Player Character Shadow Striping/glitching

[Asaritears]

So I had this problem in the past, until I found a fix for it through tweaking some .ini files. But it's come back and I dont know how to get rid of it.

 

I've tried explaining it to people before without much success, so instead I spent all night uploading this video for you all to see.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhuLyf8sqlk&feature=youtu.be

 

So any help with this would be greatly appreciated! I'm thinking it would be an .ini tweak but I'm not confident enough to play around with them.

 

Thanks.

Edited January 12, 2013 by Asaritears

[Asaritears]

Really? No one?

[Asaritears]

le bump.

[gamefever]

Skyrim.INI

 

[Display]

fSunShadowUpdateTime=0 :stops striping becuase of sun shadow updates.

fShadowLODMaxStartFade=1000.0

fSpecularLODMaxStartFade=2000.0

fLightLODMaxStartFade=3500.0

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

bAllowScreenshot=1

fDecalLifetime=60.0000

 

Skyrimprefs.INI

[Display]

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=7 :Higher number stops block shadows aka staircases

fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000

fShadowDistance=2500.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=2048 :Still a bit high for performance gaming but I like them

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

iShadowSplitCount=2

iMaxAnisotropy=1

 

 

I know your thinking but I already fixed that and I'm done.

Steam can mess up your prefs in a heartbeat always back em up.

Edited January 13, 2013 by gamefever

[Asaritears]

Thanks, just about to try it now, I had tampered with those .ini's before, but these were my settings.

 

For Skyim.ini my prefs were pretty much the same, except for fDecalLifetime, I didn't even have that, what does it do?

 

I did have sunshadowupdatetime but I disabled it, so maybe that was the issue, I just didn't like how the sun shadows would move every 30 seconds, made it kind of jarring.

 

As for the skyrimpref.ini's.

 

These were my original settings.

 

[Display]

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=7 :Higher number stops block shadows aka staircases

fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000

fShadowDistance=3500.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=4096

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096

iShadowSplitCount=2

iMaxAnisotropy=16

 

So the two questions I'd have with this are;

 

1. is a Res setting of 4096 too high? Obviously it's a highres texture setting but is there much diff between that and 2048?

 

2. Why the massive drop in iMaxAnisotropy?

[Asaritears]

To my dismay this didn't do anything, this issue is just my character.

 

What I mean is I'm not having any shadow striping issues with anything else in the game, other than my character.

[defosh369]

To my dismay this didn't do anything, this issue is just my character.

 

What I mean is I'm not having any shadow striping issues with anything else in the game, other than my character.

 

Hello there, sorry for making you wait for my response, but my PC is in computer service and I have very limited access to internet latley. This issue looks like shadows update time issue at first. Did you made your shadow update times in something like "real-time"?

 

Try setting this for time being and see if this helps (to change shadow update time and speed, edit Skyrim.ini located in your documents and add those two lines at the bottom of [DISPLAY] section):

fSunShadowUpdateTime=0.10

fSunUpdateThreshold=2.0

 

Also, what shadow resolution are you using? Only way to "squeeze" a good on-character shadow quality from Skyrim shadows is by using quite performance heavy Ultra shadows (iShadowMapResolution=4096). If you're using High shadow quality (iShadowMapResolution=2048) it's very hard to get a decent on-character shadow quality without sacrificing shadow draw distance. There're a few workarounds for High shadow quality to make on-character shadows more acceptable though (like increasing shadow blurring). For optimal values for High quality Skyrim shadows you can see my "INSS Improved Skyrim shadows for Medium-Range PC" which covers tweaks for High resolution shadows. I will post this tweak below. You can try setting this (change values in your SkyrimPrefs.ini file located in your documents) and see the results:

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=10

fInteriorShadowDistance=2000.0000

fShadowDistance=2800.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=2048

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

iShadowSplitCount=3

fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000

iShadowMode=3

bTreesReceiveShadows=1

bDrawLandShadows=1

bShadowMaskZPrepass=1

iShadowMapResolution=2048

fShadowBiasScale=0.3500

iShadowMaskQuarter=4

iShadowFilter=4

 

Those are optimal for having decent on-character shadow quality but without loosing too much shadow draw distance in the process when using High quality shadows. I also have a tweak for Ultra quality shadows called "INSS Improved Skyrim shadows for Ultra settings".

 

One more thing you can do to improve shadows on objects (on all objects, not only on characters) is to add LESS sadows to objects by INCREASING shado bias scale. To do that, set this in your SkyrimPrefs.ini file that is located in your documents:

fShadowBiasScale=1.5000 or 1.0000

 

EDIT: Looking at the comments section of your video, I see that increasing shadow bias scale did help. Also, I saw that where checking out Ultra shadow quality tweak, so my tip about High shadow quality is not that neccessary.

 

EDIT2: To anwser your questions:

1) Shadow resolution determines shadow quality, higher shadow resolution equals better shadow quality, though, you must not "stretch" them by using high shadow draw distances.

It goes from:

512 (low in-game settings) 1024 (medium) 2048 (high) 4096 (ultra) 8192 (above ultra, not recommended).

2) Decal lifetime sets how long some decals (such as blood splatters, effects from fire and ice magic on objects) will stay in game before disapearing. It has nothing to do with shadows.

3) Lower (or higher) anisotropic filtering is more of a graphical fidelity setting, and will not affect the detail of shadows.

4) You can set your shadows bias scale to whatever you want, but it's mostly goes like this:

fShadowBiasScale=0.1500 (lowest settings, best quality, but more shadows added to an object may result in shadow glitches)

fShadowBiasScale=0.3000 to 0.8000 (average settings with average quality to avoid shadows glitches)

fShadowBiasScale=1.0000 (higher settings to remove most of the shadow glitches on objects by adding less shadows to them)

fShadowBiasScale=1.5000 (highest settings to completley remove shadow glitches, but it makes shadows detatch from objects, like trees or characters)

fShadowBiasScale=1.6500 (setting for removing on-characters shadows from low and medium resolution shadows)

You can feel free to set your bias scale anywere from 0.1500 to 1.5000 to suit your needs.

Edited January 15, 2013 by defosh369

[Asaritears]

Sweet, thanks heaps!

 

With the Decal Lifetime, if I bump that up, does it end up affected performance?

[gamefever]

iMaxAnisotropy=1

 

To answer your question, I'm forcing this value substantailly higher with an additional program via my graphics card, in case you were wondering.

 

Also I forgot I got a lot of help fixing shadows with defjosh's mod page as well as STEP. It's something that I fix now without really thinking about how I did that.

[gamefever]

Still the best tweak today even.