Heavy Popping of objects/npc/shadows/meshs/textures

[web-head91]

It was a general warning. I'm not going to completely stop people from discussing consoles, or the effect they might have had on the engine/game, whatever. But there's been some comments that veer just a little too far into straight up bashing territory, and completely off-topic entirely.

Ultimately I don't see the situation as Consoles "receiving priority", I see it as CDPR simply failing to meet PC expectations. They failed to meet PC expectations in general, with a game that didn't live up to its promotional material and demos. And perhaps they've failed to meet PC expectations here again, with patches causing more graphical issues, pop-in etc.
It simply comes down to bad decisions being made by CDPR, when it comes to the PC version.

That said, I'd still really love to see some actual video footage, screenshots etc, showcasing the difference in LOD/Pop-In from those earlier patches and the couple recent ones. I did my entire playthrough back on 1.3, and noticed plenty of pop-in and LOD issues, and I'm still personally of the belief that it's mostly placebo and such issues have always been just as bad, but I'd have no issues with being completely wrong on that.
Regardless, I absolutely agree and believe in the topic in general. Unlocking more of the currently locked settings would be wonderful, as someone with bloody Titan X's and a hugely OC'd 4790k, I'd kill a million bunnies for the ability to crank shit well beyond what we currently can.

i'm glad that you support and share the same motivations as us. i don't have the game sadly, so im unable to make any comparaisons. however, from what i seen so far, and heard here, the general concensus is this:
- the pop-in of NPCs and objects (buildings, trees, texture streaming, object details,etc...) intensified with each patch, reaching a critical rate and breaking immersion for many, thus becoming downright annoying. the problem started became essentially noticeable after patch 1.04.
- the LOD/draw distance increased slightly in patch 1.03,but got butchered afterwards.

-this is my personal opinion, and i'm not sure if everyone noticed, but it feels like the lightning seems somewhat flatter than in the early patches of the game.

- most settings have an aritificial limit which was put by CDPR (SFX settings involving the signs and so on, the LOD, texture streaming,...etc.), which were hardcoded, and can't go beyond it. most of the attempts of exploiting the data has been futile. in a word: plain placebo.

-many suspect that the REDkit 2 may be the only way to solve this, but we still have no confirmation if we'll be able to do so or not, nor an ETA of the REDkit 2. for all we know, we may only be able to solve the limitation problems by using third party softwares that they used such as Umbra 3 and Symplygon.

-some fans are currently trying to develop modding tools on their own, in the same way they did for TW2. they said they'll post their progress as time goes by. (http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher2/mods/52/?)

TW3 graphical potential is too great to be held down by these problems, and as you said, it just doesn't make sense that someone with a monster PC ( which is like 10 folds more powerful than current gen consoles, if not more), can't get a HUGE difference in terms of LOD and draw distance.
let's just hope CDPR will notice this thread, unlike the others, and would do something about these problems, instead of giving wonderful speeches. we need actions, not words.

-fingers crossed-

 

[SigilFey]

@essenthy,

And what will that show them that they have not already seen from thousands upon thousands of other users across all platforms? It's your choice, of course, if you want to spend the time making and uploading the video, but it's beating a dead horse at this point.

And if you don't want to believe that the tweaks makes a difference, that's fine as well. I'm not sure what sort of proof you're looking for. Are you asking me to film 2 hours of gameplay and upload it? Why? So that you can be convinced it works for me but not you? No, sorry. That's quite silly. (There are already videos online about it, if you care to watch them.)

When the problem is fixed, the pop-in will stop. Until then, no matter how long it takes, the pop-in will continue. It's that simple, man.

 

[web-head91]

that still dosnt prove anything, i can also tel you that meshdistancescale does increase LOD without any before/after comparison, but thats not the case, and even if texturememorybudget did truly reduce the pop in ( wich i highly doubt ) it still no where near an acceptable state

i guess i will have to make a video showing all the poping that i encouter with latest patchs/drivers without any mod and default ultra settings

agreed. furthermore, the pop-in itself seems heavily related to Umbra 3 and simplygon, 3rd party software used by CDPR for streaming data AND controlling the LOD/draw distance.
so no matter what you'll try with the settings, the pop-in will stay. not just NPCs mind you, but also building, foilage,trees,...etc.

most of what @SigilFey have proposed, was already tested and was proven to not work sadly.

 

[SigilFey]

i'm glad that you support and share the same motivations as us. i don't have the game sadly, so im unable to make any comparaisons. however, from what i seen so far, and heard here, the general concensus is this:
- the pop-in of NPCs and objects (buildings, trees, texture streaming, object details,etc...) intensified with each patch, reaching a critical rate and breaking immersion for many, thus becoming downright annoying. the problem started became essentially noticeable after patch 1.04.

I don't think it really got any worse after 1.04. I distinctly remember firing up 1.04 for the first time and being like: "What da fff...!?" It was really bad. Since then, it's been roughly the same. I think as people play for longer and longer periods of time, their brains are picking up on it more, is all. You know, stare at a masterful painting long enough, you start to see all the little imperfections...then you can't un-see them. Human nature!

- the LOD/draw distance increased slightly in patch 1.03,but got butchered afterwards.

Direct response to so many complaints about framerate issues. An engine can only be optimized so much before it just can't handle the load. Then, the only option is to cut down on the load.

-this is my personal opinion, and i'm not sure if everyone noticed, but it feels like the lightning seems somewhat flatter than in the early patches of the game.

Work was definitely done to color saturation overall. It was like neon fun-time land in v1.0. Lightning intensity probably got nerfed a bit with the global adjustments. Six of one...

- most settings have an aritificial limit which was put by CDPR (SFX settings involving the signs and so on, the LOD, texture streaming,...etc.), which were hardcoded, and can't go beyond it. most of the attempts of exploiting the data has been futile. in a word: plain placebo.

I think you're right about this one, for most things at least. I made the tweak to add more and longer-lasting decals once, as well as make blood appear on weapons. Didn't notice anything different. Sometimes, functionality is removed or planned for the future, and config lines are left in or added ahead-of-time, respectively.

-many suspect that the REDkit 2 may be the only way to solve this, but we still have no confirmation if we'll be able to do so or not, nor an ETA of the REDkit 2. for all we know, we may only be able to solve the limitation problems by using third party softwares that they used such as Umbra 3 and Symplygon.

We will never know until it hits, but the amount of access that any "SDK" gives to users is based heavily on ownership and legality. Even though a dev might want to release the source code itself, they are often not allowed to by their own terms and licensing. I doubt the REDkit will be a panacea, but I'm sure it will help. Just look at the Skyrim Nexus...oh...the glory...

-some fans are currently trying to develop modding tools on their own, in the same way they did for TW2. they said they'll post their progress as time goes by. (http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher2/mods/52/?)

Coolness!

TW3 graphical potential is too great to be held down by these problems, and as you said, it just doesn't make sense that someone with a monster PC ( which is like 10 folds more powerful than current gen consoles, if not more), can't get a HUGE difference in terms of LOD and draw distance.
let's just hope CDPR will notice this thread, unlike the others, and would do something about these problems, instead of giving wonderful speeches. we need actions, not words.

-fingers crossed-

Remember that, regardless of hardware, each game engine can only handle so much. Point being, even though my modern PC could run the original Starcraft well enough to create 20,000 units, the engine would still crash it. I'm sure that graphics will be drastically improved once the REDkit is out, but there's only so much that can be ever done. I imagine there will be some awesome ENBs, though.

---------- Updated at 09:08 PM ----------

agreed. furthermore, the pop-in itself seems heavily related to Umbra 3 and simplygon, 3rd party software used by CDPR for streaming data AND controlling the LOD/draw distance.
so no matter what you'll try with the settings, the pop-in will stay. not just NPCs mind you, but also building, foilage,trees,...etc.

most of what @SigilFey have proposed, was already tested and was proven to not work sadly.

Guess my system just runs on magic, then!

I knew I was getting a great deal when I bought this thing!

 

[essenthy]

@essenthy,

And what will that show them that they have not already seen from thousands upon thousands of other users across all platforms? It's your choice, of course, if you want to spend the time making and uploading the video, but it's beating a dead horse at this point.

And if you don't want to believe that the tweaks makes a difference, that's fine as well. I'm not sure what sort of proof you're looking for. Are you asking me to film 2 hours of gameplay and upload it? Why? So that you can be convinced it works for me but not you? No, sorry. That's quite silly. (There are already videos online about it, if you care to watch them.)

When the problem is fixed, the pop-in will stop. Until then, no matter how long it takes, the pop-in will continue. It's that simple, man.

its not a matter of " believing " someone over a forums post, me and alot of other peoples been playing/modding/tweaking the game since day 1 pretty much, for someone to come and tel me that ther's a tweak that effectively reduce popping that am not aware of, you gotta prove it before simply saying " hey only works on my rig by some magic ! ", ther's no magic, its pure verifiable data over here, if you cant prove what you're claiming then you're simply wrong , you gotta back up your facts, thats it

am not asking you to record 2hrs of video footage, simply short clips with and without your tweak, i would be more than happy to see a working fix for this issue, if you cant do this simple thing then better stop misleading peoples telling them that ther's a fix

 

[Phinnway]

its a crime to let this going for such a beautifully crafted game

All I want to say

This right here sums it up for me. I can't stand the facial culling. And the fact that I can't do anything about it no matter how powerful my machines is is driving me nuts. Do they realize how much that detracts from the visual fidelity of the game? I'm sorry, but a 10 foot range for facial culling is extremely noticeable. I walk into a crowd and everyone looks like manikins.

 

[vesemas228]

-this is my personal opinion, and i'm not sure if everyone noticed, but it feels like the lightning seems somewhat flatter than in the early patches of the game.

Haha!! Its not just me!! The only think i could put my finger on is the engine is asking for lower levels of ambient occlusion. I think i spent an unhealthy amount of time going back and forth between 1.04 and 1.07, convinced myself it was just a placebo..but then still there was something not right about 1.07.. then forced hq ambient occlusion in the control panel and suddenly that subconscious check was passed.. and now i have sacrified a months gameplay to the popin build, and suffer like the rest of you.

Okay so.. its incredibly subtle.. perhaps one of the following is true.. 1) they lowered the amount of ambient occlusion required 2) forcing quality ambient occulsion fixes or restores the generous/expensive image quality that was removed by whatever they actually did nerf for performance.

Imaginary scenario: I feel for the developers in all this.. The console team was probably surrounded by management in their new suits made of $100 bills and windows logos demanding that performance be acceptable on hardware it cannot be. It makes sense that something like ambient occlusion would have got nerfed ages ago if they're still going and have to take it out on npc's now.

---------- Updated at 12:20 AM ----------

This right here sums it up for me. I can't stand the facial culling. And the fact that I can't do anything about it no matter how powerful my machines is is driving me nuts. Do they realize how much that detracts from the visual fidelity of the game? I'm sorry, but a 10 foot range for facial culling is extremely noticeable. I walk into a crowd and everyone looks like manikins.

Wow, if you have something bad to say, the apocalypse must be here lol.

Maybe one of the mods can perhaps escalate this question.. its humanly impossible to add changes to the graphics like this, and not know, or provide a mechanism to switch them off or adjust their function. Are they locked or just in parameters we don't know about? If they are locked, why? If not, why cant you just tell us the one little string to make everything better again?

Your silence can only mean you've signed an agreement with microsoft to make the xbox the best. What other rational or even possible explanation is there for them preventing access to and/or hiding settings that undo a downgrade. Somewhere in cdpr, a developer actively added popin code. And developers dont do things without an order from their management. Its not about being terrible, its about when you work, do you what's the most valuable for your company. It is just not the case that they aren't completely aware of this.

 

[SigilFey]

its not a matter of " believing " someone over a forums post, me and alot of other peoples been playing/modding/tweaking the game since day 1 pretty much, for someone to come and tel me that ther's a tweak that effectively reduce popping that am not aware of, you gotta prove it before simply saying " hey only works on my rig by some magic ! ", ther's no magic, its pure verifiable data over here, if you cant prove what you're claiming then you're simply wrong , you gotta back up your facts, thats it

am not asking you to record 2hrs of video footage, simply short clips with and without your tweak, i would be more than happy to see a working fix for this issue, if you cant do this simple thing then better stop misleading peoples telling them that ther's a fix

I will spend time "proving" nothing. I owe no one anything. I will continue offering suggestions and insight freely, just as I always have. Some of it will not work for everyone, and I'll be the first to admit that. If you disagree with any of this, you are free to ignore any or all of my suggestions and believe whatever you wish.

Best of luck with things, now! Hopefully you can figure something out that works for you.

---------- Updated at 01:04 AM ----------

This right here sums it up for me. I can't stand the facial culling. And the fact that I can't do anything about it no matter how powerful my machines is is driving me nuts. Do they realize how much that detracts from the visual fidelity of the game? I'm sorry, but a 10 foot range for facial culling is extremely noticeable. I walk into a crowd and everyone looks like manikins.

I'm wondering if the facial texture culling is even related to the NPC pop-in. The only time I've ever encountered this is during cutscenes. It happens to you when you're wandering around the world?

 

[Phinnway]

I'm wondering if the facial texture culling is even related to the NPC pop-in. The only time I've ever encountered this is during cutscenes. It happens to you when you're wandering around the world?

Yeah. It's especially bad in Novigrad. I read somewhere that the culling range is 10 meters. Which is extremely noticeable

 

[SigilFey]

Yeah. It's especially bad in Novigrad. I read somewhere that the culling range is 10 meters. Which is extremely noticeable

What does pop-in look like, exactly, for you? On mine, (from 1.0 until now) I've never seen that. I've seen invisble NPCs, NPCs with hair but no faces, and sometimes whole crowds of NPCs will instantly appear on-screen. They don't "fade in" or anything, or appear piece-by-piece. Just vast stretches of abandoned streets...and then -- BU-BU-BU-BAM! -- there's ten peasants and a half-dozen Nilfgaardian soldiers for ya! Scotty, beam down the blacksmith! There ya go -- enjoy!

 

[Phinnway]

What does pop-in look like, exactly, for you? On mine, (from 1.0 until now) I've never seen that. I've seen invisble NPCs, NPCs with hair but no faces, and sometimes whole crowds of NPCs will instantly appear on-screen. They don't "fade in" or anything, or appear piece-by-piece. Just vast stretches of abandoned streets...and then -- BU-BU-BU-BAM! -- there's ten peasants and a half-dozen Nilfgaardian soldiers for ya! Scotty, beam down the blacksmith! There ya go -- enjoy!

Basically, NPCs more than a few meters away have low-res textures on their faces. Like I said, it's facial culling. It drives me nuts. Unfortunately I can't take screenshots because one of my mods crashes with fraps and I'd have to figure out how to disable it first.

 

[SigilFey]

Man...this is quite the bug. It's like it personalizes itself to every user! I wonder if the next patch will add variations on the "funny walk" for characters carrying boxes?

 

[vesemas228]

Man...this is quite the bug. It's like it personalizes itself to every user! I wonder if the next patch will add variations on the "funny walk" for characters carrying boxes?

No, the low res textures only being updated is a different issue to popin. I get it too certainly, but haven't tried to fix it. This i'm guessing has more to do with resource loading.. there are quite a number of constants to play around with that look related.

This weekend i'm going to reinstall 1.04.. but since i know better.. i'm actually going to nerf the grass myself until i get the same fps as current from 1.07. Personally really curious as to what turns out to be the better experience. Wouldn't be surprised if there are other fixes from the later patches that do improve things.. but just out of curiosity...

 

[SigilFey]

No, the low res textures only being updated is a different issue to popin. I get it too certainly, but haven't tried to fix it. This i'm guessing has more to do with resource loading.. there are quite a number of constants to play around with that look related.

This weekend i'm going to reinstall 1.04.. but since i know better.. i'm actually going to nerf the grass myself until i get the same fps as current from 1.07. Personally really curious as to what turns out to be the better experience. Wouldn't be surprised if there are other fixes from the later patches that do improve things.. but just out of curiosity...

As of now, I think CDPR may have pushed the limits of this particular rendering system a bit to far. Granted, I hardly ever have to put up with pop-in, and have never seen the texture culling outside of cutscenes, but it does instantly suck one right back to the real world whenever it happens. It's a major bummer when I'm really immersed and it goes totally nuts-over-squirrels. Personally, I would take even further nerfs to grass density or whatever else if it meant complete stability.

 

[web-head91]

Wow, if you have something bad to say, the apocalypse must be here lol.

indeed 0.0
this is the first time i seen @Phinnway complain about the game this much, especially the technical aspect of it. i guess everyone has their limits. -hugs phinnway-

 

[prince_of_nothing]

This topic again..

I think you guys are underestimating the potential complexity of this issue. First off, for the record I will state that I believe the claims of pop in getting worse due to the patches as unsubstantiated. From what I've seen, the game has less pop in, not more....especially after patch 1.07 which did improve streaming performance.

As for pop in generally speaking, did you guys ever think that it might not be an engine issue but an API issue instead? Red Engine 3 uses DX11, and DX11 is not known for it's efficiency. DX11 uses a single thread for rendering for instance, unless you use DX11 multithreading (which isn't very efficient) and only NVidia supports that feature in their drivers.

So everything that is displayed on screen, is being rendered using a single thread to upload data to the GPU for final rendering. Case in point. Look at this benchmark showing stock ultra vs a tweaked config for foliage LoD draw distance. Look at the reduction in performance, just because the trees in the distance have higher LoD.

LoD can have a tremendous impact on performance (especially as it relates to distance), and it's mostly because of the API. The NVidia reviewer used elite high end hardware, and yet performance STILL cratered. As long as the game is using a single thread for rendering, then improvements to LoD must be done cautiously..

The real remedy to this issue is DX12. DX12 will allow multiple threads to upload or send data to the GPU, increasing performance and throughput dramatically. DX12 also dramatically lowers the API and driver overhead, freeing up the CPU even more so that they could use more aggressive algorithms for streaming data. With DX12, CDPR could then increase the LoD without fear of tanking performance, and also the compute function would be much more effective because DX12 has asynchronous compute, which means the compute functions can be processed out of sync with the graphics functions using the GPU's spare cycles thus improving compute shader performance dramatically..

So instead of complaining to CDPR about their shoddy programming or inefficient engine, you might want to try petitioning them to update their engine to DX12 and release a DX12 patch for the game instead

 

[essenthy]

This topic again..

I think you guys are underestimating the potential complexity of this issue. First off, for the record I will state that I believe the claims of pop in getting worse due to the patches as unsubstantiated. From what I've seen, the game has less pop in, not more....especially after patch 1.07 which did improve streaming performance.

you're actually simplifying this issu into the API, wich is fine for what W3 is anyways

As for pop in generally speaking, did you guys ever think that it might not be an engine issue but an API issue instead? Red Engine 3 uses DX11, and DX11 is not known for it's efficiency. DX11 uses a single thread for rendering for instance, unless you use DX11 multithreading (which isn't very efficient) and only NVidia supports that feature in their drivers.

So everything that is displayed on screen, is being rendered using a single thread to upload data to the GPU for final rendering. Case in point. Look at this benchmark showing stock ultra vs a tweaked config for foliage LoD draw distance. Look at the reduction in performance, just because the trees in the distance have higher LoD.

i can hardly believe that W3 would only use one thread to render everything, that just sound impossible to me, consoles would run at 2fps considering how weak and low clocked their CPUs are, and again take look at this :

we now they used DX11, and you can see ther's very few popping , higher lod ect .. the only difference is the engine/streaming asset tech wich changed compared to the final game

The real remedy to this issue is DX12. DX12 will allow multiple threads to upload or send data to the GPU, increasing performance and throughput dramatically. DX12 also dramatically lowers the API and driver overhead, freeing up the CPU even more so that they could use more aggressive algorithms for streaming data. With DX12, CDPR could then increase the LoD without fear of tanking performance, and also the compute function would be much more effective because DX12 has asynchronous compute, which means the compute functions can be processed out of sync with the graphics functions using the GPU's spare cycles thus improving compute shader performance dramatically..

So instead of complaining to CDPR about their shoddy programming or inefficient engine, you might want to try petitioning them to update their engine to DX12 and release a DX12 patch for the game instead

her's a quicke recape for you about DX12 real world performance :

[video]https://youtu.be/1nYNFkEDoUw?t=945[/video]

 

[SigilFey]

@prince_of_nothing,

Huzzah, sir! Excellent points! As soon as you mentioned DirectX, I felt the left side of my brain stop snoring and roll over a bit!

Of course, this is probably a major factor -- if not THE factor. Much of the graphical fidelity, even in the early stages of development, was being based on DX12 tech. I remember reading about those brilliant, billowing clouds of smoke being scrapped because it just wouldn't be able to run on DX11. Now, we have gargantuan draw distances that the devs have had to pull back -- NPCs being intentionally coded not to load -- perfectly textured geometry that culls after the rest of the scene has been drawn -- world assets that cannot seem to syncronize and load in the proper order -- !

I wonder how much of this game was written before word came down from Microsoft that DX12 was not going to be ready on time. What a day that must have been! This makes a ton of sense, prince. I would be shocked if that's not exactly what happened. It fits like a glove, as all of the graphics-related issues seem to be related to draw rates.

(Now that Windows 10 has been released, the positive part of me can't wait to see what happens with the DX12 patch!)

 

[web-head91]

This topic again..

I think you guys are underestimating the potential complexity of this issue. First off, for the record I will state that I believe the claims of pop in getting worse due to the patches as unsubstantiated. From what I've seen, the game has less pop in, not more....especially after patch 1.07 which did improve streaming performance.

As for pop in generally speaking, did you guys ever think that it might not be an engine issue but an API issue instead? Red Engine 3 uses DX11, and DX11 is not known for it's efficiency. DX11 uses a single thread for rendering for instance, unless you use DX11 multithreading (which isn't very efficient) and only NVidia supports that feature in their drivers.

So everything that is displayed on screen, is being rendered using a single thread to upload data to the GPU for final rendering. Case in point. Look at this benchmark showing stock ultra vs a tweaked config for foliage LoD draw distance. Look at the reduction in performance, just because the trees in the distance have higher LoD.

LoD can have a tremendous impact on performance (especially as it relates to distance), and it's mostly because of the API. The NVidia reviewer used elite high end hardware, and yet performance STILL cratered. As long as the game is using a single thread for rendering, then improvements to LoD must be done cautiously..

The real remedy to this issue is DX12. DX12 will allow multiple threads to upload or send data to the GPU, increasing performance and throughput dramatically. DX12 also dramatically lowers the API and driver overhead, freeing up the CPU even more so that they could use more aggressive algorithms for streaming data. With DX12, CDPR could then increase the LoD without fear of tanking performance, and also the compute function would be much more effective because DX12 has asynchronous compute, which means the compute functions can be processed out of sync with the graphics functions using the GPU's spare cycles thus improving compute shader performance dramatically..

So instead of complaining to CDPR about their shoddy programming or inefficient engine, you might want to try petitioning them to update their engine to DX12 and release a DX12 patch for the game instead

err no, the game was working fine on early patches in terms of pop-in and performance, but got worse afterwards. as for unlocking graphical settings being only possible with directx12, it is simply silly, considering that the game had all the graphical settings maxed out during the E3 2014 demo using directx 11. the fact that game does not use properly the CPU is simply because the build is set in accordance to what the consoles have as hardware, and most common CPUs on PCs are superior in terms of power. this is a classic case of using one build for all platforms, really.
also, you and @SigilFey are the only ones so far who claim to no longer have pop-ins after the 1.07 patch, despite that people who been tweaking and modding the game since day one couldn't acheive much (like essenthy and KNG). so unless you can provide a proof that you managed to solve the problem, i'm going to have trouble beleiving the credibility of your information.

---------- Updated at 09:24 AM ----------

we now they used DX11, and you can see ther's very few popping , higher lod ect .. the only difference is the engine/streaming asset tech wich changed compared to the final game

if i may, there's an other thing which was shown in that build and not available in the final game: the lightning.
the one shown in this demo is much more alive and realistic, while the one we got now is just flat and bland v_v
they're two completely different lightning techniques (see this thread:http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/36987-Witcher-3-Graphics)

 

[MUPPETA]

agreed. furthermore, the pop-in itself seems heavily related to Umbra 3 and simplygon, 3rd party software used by CDPR for streaming data AND controlling the LOD/draw distance.
so no matter what you'll try with the settings, the pop-in will stay. not just NPCs mind you, but also building, foilage,trees,...etc.

most of what @SigilFey have proposed, was already tested and was proven to not work sadly.

Well here is my screenshots (1.01-108 user ini)-no hairworks
and you can always remove from game directory umbra.dll and see if it works for you

---------- Updated at 09:30 AM ----------

if i may, there's an other thing which was shown in that build and not available in the final game: the lightning.
the one shown in this demo is much more alive and realistic, while the one we got now is just flat and bland v_v

agreed, but only to novigrad-velen lightning is really flat and washed out
skellige is nice(i.e have depth) and Kaer morhen is excellent to me