installed the Better Dynamic Majestic Mountains mod too as I have Majestic mountains too. 

Yep, that should work fine.

I just remembered: despite appearances do NOT use the "Improved shader" mentioned in the Visuals section of BethINI. The guide already doesn't include it, but one might think this has to to with parallax. It doesn't. At all. Only tick the "Projected UV diffuse normals" in the snow section as directed.

[Surfwater401]

14 hours ago, ButchDiavolo said:

 

Yep, that should work fine.

I just remembered: despite appearances do NOT use the "Improved shader" mentioned in the Visuals section of BethINI. The guide already doesn't include it, but one might think this has to to with parallax. It doesn't. At all. Only tick the "Projected UV diffuse normals" in the snow section as directed.

That should be okay, currently not using Bethini anyway. Is there any other mods this mod may affect? 

[ButchDiavolo]

8 hours ago, Surfwater401 said:

That should be okay, currently not using Bethini anyway. Is there any other mods this mod may affect? 

I am not sure what you mean with "this mod"? If you mean Bethini, then yes and no. Bethini gives the optimal game ini settings for a STEP installation. And those stetting are spread all over the game, so it affects many mods. The Bethini section of the STEP Guide gives more information about what most settings do.

[z929669]

I'd say BethINI ensures proper game config settings for any setup and not just Step, so to rule out any INI-value issues, BethINI should be installed and used.

[Surfwater401]

46 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I'd say BethINI ensures proper game config settings for any setup and not just Step, so to rule out any INI-value issues, BethINI should be installed and used.

Thanks for that, I've installed BethINI and ran the right settings, and turned off improved shader and ticked Projected UV diffuse normals