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[WiP] Community shader PBR support

Exist

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Exist

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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

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sheson
sheson

The shader for the terrain LOD that used in the LOD area does not make use of mipmaps even if they are generated. I suppose further "shrinking" of the textures blends the different repeating pixe

sheson
sheson

If a on demand textures like the *linear.dds already exists in the load order or the output folder it will not be created again. For now you would have to delete them beforehand manually.

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sheson Akatosh

sheson

Posted
Posted
  On 2/18/2025 at 5:33 AM, cornmeal said:

Logs @ https://ufile.io/alt0vcnp
 

489830_20250218133753_1.png

489830_20250218133747_1.png

489830_20250218133824_1.thumb.png.a104a286c10adabb5da1dc3b94d18695.png489830_20250218133820_1.thumb.png.355191f2c7b245d1605fd2bb28088b21.png

I've tried rerunning Dyndolod with updated glacier/iceberg mesh rules but it did not help

Expand  

What mod is the original full model meshes\landscape\ice\glacierendlg01.nif from  - before it was converted with PG?
What mod is the meshes\lod\ice\glacierendlg01_lod_0.nif from?
They are probably the same mod.

There is hope we can do something about the textures used by the LOD models you have installed.

You didn't provide any rules, so I am not sure what you are trying to do with them.
Meshes rules control automatic LOD model assignments. They do not directly control which textures a LOD model uses.

  • 0
cornmeal Citizen

cornmeal

Posted
Posted
  On 2/18/2025 at 7:37 AM, sheson said:

What mod is the original full model meshes\landscape\ice\glacierendlg01.nif from  - before it was converted with PG?
What mod is the meshes\lod\ice\glacierendlg01_lod_0.nif from?
They are probably the same mod.

There is hope we can do something about the textures used by the LOD models you have installed.

You didn't provide any rules, so I am not sure what you are trying to do with them.
Meshes rules control automatic LOD model assignments. They do not directly control which textures a LOD model uses.

Expand  

They are both from icy mesh remaster https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/73381?tab=posts

Disregard the mesh rules then, all I did was using level 0 in the lods but as you said it did not affect the textures.

  • 0
leostevano Guard

leostevano

Posted
Posted (edited)

I have this red lods with the latest dyndolod. I cant click on them with more informative consoles, but I can do it with the full model

Lod : https://postimg.cc/G4QfyX95

Full model : https://postimg.cc/94gNxzdP

Logs : https://fastupload.io/0cd3fec4e245a6ba 

I know that vanilla is using "icewall01_p" for the diffuse, but we use them as parallax and compress them with BC4. That might explains why its red.

Edited by leostevano
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sheson Akatosh

sheson

Posted
Posted
  On 2/18/2025 at 1:13 PM, leostevano said:

I have this red lods with the latest dyndolod. I cant click on them with more informative consoles, but I can do it with the full model

Lod : https://postimg.cc/G4QfyX95

Full model : https://postimg.cc/94gNxzdP

Logs : https://fastupload.io/0cd3fec4e245a6ba 

I know that vanilla is using "icewall01_p" for the diffuse, but we use them as parallax and compress them with BC4. That might explains why its red.

Expand  

The full model uses textures\pbr\dlc01\landscape\icewall01.dds as diffuse texture.

The LOD should be using textures\dlc01\lod\dlc01icewallpbr_lod.dds from the TexGen output.
Check that texture and report if it is red.

If that is the case, open TexGen, click the preview button for the Rendered Object LOD textures and change the dropdown to show for dlc01\lod\dlc01icewallpbr_lod.nif
Report if this is red as well or looks like textures\pbr\dlc01\landscape\icewall01.dds.

  • 0
leostevano Guard

leostevano

Posted
Posted
  On 2/18/2025 at 2:46 PM, sheson said:

The full model uses textures\pbr\dlc01\landscape\icewall01.dds as diffuse texture.

The LOD should be using textures\dlc01\lod\dlc01icewallpbr_lod.dds from the TexGen output.
Check that texture and report if it is red.

If that is the case, open TexGen, click the preview button for the Rendered Object LOD textures and change the dropdown to show for dlc01\lod\dlc01icewallpbr_lod.nif
Report if this is red as well or looks like textures\pbr\dlc01\landscape\icewall01.dds.

Expand  

Yes its red

image.thumb.png.0560455743abdb8647c36976430eeb81.png

  • 0
sheson Akatosh

sheson

Posted
Posted
  On 2/18/2025 at 2:50 PM, leostevano said:

Yes its red

image.thumb.png.0560455743abdb8647c36976430eeb81.png

Expand  

Ah I remember now. This is where the vanilla diffuse texture uses a wrong filename convention and that messes up the automatic substitution for PBR.

I should have a test version in a bit.

  • 0
sheson Akatosh

sheson

Posted
Posted
  On 2/18/2025 at 8:04 AM, cornmeal said:

They are both from icy mesh remaster https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/73381?tab=posts

Disregard the mesh rules then, all I did was using level 0 in the lods but as you said it did not affect the textures.

Expand  

Try this test version https://mega.nz/file/pQpzESIB#tMTLnHjyplAdKENAdwAwD4exPSRw_QONQM3HJx0Xdjw
It should now handle the PBR LOD texture replacement for old style LOD models that define the stitched LOD texture instead of the full texture.
Report results.

Mesh rules can help in case the Level 0 LOD model uses textures that can be updated and LOD model for higher levels use LOD texture that can not be updated.
This would be the case for mountain LOD.
In your case, the mod you are using contains LOD models for all levels that use a texture that is updated. It replaces the vanilla LOD models that use textures that can not be updated atm.

  • 0
cornmeal Citizen

cornmeal

Posted
Posted
  On 2/19/2025 at 8:20 AM, sheson said:

Try this test version https://mega.nz/file/pQpzESIB#tMTLnHjyplAdKENAdwAwD4exPSRw_QONQM3HJx0Xdjw
It should now handle the PBR LOD texture replacement for old style LOD models that define the stitched LOD texture instead of the full texture.
Report results.

Mesh rules can help in case the Level 0 LOD model uses textures that can be updated and LOD model for higher levels use LOD texture that can not be updated.
This would be the case for mountain LOD.
In your case, the mod you are using contains LOD models for all levels that use a texture that is updated. It replaces the vanilla LOD models that use textures that can not be updated atm.

Expand  

Hi sheson, just giving an update.

Your replacement exe worked! Glaciers are looking how they should, thank you. 

489830_20250222192149_1.png

I'm still having a problem with icebergs though, but I'm pretty sure that this is an issue with the animated ice bergs mod. Does this need custom rules to play nice or do I have to wait on a patch with Faultier's landscapes? Thanks.

489830_20250222192524_1.thumb.png.efbcbf06d342a4da6a5471d1bf99bb35.png489830_20250222192143_1.thumb.png.ae8f4829a4fa15191e1646b84fcd43d6.png

Logs: https://ufile.io/x7i89k27

  • 0
sheson Akatosh

sheson

Posted
Posted
  On 2/22/2025 at 8:34 AM, cornmeal said:

Hi sheson, just giving an update.

Your replacement exe worked! Glaciers are looking how they should, thank you. 

489830_20250222192149_1.png

I'm still having a problem with icebergs though, but I'm pretty sure that this is an issue with the animated ice bergs mod. Does this need custom rules to play nice or do I have to wait on a patch with Faultier's landscapes? Thanks.

489830_20250222192524_1.thumb.png.efbcbf06d342a4da6a5471d1bf99bb35.png489830_20250222192143_1.thumb.png.ae8f4829a4fa15191e1646b84fcd43d6.png

Logs: https://ufile.io/x7i89k27

Expand  

Provide a link to the animated iceberg mod please.

  • 0
sheson Akatosh

sheson

Posted
Posted
  On 2/22/2025 at 10:12 AM, cornmeal said:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/121420

Expand  

Make copies of the LOD models included in Icy Mesh Remaster to create versions for the animated meshes included Animated Ice Berg that are installed with the Icy Mesh Remaster patches.

In the folder \meshes\lod\ice\ copy
iceberglarge_lod_0.nif to iceberglarge_anim_56337001_lod_0.nif
iceberglarge_lod_1.nif to iceberglarge_anim_56337001_lod_1.nif
iceberglarge_lod_2.nif to iceberglarge_anim_56337001_lod_2.nif
icebergsmall01_lod_0.nif to icebergsmall01_anim_C6557026_lod_0.nif
icebergsmall01_lod_1.nif to icebergsmall01_anim_C6557026_lod_1.nif
icebergsmall01_lod_2.nif to icebergsmall01_anim_C6557026_lod_2.nif
icebergsmall02_lod_0.nif to icebergsmall02_anim_5664A167_lod_0.nif
icebergsmall02_lod_1.nif to icebergsmall02_anim_5664A167_lod_1.nif
icebergsmall02_lod_2.nif to icebergsmall02_anim_5664A167_lod_2.nif

These should preferably ship with the Animated Ice Bergs mod and installed with the patches.

  • 0
cornmeal Citizen

cornmeal

Posted
Posted
  On 2/22/2025 at 10:48 AM, sheson said:

Make copies of the LOD models included in Icy Mesh Remaster to create versions for the animated meshes included Animated Ice Berg that are installed with the Icy Mesh Remaster patches.

In the folder \meshes\lod\ice\ copy
iceberglarge_lod_0.nif to iceberglarge_anim_56337001_lod_0.nif
iceberglarge_lod_1.nif to iceberglarge_anim_56337001_lod_1.nif
iceberglarge_lod_2.nif to iceberglarge_anim_56337001_lod_2.nif
icebergsmall01_lod_0.nif to icebergsmall01_anim_C6557026_lod_0.nif
icebergsmall01_lod_1.nif to icebergsmall01_anim_C6557026_lod_1.nif
icebergsmall01_lod_2.nif to icebergsmall01_anim_C6557026_lod_2.nif
icebergsmall02_lod_0.nif to icebergsmall02_anim_5664A167_lod_0.nif
icebergsmall02_lod_1.nif to icebergsmall02_anim_5664A167_lod_1.nif
icebergsmall02_lod_2.nif to icebergsmall02_anim_5664A167_lod_2.nif

These should preferably ship with the Animated Ice Bergs mod and installed with the patches.

Expand  

This worked, thank you very much for your help!

 

  • 0
LiterallyACat Citizen

LiterallyACat

Posted
Posted

Via Asset Doctor: 

reference 990011A9 (base 380011E9 from DynDOLOD.esm) > missing texture SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\data\textures\pbr\architecture\tents\smallimperialtentlinear.dds (mesh short path: lod\tents\smallimperialtent_lod_0.nif)
reference 990011A6 (base 380011EA from DynDOLOD.esm) > missing texture SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\data\textures\pbr\architecture\tents\largeimperialtentlinear.dds (mesh short path: lod\tents\largeimperialtent01_lod_1.nif)

I seem to consistently be having either DynDOLOD or TexGen miss linear textures.  This one seems not to ever get created, but it seems that mountainslab01/02linear.dds are also sometimes skipped; if I rerun TexGen and DynDOLOD without deleting the previous files, usually they do get created.

Below, I do have the section of DynDOLOD_SSE_log.txt containing all of the linear textures that were created.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Here is the full log. 

Here are all of the logs, including DynDOLOD_SSE_log.txt.

To test this to get better details, do I need to run both TexGen and DynDOLOD?


My apologies in advance if I forget to check in again.

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