LE Parallax vs Parallax Occ

[Isilmeriel]

In the R6 version of nifskope, under the BSShaderProperty or whatever (the material node) there are several different types of material available, one of them is parallax occ and another is multilayer parallax. Furthermore, under the checkbox shader settings, there are a parallax option and a parallax occlusion option. The two cannot both be checked, or CK will report this error. Choosing the parallax occlusion setting causes the object to go invisible, while the parallax option seems to do something close to the parallax effect in Oblivion (with a parallex map attached to the 4th slot of the texture set)

 

The problem with the parallax option is that the direction of parallaxing is somewhat off (ie. the pixels shifting sideways when I only change the vertical viewing angle). Rotating the UV map of the object seems to help a little but it's tedious and seemingly random, at this point. I can't tell if it's because of the shader in general or just the off-angle, but the parallax effect produced was much less convincing than Oblivion's.

 

I am aware that parallax and parallax occlusion are two different mapping techniques, and I find it strange that they both exist in the shader options and that the parallax occlusion option doesn't seem to work for me.

 

Please, if anyone knows how to achieve a convincing parallax effect in skyrim, or address to any of the problems I encountered above, pm me.

[Ghogiel]

If you can get POM to work that would be what you want for the 3d effect. I think the shader type should be something like 7 for pom. Though I don't know..

 

 

The other seems to be what TK was messing with here, type 11 with multi layer shader flag.

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/457148-graphics-modding/page__view__findpost__p__3932649

 

I don't really have anything else about that

Edited March 21, 2012 by Ghogiel

[Isilmeriel]

I think multilayer parallax might be a different thing altogether? The name and the image in that thread suggest it's more specifically geared for something like the subsurface ice effect. I'll try fiddling with the parallax occ material again in a few days.

 

Maybe the POM was invisible because it doesn't use the 4th slot for the relief map like the parallax shader, there are 9 slots in total after all, and I've only ever used about 6 at max. Wish someone would come up with a reference on exactly which type of map goes in which slot.

 

 

 

Edit: managed to get the pixel-shift direction for the parallax (not POM afaik) mostly correct. I think it's still off by a bit and makes the relief effect somewhat muddy, but it's functional. So far I'm still underwhelmed because I think Oblivion's parallax looked more convincing. Also, at some distance away (ie. from the outside of the structure) the parallax suddenly glitches, turning the texture wiggly in all sorts of wrong directions. Maybe it's some LOD thing.

 

Overall, unless someone can confirm that the "SLSF1_Parallax_Occlusion" option under "Shader Flags 1" actually works, we might be stuck with what I have here (SLSF1_Parallax). It's far from perfect, but does have potential.

 

Attached screenshot here: the tiled stone ground is parallaxed

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/1232514-1332320075.jpg

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/1232514-1332320025.jpg

 

 

Edited March 21, 2012 by Isilmeriel

[Ghogiel]

I would expect POM to work. have you tried shader type 7 with the flag? In my experiments it didn't work, but that was pre CK, and when the shader flag arrays where just a string of random numbers. :biggrin:

 

If you go into the shadertests you will see both shader type 3> height map, with the parallax flag set, and shader type 7,>pom, with the pom flag used in this nif> testcaveepicwall01.nif

Edited March 21, 2012 by Ghogiel

[Isilmeriel]

Shader 7 is what I'm using. It doesn't work unless you also checkmark the SLSF1_Parallax option under "Shader Flags 1". There's also a "SLSF1_Parallax_Occlusion" option which doesn't work. The parallax map itself goes into the 4th slot of the BSShaderTextureSet, not the alpha map of diffuse map like in Oblivion.

 

I tried Shader 3 (Height Map) as well and it produces the exact same result. I also tried to open testcaveepicwall01.nif, but in CK some parts of it are invisible, including the parallaxed part.

 

A while ago I made an interactive panorama of the same mesh in oblivion, and you can see that the parallax on the ground is significantly "neater" and less wiggly like the Skyrim counterpart: http://pan0.net/upano.php?id=1941&set_accept=1&perm=1

Edited March 21, 2012 by Isilmeriel