Ok, i spend last two hours on setting shadows, but it just cant be done, why? Because Bethesda are fucking idiots. Here is why:
Originally Posted by skyrimprefs.ini:
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3
fInteriorShadowDistance=1000.0000
fShadowDistance=3500.0000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=4096
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
iShadowSplitCount=2
fShadowLODStartFade=1000.000
iShadowMode=1
iShadowMapResolution=4096
fShadowBiasScale=0.1500
iShadowMaskQuarter=3
iShadowFilter=3
Originally Posted by skyrim.ini:
fShadowLODMaxStartFade=2000.0
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
Those are options we got to tweak shadows. Ok all command that affect blur, distortion etc works so by that i mean those like maskquarter, shadow filter, biasscale etc.
But those that are important for resolution and performance are not.
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary - not working at all!
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary - not working at all!
fShadowLODMaxStartFade - working a little after setting shadow distance over 3000
iShadowMapResolution - main command and only one that affect resolution
fInteriorShadowDistance - main command to set distance and resolution of shadows [i'll explain in second]
fInteriorShadowDistance - no difference between 1000 and 10000, maybe in some ultra big interiors, only thing that made difference was setting it below 500 i got shadow that covers whole interior
So basically, we cant set up LoDs and i'm not even talking about individual lods for trees, geometry, npcs etc, i'm talking about any lod.
We can set 4 resolution of shadows 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, only last two gives can give us acceptable results, but here's comes Bethesda magic:
So how is shadow LOD working You ask?
You can set up only startup resolution, which is the same for interiors and exteriors, lod is automatic, it checks Your shadow distance and set it automatically through the whole shadow map, it also setup automatically two LOD settings for distant shadows.
So we have 3 lods, close, distant and far away, its not bad if You ask me, so whats wrong? That it covers them awfully.
Normal person would covered close proximity with highest setting, far away with two times lower and far away with much lower depending of distance and geometry amount, but Skyrim set up almost all area with similar quality shadows and You cant change it.
So to have proper shadows on 4096 setting, You have to use distance below 3500, and thats not guarrante that shadows will be awesome or that selfshadowing is ok.
Dont really know how they make shadows for interiors, because leafs from trees outside has better shadows than people 10 object in 6m2 room, i couldnt also affect shadows in interiors but any way except by iShadowMapResolution.
You probably now asking why not use 8096 resolution, ok i thought about that too, it gives quite good balance between quality/distance and of course affects performance, but its acceptable outside, but inside? Inside i get 1-3 fps and shadow quality still isnt too great there [i'm using OGSSAA for clearance].
How could Bethesda solve this? Really simple even without changing a lot in renderer. Make adjustable resolutions for interiors and exteriors and give us ability to set up shadow resolutions and distances for 3-4 lods setting. Like:
8096 npcs, 4096 objects <5 metres from You, 2048 5-25m, 512 25+m and we are set, very high quality selfshadowing, good interiors and geometry shadows, rest is great for performance and still have good quality.