[WiP] Community shader PBR support

[Exist]

Hi, writing about support for the new Community Shaders PBR assets. Hopefully not much would be needed from your side. I will mention some facts I believe are causing issues with LODs. Because the PBR textures are incompatible with vanilla, we use unique paths (textures/pbr/ prefix) to avoid unintended meshes from using one of them and looking wrong. Meshes that use PBR can be distinguished by the Unused01 property in Shader Flags 2. PBR albedo is brighter than vanilla diffuse and is saved in dds with the sRGB flag, which converts it to linear on the gpu. Now the problems:

1. Some object LODs seem to be using regular textures, for example mountains. Because LODs won't use the PBR shader, using unmodified PBR textures makes it look wrong. This is our issue and I think authors can just generate lower res textures in the vanilla paths that will only be used for these LODs. I don't know how many LODs actually use regular textures but hope not many.
2. TexGen seems to ignore PBR textures. I suppose TexGen always uses vanilla paths and ignores Texture Set records, otherwise I don't know why this would happen. In this case it would be nice to take texture set paths into account, or check if a PBR path exists before vanilla one. For landscapes we could also have authors generate low res versions at vanilla paths, but it's not viable to do this for everything.
3. DynDOLOD uses PBR textures, but probably because of the sRGB flag (which converts them to linear) the LODs are too dark. This happens to tree LODs, objects such as farmhouses and nordic ruins seem good, but not sure. This would probably happen in the textures in the previous point too if they weren't ignored. From our experiments vanilla diffuse is roughly halfway between usual PBR albedo brightness in linear and sRGB. So it would be best to do something like apply power of 1/1.5 to make the brightness consistent with vanilla. Ideally it could be multiplied with ambient occlusion and adjusted based on metalness which are in another texture, but that's not needed.

Hopefully I got the reasons for why it doesn't work right, I will include some comparison screenshots and links to PBR assets so you can try it yourself. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope this can be supported. Oh and feel free to ping me or others on CS or Cathedral discord, I might forget to check back here for some time.

https://imgsli.com/Mjg5ODQ5
https://imgsli.com/Mjg5ODUy
https://imgsli.com/Mjg5ODU0
https://imgsli.com/Mjg5ODU1

More info about our PBR implementation: https://github.com/doodlum/skyrim-community-shaders/wiki/True-PBR

Some assets to try:

Trees - https://mega.nz/file/dqdzGLwY#jBJFwPIWv7iX314UEKZnHCRvlITLbXI7saLY-4oV6Nw

Farmhouses - https://mega.nz/file/duUxDKiA#mnzDzjBFXEIDq-MFoucOHRJT55wOmbUNHOLZ5JxG3lY

Lots of other stuff - https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!AB5oYH6iqIMDkHM&id=C23FB01B59FA671C!2427&cid=C23FB01B59FA671C

[had]

  On 12/29/2024 at 5:42 PM, sheson said:

You do not have this error for the same load order with DynDOLOD 3 Alpha 182 release?

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Yes, just launched it and it is finished okay.

  On 12/29/2024 at 5:42 PM, sheson said:

What is the last plugin to overwrite the worldspace arnimaDUPLICATE003 with form ID 15000D62 with 15 being arnima.esm

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Acmos beyond reach addon.

  On 12/29/2024 at 5:42 PM, sheson said:

What is the last plugin to overwrite the water record 15035260 in arnima.esm?

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Realistic water two beyond reach addon.

 

[sheson]

  On 12/29/2024 at 7:21 PM, had said:

Yes, just launched it and it is finished okay.

Acmos beyond reach addon.

Realistic water two beyond reach addon.

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This test version should not have that error anymore https://mega.nz/file/lcRUASQK#mslatReZ33l16wgdSCsrwocgGTyukT74aDLZY0j6CyY

[had]

With this new exe it seems like with manually tweaked texture

As for stacking model and lod it seem just happen more often than not.

After fastraveling or loading from main menu it often happens but in a few attempts it was ok.

[sheson]

  On 12/29/2024 at 9:52 PM, had said:

With this new exe it seems like with manually tweaked texture

As for stacking model and lod it seem just happen more often than not.

After fastraveling or loading from main menu it often happens but in a few attempts it was ok.

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That seems the best we can do atm with just the sRGB to linear RGB conversion.

Is there any difference about the LOD showing in the active cells if you change to uLockedObjectMapLOD=16 in A Clear Map of Skyrim.ini?

[had]

  On 12/30/2024 at 6:08 AM, sheson said:

Is there any difference about the LOD showing in the active cells if you change to uLockedObjectMapLOD=16 in A Clear Map of Skyrim.ini?

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Seem changing setting doesnt affect bug. I tried to comment out it in ini, still happens.

[sheson]

  On 12/30/2024 at 3:20 PM, had said:

Seem changing setting doesnt affect bug. I tried to comment out it in ini, still happens.

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What coc/cow command are you using to load into the game?
Can you upload Skyrim.ini, SkyrimPrefs.INi, SkyrimCustom.INI and all plugin INIs in the data folder?

[had]

  On 12/30/2024 at 4:33 PM, sheson said:

What coc/cow command are you using to load into the game?

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I load my update save, then fasttravel to location. It is fine, i save, i restart game, i load, bug usually present.

Also, reproduced it with fresh game started with coc whiterun.

 

My inis

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1L11TXv_IolWybUal5c9nHlJLHzV4_6J5?usp=sharing

[sheson]

  On 1/1/2025 at 11:17 PM, had said:

I load my update save, then fasttravel to location. It is fine, i save, i restart game, i load, bug usually present.

Also, reproduced it with fresh game started with coc whiterun.

My inis

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1L11TXv_IolWybUal5c9nHlJLHzV4_6J5?usp=sharing

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The LOD does unload when the cell attaches when you walk closer, right?

When you tlc to see this, can you open console and pick any of the references, then disable it, close console, open console, enable it, close console. Repeat that a few times, does the LOD eventually unload?

Upload ..\SKSE\plugins\DynDOLOD_Data\DynDOLOD_NG_Tamriel.txt from the DynDOLOD output.

[had]

  On 1/2/2025 at 5:05 PM, sheson said:

The LOD does unload when the cell attaches when you walk closer, right?

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It is fine then come closer.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ACtCaROldaxTX64EMfT-gVbE9uk0nraF/view?usp=sharing

  On 1/2/2025 at 5:05 PM, sheson said:

When you tlc to see this, can you open console and pick any of the references, then disable it, close console, open console, enable it, close console. Repeat that a few times, does the LOD eventually unload?

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Yes, on disable enable it unloads.

  On 1/2/2025 at 5:05 PM, sheson said:

Upload ..\SKSE\plugins\DynDOLOD_Data\DynDOLOD_NG_Tamriel.txt from the DynDOLOD output.

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/12PsZIxEz3Tk6Pt7RXP98kgL4abEBypub/view?usp=sharing

[sheson]

  On 1/2/2025 at 6:28 PM, had said:

It is fine then come closer.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ACtCaROldaxTX64EMfT-gVbE9uk0nraF/view?usp=sharing

Yes, on disable enable it unloads.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12PsZIxEz3Tk6Pt7RXP98kgL4abEBypub/view?usp=sharing

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Download this test version of DynDOLOD.DLL NG https://mega.nz/file/hFZlmTra#TqWZmPc4g4dvs1WXz3oPxb0VVdZyNPrgjjN1u3HD1pU
Replace the one in the ..\SKSE\Plugins\ folder.
Check if it makes a difference in the game.
Upload c:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\DynDOLOD.log

[had]

No difference

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oRqOvlz73BB1BlcZiL9qiSsUKo-xO_1m/view?usp=sharing

[sheson]

  On 1/4/2025 at 2:46 PM, had said:

No difference

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oRqOvlz73BB1BlcZiL9qiSsUKo-xO_1m/view?usp=sharing

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New test version https://mega.nz/file/dVgAwAoJ#GmQw40JxwOm3CSHB7AchNKUFDfE8OZieUNwilCDWC8Q
Same procedure...

[had]

Tried to reproduce bug 5 times, seems like it fixed.

[had]

Uh, still happening. Not as often probably.

[sheson]

  On 1/6/2025 at 2:17 AM, had said:

Uh, still happening. Not as often probably.

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Do you have specific cells where it happens always or do you always test the same area and it happens sometimes?