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The Witcher 2: Extreme Quality Flora Mod [Trailer, download, fixes grass pop-in]

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
witcher1gmu9r.png

What it does:
  • Dramatically increases grass rendering distance
  • Distant tree moss rendered
  • Full detail bushes/shrubs over entire fields
  • Maximum quality trees at any distance
  • Wind reactive flora as far as you can see
  • Grass pop-in completely eliminated
Videos:
Features trailer: http://youtu.be/_9ukL814wVY
Quick comparison: http://youtu.be/E2Pfl6KnueY

Versions (chose only one):
Extreme Quality Flora v1.0 (17.6 MB) - https://mega.co.nz/#!NoRVEK7Z!GXLjr1jPq1OyCV-R0GGlTT-lRx1JaRyB-deob_ipTcs
This version enhances the rendering distance and quality of all flora: grass, bushes, shrubs, trees, weeds, ferns, and so on.

Infinite Grass Render Distance v1.0 (8.6 MB) - https://mega.co.nz/#!N9xDCJRS!GS0Ji0uTFrlH1QIpuHh30mAinJ4nmCAYcWvqxeAI_gs
This version enhances the rendering distance and quality of grass only. Suitable for lower end systems and those who prefer performance over image quality. Do not use this mod if using the Extreme Quality Flora, as that already covers grass.

Alternatively, download from The Witcher 2 nexus:
Extreme Quality Flora: http://witcher2.nexusmods.com/mods/653/
Infinite Grass Render Distance: http://witcher2.nexusmods.com/mods/654/

Issue:
Users have noticed an incompatibility between Full Combat Rebalance and Extreme Quality Flora. After installing both mods, you will need this workaround. It's a small download and easy install. Thanks to Sethos for the fix.
Download: https://mega.co.nz/#!l9AF0ARI!EC1DCxIGd8LwyYi3t21-Tw_R2kA7WJiVvRmFHdO-dfo

Gifs:
i98RxfOMqHAwA.gif

ibqwwUDQFk34Br.gif


Screenshots:

Original thread:
Sequel to this outrageously popular thread; I've worked out how to "fix" The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings LOD/asset pop-in.

I'm still working on it, but so far...

Good things:
- Super easy for me (or you!) to make.
- Super easy to distribute. Once I'm done I can provide an easy one-click mod for everyone to use.
- Effectively squishes TW2's optimised (for a reason) LOD system for assets, rendering assets at maximum quality over a long distance.
- Removes 2D asset sprites for 3D objects at a distance, rendering them at full 3D detail always (eg: bushes).
- Completely eradicates grass pop-in.
- Animation effects rendered over maximum distance. EG: swaying weeds are rendered across an entire field, not just for the weeds in front of you.

Bad things:
- Massive performance hit (as the engine clearly isn't supposed to work like this).
- Separate mods/asset variables will need to be made for performance optimisation, and this will take time (though an option JUST for grass fixed, not bushes, should be easy).

Standard rendering:
http://abload.de/img/w144sto.png[

Maximum rendering distance / LOD removal:
http://abload.de/img/w22esbl.png

GIF with no grass pop-in:
http://i.minus.com/i98RxfOMqHAwA.gif

Gimme a day I'll be done with at least the most demanding / high quality version.
 

CheesecakeRecipe

Stormy Grey
My system weeps, this is beautiful.

The aggressive LOD issues that flared up were one of the few genuine issues I had with the game, along side the crosshatched shadowing. Thanks EatChildren.
 
Is witcher 3 going to have a setting in the menu for this sort of thing?

Lack of drawdistance settings in games where it's an issue bothers me a lot.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Sucks being on a phone. I can't see a difference in the pics. Look forward to trying the mod. I play RDR and W2 at least once a year.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Two big shots, downsampled from 3200x1080 with ubersampling.

Normal:
w1a6oswz.png


Grass/asset/LOD fix:
w1bi5s2c.png
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Nice work. Looking forward to comparative performance reports (SLI 670s in particular).
 

Durante

Member
I don't think screenshots are the best way to show this off actually, since imposters work pretty well as long as there is no (camera) movement.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Maybe it's me, but I barely see a difference.

Honestly, CDPR's solution is really super clever and both very effective and efficient in convincingly rendering flora over a long distance and have it still look great. Most people probably aren't aware that a scene full of bushes (like the normal pictures I posted) are almost entirely composed of flat sprites, that don't load in the actual bushes until you're right near them. Like in the image I posted above, the normal one, almost every bush in that picture is a flat 2D sprite. They still look fantastic because CDPR know their shit.

So, for a lot of people the maximum asset solution wont be worth it as they wont see much of a difference, and might even prefer the colour tones 2D sprites introduce. For those people I'll make a mod that just fixes the grass pop-in, not the bushes. Issue with the grass was, unlike the bush solution, it would more or less pop/grow out of the ground right in front of you. Bushes and such were more consistent in LOD scaling.
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
I'm guessing the difference probably shows better in actual gameplay, but from those images I like it vanilla a whole lot.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
This is pretty awesome. Subbed for later. My GPU would probably cry trying to run this but I'm planning an upgrade anyway.
 

Berto

Member
This issue was more evident in the fields outside Vergen in Act 2, it was pretty noticable. I honestly don't remember it to be so bad in the original release, I think it became like that after the Enhanced Edition.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Two stupid short and kinda shitty gifs to show how "busier" flora scenes are with rendering limitations removed.

Normal:
ibxdeMNaWKVqia.gif


Mod:
ibufCcBUW6SJ8b.gif
 

TheD

The Detective
Holy shit!
Over active LODs drive me nuts (IMO, It is one of the worst graphical compromises that a game can make).
I was really hoping someone would mod the W2 to fix it.
Thank you EatChildren!
 

freddy

Banned
What's affected by this? Only flora? In that second gif there is a guy/npc walking on the right of screen just below the end of the fort wall.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
What's affected by this? Only flora? In that second gif there is a guy/npc walking on the right of screen just below the end of the fort wall.

In theory every single asset in the game could be loaded in at maximum quality over the longest distance, including NPCs. In that gif though it's just flora. Dude wandered into vision.
 

Casimir

Unconfirmed Member
Because I've needed to update my GPU for a while now but I want to see what the upcoming revisions will bring. So I can gauge how excited I should get; EatChildren, what computer setup and fidelity are you using with the patch and how is the performance?
 

TheD

The Detective
I see in the other thread a screen of the mesh editor and something called "shadowRenderingDistance", I wonder if this could be used to fix the poor shadow rendering distance with some objects and buildings?
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Because I've needed to update my GPU for a while now but I want to see what the upcoming revisions will bring. So I can gauge how excited I should get; EatChildren, what computer setup and fidelity are you using with the patch and how is the performance?

I'll crunch some numbers for my system when I'm done, but my GTX 670 was reduced to 20 - 30fps depending on where I was looking, at 1920x1080 and no ubersampling.

I see in the other thread a screen of the mesh editor and something called "shadowRenderingDistance", I wonder if this could be used to fix the poor shadow rendering distance with some objects and buildings?

Possibly!
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
How does this run on your rig EatChildren?

Like arse. GTX 670, 20 - 40 fps based on where I'm looking. Seems really inconsistent too. Though I suspect why. I'm pretty sure I'm super brute forcing the game to render everything as far as possible even if you can't see it. This should be fixable with optimisation but who knows how long that will take me.

Goal at the moment is get everything up to stupid maximum quality and work down from there, or let someone else do that dirty work. First, quality. Then...playability.
 

Savitar

Member
Witcher threads make me happy.

Witcher threads with images and vid make me happier.

That all said this stuff looks great, it's quite amazing when you think how a small developer could make a game like this. Makes you wonder what the hell so many others are spending the money and resources on for things that don't look as good.

The thread also reminds me of games where your running and the grass is "growing" in front of you some distance away. I hate that in video games with a passion.
 
Q

Queen of Hunting

Unconfirmed Member
my main problem with this game was how shit the textures looked really close to you, it was like AF never actually worked
 

Gbraga

Member
I'll crunch some numbers for my system when I'm done, but my GTX 670 was reduced to 20 - 30fps depending on where I was looking, at 1920x1080 and no ubersampling.

Well, congratulations on your work, the pop-in was kinda annoying and I'm sure it makes the game look better and more immersive, but I can't deal with that. The game runs to damn smooth with the Ultra cfg file from the Performance Thread (and sharpen off, AGAINST), 60fps most of the time, I'm not willing to lose that. I can get that performance (maybe a bit better) with ubersampling, not worth it imo :/

I hope they find a less demanding solution for The Witcher 3.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Well, congratulations on your work, the pop-in was kinda annoying and I'm sure it makes the game look better and more immersive, but I can't deal with that. The game runs to damn smooth with the Ultra cfg file from the Performance Thread (and sharpen off, AGAINST), 60fps most of the time, I'm not willing to lose that. I can get that performance (maybe a bit better) with ubersampling, not worth it imo :/

I hope they find a less demanding solution for The Witcher 3.

I'm basically brute forcing it. No self respecting developer (certainly not CDPR) would use my method to increase flora rendering distance :p. I'm positive you could optimise what I'm doing too.

And to be frank, if all you wanted was the grass pop-in fixed and nothing else, the performance hit I think would be significantly less. Take a squiz at this comparison. In the normal shot, nearly every single one of those green bushes is a flat 2D object. In my modded version they're all rendering at maximum 3D quality. That is going to take a big chunk out of the framerate. I can quite easily release a mod that fixes the grass pop-in, but leaves bushes and such rendered exactly as they've always been.
 

Dmax3901

Member
What's with all the mountains behind the fort? I swear there's supposed to be just a lake behind it... maybe it's just from that particular viewpoint.
 

WarMacheen

Member
The last 2 gifs made the mod really noticeable, and looks great, can't wait for the release. Also you seem to have found bigfoot.
 

Gbraga

Member
I'm basically brute forcing it. No self respecting developer (certainly not CDPR) would use my method to increase flora rendering distance :p. I'm positive you could optimise what I'm doing too.

And to be frank, if all you wanted was the grass pop-in fixed and nothing else, the performance hit I think would be significantly less. Take a squiz at this comparison. In the normal shot, nearly every single one of those green bushes is a flat 2D object. In my modded version they're all rendering at maximum 3D quality. That is going to take a big chunk out of the framerate. I can quite easily release a mod that fixes the grass pop-in, but leaves bushes and such rendered exactly as they've always been.


Hmm, that's quite interesting. I didn't know you could do one without the other.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
1. Billboards need animated gif solutions to blend animated 3D models with billboards
2. Billboards need some normal mapping/reflection mapping for responsiveness to lighting environment.
3. Models should transition in steps to simpler models...

i.e. grass patch with hi-res textures and volumetric > multiple animated alpha grass sprites > single alpha grass sprite in far distance.

But goddammit is that a whole lot of work. Still, worthwhile doing it for key building block assets like grass and bushes.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
It looks like it is more of a LOD removal than a LOD tweak. Even the grass in the far distance is detailed and fully animated.

Tis. Said as much in the op :p.

w1t1sms.png
 

DTKT

Member
Hijacking the thread, but was there a reason for the shadows to have a "grid" pattern on them throughout the game. It got over it but it was really distracting at first.

I think it's called "shadow dithering"?
 

statham

Member
I just beat this game yesterday (had to get rid of the game-balance mod), and really thats the only thing that kinda bothered me graphically. I figured it was my graphics card.
 

Stitch

Gold Member
This issue was more evident in the fields outside Vergen in Act 2, it was pretty noticable. I honestly don't remember it to be so bad in the original release, I think it became like that after the Enhanced Edition.

They fucked up the LOD system very badly with one of the patches and sadly never fixed it.
 

Blinck

Member
I honestly don't see the difference in the screenshots :(

In the gif it's noticeable that the distant grass is moving which is pretty cool.
I still don't think it's worth the performance hit though.
Cool mod for those with a beasty rig none the less :)
 

JoseDFrog

Banned
Thanks EC for this mod. I stopped playing it a while ago partly because of how bad the pop in was; it would completely throw me out of the immersion the world was trying to provide. Now to make sure my rig has enough power to get it running.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Hijacking the thread, but was there a reason for the shadows to have a "grid" pattern on them throughout the game. It got over it but it was really distracting at first.

I think it's called "shadow dithering"?

Nah, sadly that was an engine limitation, didn't Ubersampling make it less noticable though? They've fixed it for the sequel though.
 
Tis. Said as much in the op :p.

w1t1sms.png
What I was trying to say is that most of the far away 'detail' shimmering is actually aliasing, similar to what poor texture filtering (instead of anisotropic filtering) achieves for textures.
To avoid this, most lod-tweaks rather edit the distance at which a certain quality model is drawn ('draw distance' .ini fixes), but I don't now how that would be possible with RedKit.
(I see you already tried that with FoliageDistanceScale etc.)
 
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