GeDoSaTo 0.21 – multiple PSHashes, better AO targeting, multi-pass postprocessing etc.

Since the last time I wrote about GeDoSaTo, there have been quite a few changes/improvements. The full changelist is on Github (basically everything under the beta 20 and beta 21 headings), but I feel like some things need further explanation.

Multiple PSHashes can now be specified

This means that it’s easier to get perfect coverage of post-processing injection and hudless screenshots in more games, more situations , and with a larger variety of settings, with a single uniform profile.

Introducing AOHash for the generic depth plugin

It works like the PSHash system, but when the hash is encountered AO is applied (with the GenericDepth plugin). This means you can inject AO before the game renders things like volumetric fog, particles or light overlays:

The way both of these features work is illustrated by the new default profile for Dragon’s Dogma:

hashesI also implemented a depth-based fadeout for AO, this helps work around issues with fog which are not resolved by the new hash targeting ability. You can currently configure it directly in the SAO shader. (Which you can of course customize for each game profile like any shader)

Combining AO hash targeting and the fade-out, it’s possible to get artifact-free AO in e.g. Dragon’s Dogma, which was my main test case.

Multi-pass Postprocessing

Rather than pushing every effect into a single shader (which simply doesn’t even work for some combinations) you can now specify an additional postprocessing pass with e.g. addProcessingPass deband.fx in any settings file. Currently, only the deband shader has been separated out, and you can look at its source here. The system is still not as flexible as I’d like it to be (in order to be able to implement more complex effects without changing GeDoSaTo), but it’s a pretty significant step forward.

Other Stuff

You can get the latest version by updating from within GeDoSaTo or with the installer provided here. As always, you can donate to support continuing GeDoSaTo development here.

And yes, I know that this is not the DX11 support that everyone is asking for all the time. Sadly, that’s on a different level of engineering time requirements.

GeDoSaTo shader development features, Dark Souls 2 SSAO improvements

I just pushed an update to GeDoSaTo which makes it significantly easier to work on shaders and effects (i.e. downsampling, SSAO, postprocessing). It’s now possible to bind a key for reloading shaders. The magic thing however, and what really saves time, is that if loading the new shader fails the old one will continue to be used instead, and the error will be reported:

screenshot_2014-08-23_14-58-34_0This really saves a lot of time restarting games. My workflow is now to have the game running in a window in the corner of the screen, and have Visual Studio take up the other half. This way, I can make changes to the shader and see the result in-game in about 3 seconds. It’s not a GUI, but it’s much more flexible and almost as fast in terms of iteration.

To prove the claim that this makes shader development much easier, I set out to improve GeDoSaTo’s SSAO. While better than the built-in monstrosity, this was never really high quality, particularly considering its performance impact. Well, it’s a whole lot better now:

_prev _curThat’s the old version on top and the new one in the bottom. Look in particular at the detail in the distance, the lack of pixelation on the grass, the much better definition on objects like the staircase and the lack of polygonal artifacts on the floor.

Now, you might ask “But Durante, the AO was already really heavy, can I really afford to run the new version performance-wise?”. The answer is yes, absolutely. For the result shown above, the previous version took around 9 ms of GPU time on my 770. The new one takes 4.8 ms.  If you’re keeping track, that’s almost twice as fast as previously. While also looking better, and sporting fewer artifacts.

You can get the new version right now with the updater.

Oh, one more thing. Since someone asked in a donation message: yes, I do read all the donation messages :P