3Dvision for more immersive SKYRIM ENB

[Ghanth]

Greetings adventurers!

I'm unsure where to post this so i've ended here.

I would like to share some informations related to Stereo3D (3Dvision / 3DTVplay) and ENB with you.
Fist, i want to say thank you to Boris for coding and sharing his ENB with us. I'm still playing Skyrim (+ 1103 hours)most because of ENB incredible features. Many time i still find myself enjoying graphics and thinking to myself: "Waooow, everything feels so right here, this lighting looks so natural, so believable... Really mind blowing stuff !". Thank you.

Even more recent engine like TESO cannot come close to what can be achieved with a properly set ENB

Now I have to tell you i managed to build a fairy good setup with ENB+3DvisionHelixmod fix but had to sacrifice many ENB features on the way only because of the 3Dvision wrong deferred shadow's display.
The result is already mindblowing with only 40% of working features of my customised S3D ENB (with SSAO, SSIL, DOF, reflexions, SubSurfaceScattering and adaptation that are working "right"). So can you imagine how stunning the result will be with full ENB features (skylighting, detailed shadows, proper settings separation...) and 3Dvision? I can see that (possible?) futur, and this is why i'm posting here trying to share my enthusiasm with you.

To fix shadows problem, Bdefferedshadows have to be set to 0 so shadows will display right with 3Dvision. The side effect of that necessary setting is also disableing many of the ENB cool features too:

• no more Skylighting
• no more Cloud shadows
• no more Detailed Shadows
• no more volumetric rays
• no more int/ext, sunset/sunrise separation (only global day/night)

So my question is:

Is there any chance that this wonderfull ENB tool will get full support for proper Skyrim's S3D (3Dvision) one day? The core problem for 3D compatibility is lying around deferred computation method. Can some skilled coders help in this project? I am hoping some of you will read these lines and join forces...

Anyway with some kind of patience and lots of head scratching it is yet possible to achieve very good ENB results but it would be INCREDIBLY stunning with all benefit the ENB power has to offer! I think this is the right time to unleash the hiden power of this tool as Skywind is coming to give us some EXTRA lands to explore Skyrimers!

In the meanwhlie, i warmly recommand that you give S3D ENB a try if you havn't yet! Here is a detailed
HowTo:

• Install HelixFix FIRST, THEN ENB v0254 (do not overwrite dxd9.dll, just rename the ENB one to someting like "dxd9ENB.dll")
• Delete unecessary Helix shadows shaders to avoid potential conflicts (PIXEL shader 0DD4E031,54548D09,F25ADF18 and VERTEX shaders 75FF0339, A5BAF6E3, BB1D5EF5 are not working since game patch 1.6 so are useless now. Delete them from shaderoverwrite folder.)
• Chain ENB to HelixFix (HelixFix has to load FIRST, ENB second. set this into DXconfig file)
• Disable ENB bloom and use vanilla bloom instead (you can set this in ENB effect file code. I use Guzio's Rudy ENB Effect file from original Opethfelt 'cause it had a good base and has the necessary feature: #define SHOW_VANILLA_BLOOM 1)
• Set BdeferredShadow=0 in SkyrimPref.ini (WARNING: By doing this you will loose the benefit from Shadows-on-grass and some ENB features too like separtion, skylighting...but this is the only way to fix 3DS broken shadows right now.)
• While working with ENB settings, keep in mind that separation (INT/EXT) is NOT working as expected:
  All INTERIOR parameters do affect EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR
  OTHER separation parameters do NOTHING (so use ONLY "_INTday" and "_INTnight" parameters to set everything)

Cheers!

[ChaosDuck]

Of course I can't be completely sure, but I believe Boris shares the same Opinion as me, I think I've read his statement on this subject before: 3D Vision is a fluke and is not worth developing for. With new and enhanced virtual realism enhancing devices hitting the market, such as the Oculus Rift, old-school 3D Vision will soon be forgotten.

[Ghanth]

I agree with you, Virtual Reality (VR) is the future of gaming and OculusRift, Sony Morpheus or other similar projects will bring it to the masses. VR development is sharing the exact same issues with games engines than Nvidia 3Dvision have to deal with now. It is all about stereo renderings and ability of coders to adapt (old and new) games engines to it. Oculus VR is just adding head tracking for freedom of movement but the same core S3D technology will always remain behind for the display. So i think it would be very rewarding for coders to have a look at those technical chalenges now, so they could be ready when S3D VR will reach the masses very soon.
ENB has succed because is was ahead of its time and bring to us the quality jump expected in near future. I wish it will keep the same purpose for the upcoming years...
Cheers!

[ENBSeries]

Stereo unsupported and i don't see any reason to develop it. Here are the reasons:
1) stereo is not standart, not in movies, not in games, every vendor create their own and developers need a lot of time to make support for totally different stereo implementation. NVidia, AMD, Oculus, VR Helmets - they all have their own stereo code. More than that, it differ between driver versions. Not enough to scary? Okay, another fact that stereo (except Oculus as i know) is made as hack and developers do not control it at all, they just need to test their game in turned on stereo mode, find objects and effects which not work and by trials and errors make them work in stereo or disable them at all. I don't have so much time and money to do this.
2) stereo in not popular at all to bother with it, my mod don't have many users compared to game players number, stereo i believe less than 5% of them.
3) many effects can't be done in stereo because of performance. Mod will run twice slower and all noise will be very visible in stereo mode, so the quality of effects must be at their higherst. Even water displacement will look annoying in stereo without pixel perfect precision as it now.

[cicala]

Stereo unsupported and i don't see any reason to develop it. Here are the reasons:
1) stereo is not standart, not in movies, not in games, every vendor create their own and developers need a lot of time to make support for totally different stereo implementation. NVidia, AMD, Oculus, VR Helmets - they all have their own stereo code. More than that, it differ between driver versions. Not enough to scary? Okay, another fact that stereo (except Oculus as i know) is made as hack and developers do not control it at all, they just need to test their game in turned on stereo mode, find objects and effects which not work and by trials and errors make them work in stereo or disable them at all. I don't have so much time and money to do this.
2) stereo in not popular at all to bother with it, my mod don't have many users compared to game players number, stereo i believe less than 5% of them.
3) many effects can't be done in stereo because of performance. Mod will run twice slower and all noise will be very visible in stereo mode, so the quality of effects must be at their higherst. Even water displacement will look annoying in stereo without pixel perfect precision as it now.

Boris is 200% right on it not being popular, with Facebook owning the most popular one and the competitors struggling to develop their versions on time, the use of VR and Gaming will become a gimmick as it always has and will be. 3D in the Cinema started in 70's using Red/Cyan Glasses and also some other colour combos, but it dropped popularity and only resurfaced 2 times by my count because of Cinema Technology, now they use RealD only because RealD is Technology progressing but it will soon fade and the next iteration might see everyone wearing Oculus Headsets but that would only happen on a mass scale 50 years from now.

The whole 60fps debate has now got console kiddies wanting 60fps for all their console games, and the new generation of consoles only borderline this and games still fail at this still only sporting sub 1080p resolutions, in 2014 4K gaming is making headway and by the end of 2015 it will become affordable "in pc gaming terms" to play most games at 4K with a minimum of 60FPS.

[kalicola]

Ghanth: About 6 months ago I tried EVERYTHING, to get skyrim and ENB to work together, sadly no luck. Had to turn off almost all enb effects including bloom, which is the main ingredient in my ENB . I got frustrated and left it alone. Although Skyrim in 3D looks absolutely fantastic with the right depth settings.. I have NO idea why 3D gaming is not "a thing" yet.. After playing Bioshock infinite, Assassins creed 3, Dirt 3 in 3D, there's no going back for me now, it beats the shit out of movies for sure.. And I understand that many people can't watch 3D properly, and some can't watch it at all, and that's why people hate it... My eyes have problems focusing on things that comes out of the TV, so that can be a bit problematic sometimes. But thankfully most movies and games doesn't do alot of that. But the depth into the TV I see perfectly fine. And that alone just immerses me into the movies and games alot more than in 2D... But it feels like I'm the only one in the world that feels that way... And seriously, I had a dragon fight in 3D, and it felt like it was right there in front of me, that I could reach into the TV and touch it, that was a mindblowing experience!

I will try your suggestion, and see if I can get it to work, thanks

[kalicola]

Hmm.. Couldn't get it to work.. Didn't understand this line "Chain ENB to HelixFix (HelixFix has to load FIRST, ENB second. set this into DXconfig file)" Where's the DXconfig file and what do I do?

[Ghanth]

Kalicola,

here is my DX9settings file attached to this post.
Drop it with other files in your skyrim root dir (same dir as ENB d3d9 files).
Then you have to edit this file. Open it and change the line with the path to match YOUR configuration and according to YOUR d3d9 ENB file name.
Save and try to launch your game as usual.

When the time to set a proper S3D friendly ENB will come, then read my first post carefully!

Tell me if you need more help, but it should work

Regarding S3D calibration, some settings will look good to your eyes, some won't. So you are right, you have to find the right settings for you before you can have an idea of how awesome the 3D thing can enhance your gaming experience. Each game needs its own 3D calibration. Once you have seen it working right, you cannot revert back to 2D gaming as it will suddenly looks soooo flat 2D boring thing. So you are not the only one feeling this way, many S3D users feel that way. In you case, i would recommend a low convergence with high depth settings so the depth will show behind your screen's plane and very few objects will pops up towards you. I personally enjoy the exact inverse settings with no problems as i like to see things popping out of the screen. I enjoy trying to touch objects that seems to be just here, very near in front of me and this sense of feeling IN the game is really changing the game experience. This is not a gimmick but a real step forward for first person view gaming. Future will tell us soon.

[gamadeus]

thanks for your post, Ganth. This is exactly the reason why I got disappointed and stopped playing Skyrim altogether. any more developments in this regard or have you given up trying as well, Ganth?

[Ghanth]

thanks for your post, Ganth. This is exactly the reason why I got disappointed and stopped playing Skyrim altogether. any more developments in this regard or have you given up trying as well, Ganth?

Hi, it's been a while! I just cannot give up on this stuff because it is the most appealing game experience you can have as Kalicola has attested previously...
So today it's my great pleasure to share with you the public release of my ENB/3Dvison graphics enhancement for Skyrim on the Nexus website.

Check it out: Skyrim Natural Realizm - The 3D vision Immersive ENB Hub page

It's Beta stage right now but already been a long run to get there. It actually takes the form of a combination of 3Dvision, Helixmod Fix and ENB preset to rise Skyrim's getting-old vanilla rendering engine to NextGen graphics.

It also comes with a recommended selection of immersive mods like immersiveFPV, COT V5, real 3D Clouds, more shadows casting of light sources, bridges shadows on the water, refractive materials and much more cool enhancements!

A VERY IMMERSIVE experience in the end - hopefully getting closer to a realistic VR like one!

All constructive feedback are welcome.

Stereo unsupported and i don't see any reason to develop it.

Well the good news is that ENB is ALREADY STEREO friendly as it is now (for the most part of it).

• SSAO/IL are stereo
• reflections are stereo
• subsurface scatering are stereo
• skylighting is stereo (but need deferredshadows to display)
• cloud shadows are stereo (but need deferredshadows to display)
• mist is stereo
• Depth of flied is stereo

All those effects are working really good with 3D vision already and it looks awsome!
(You can take a look at my Skyrim 3D vision Immersive ENB gallery. Anyone can use cheap google cardboard with smart phone to experience depth in pictures from there. The cardboard is basically a smartphone holder equipped with special lenses.
Perhaps some of you can find this very cheap make-it-yourself stereo viewer at least.)

So there is NO NEED to specificly adapt ENB effect's code to stereo. Don't need to bother this way with trials-and-error fixing you were talking about.

Anything being computed by ENB code is stereo friendly yet. Only ENB's Bloom effect is not stereo-compiliant as it is actually a pure pixel shader without depth matrix projection from vextex shaders in it. but it is not a dealbraker as we can disable it and use vanilla bloom instead. Stereo ENB is manageable as it is.

So in the end, the biggest flaw remains only around vanilla defferedShadows. So, perhaps if ENB was handeling them internaly, those shadows will be fixed by your "magic-matrix" processing as the technique you used to inject cloud shadows are already stereo friendly... just dreaming... or at least someone could fix their wrong actual 2D-screen-depth with some appropriate HLSL FX file code referring to this Stereo Rendering Basics guide.

Here are the reasons:
1) stereo is not standart, not in movies, not in games, every vendor create their own and developers need a lot of time to make support for totally different stereo implementation. NVidia, AMD, Oculus, VR Helmets - they all have their own stereo code. More than that, it differ between driver versions. Not enough to scary? Okay, another fact that stereo (except Oculus as i know) is made as hack and developers do not control it at all, they just need to test their game in turned on stereo mode, find objects and effects which not work and by trials and errors make them work in stereo or disable them at all. I don't have so much time and money to do this.
2) stereo in not popular at all to bother with it, my mod don't have many users compared to game players number, stereo i believe less than 5% of them.

I anderstand your position well Boris. I'm used to hear those arguments for years now. Time is money, i know it too and i anderstand you don't want to waste your time for something not worth it. Arguing stereo is not popular or it is a gimmick has always been the biggest flaw for stereo business. Stereo is the kind of technology that you have to try by yourself to change your mind about it. The real problem is nobody has made great AAA(A) game content to launch it at the right time. Many great opportunities to make stereo a BIG thing have been left down by ignorent and lazy developpers whom had never tried stereo once in their life, referring to what misinformed people said about it. Sadly this was the case of Bethesda's talented artists too.
However stereo code implentation is not a very complicated thing if is taken right at early stage of shader coding. This is mainly some basics rules to follow to avoid trial and error fixing later. Here is a comprehensive guide of stereo coding: Stereo Rendering Basics

3) many effects can't be done in stereo because of performance. Mod will run twice slower and all noise will be very visible in stereo mode, so the quality of effects must be at their higherst. Even water displacement will look annoying in stereo without pixel perfect precision as it now.

I can bear witness that performance is no more an issue now you've optimsed ENB's boost. I've maxed the quality of the effects to minimise noise's moire and everything is running smoothly in Stereo on my single GTX780.