Turn off near-camera object fadeout? General object fade tweaks?

[Guest 3823474]

Turn off near-camera object fadeout? General object fade tweaks?

How do I tweak this process? Are there config settings? For one thing I find it a massive immersion-breaker to have all kinds of objects just fade in and out depending on whether they are obstructing the camera view, in part because when that happens in a field it doesn't reflect Geralt's impaired vision to the player, but also because generally sudden unexpected changes in the perception of the game world tend to be immersion sins.
And about that fading itself: From the beginning on I noticed an issue where even on highest graphics settings some more or less distant objects (sometimes not at all that distant) completely fade away, and when you come close they fade in in the same ugly rasterized way as with the first thing mentioned. This clashes a lot with the otherwise pretty graphics engine (except for some other immersion sins I could disable via mods).

 

[sv3672]

The fading of distant objects can be tweaked in user.settings, under [LevelOfDetail]. Although some of the settings may have hardcoded limits, and if I recall correctly the LOD of the terrain is compiled into the maps. I do not know how to change the near camera fade, it would be best to ask about this in the Mod Discussions forum. By the way, this guide might be helpful for configuration file tweaking, but it is old and was written for the original release of the game in May 2015.

 

[Guest 3823474]

The fading of distant objects can be tweaked in user.settings, under [LevelOfDetail]. Although some of the settings may have hardcoded limits, and if I recall correctly the LOD of the terrain is compiled into the maps. I do not know how to change the near camera fade, it would be best to ask about this in the Mod Discussions forum. By the way, this guide might be helpful for configuration file tweaking, but it is old and was written for the original release of the game in May 2015.

I found a LOD tweaking mod and and experimenting with it. Just bothers me that I had to scatter mod files all over the game dir. Why doesn't the game do file override from the mod dir?
UPDATE: This is quite detailed and strangely has barely any performance impact on extreme settings. But I'll still need to do some manual edits in the config file, because the way shadows and decals are fading in and out now when moving the camera angle is bad.
UPDATE 2: Now I did the same intense range tweaks to shadows and still no noticeable performance impact. A crime to have the game look so messy on frickin' ultra settings. ... But I still couldn't find a var for fixing certain static decals on the walls of houses fading out at ridiculously low distance.

 

[e-ahmet]

I asked about this ugly fading of close objects to camera on reddit. Someone said it's called Dithering. Maybe there is a line about this in one of the config files.

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/6o1b6n/not_so_serious_graphical_glitch_does_anyone_know/

Not sure if this link will work. I dunno if the forum allows link to other sites.

 

[Guest 3823474]

I asked about this ugly fading of close objects to camera on reddit. Someone said it's called Dithering. Maybe there is a line about this in one of the config files.

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/com...s_anyone_know/

Not sure if this link will work. I dunno if the forum allows link to other sites.

Yes, I fixed this graphical issue (which it is - never fixed by the devs) using the mod IncreasedDrawDistance. It's a bit complicated to install, but I just cranked every setting up to insane levels and did some moderate config var tweaks regarding shadows and now this doesn't happen anymore, neither static nor dynamic, surprisingly without any impact on framerate. I still do get some instant close-range decal fades on building walls though. Couldn't manage to fix that with any config variable.
Shadows in Witcher 2 were generally dithered and it looked ugly. Likely this is done to improve framerate, but it's not worth it, especially not if it's not optional. W3 has such great art design, and then the technical implementation of the graphics engine wreaks havoc on that.

 

[SigilFey]

Yes, I fixed this graphical issue (which it is - never fixed by the devs) using the mod IncreasedDrawDistance. It's a bit complicated to install, but I just cranked every setting up to insane levels and did some moderate config var tweaks regarding shadows and now this doesn't happen anymore, neither static nor dynamic, surprisingly without any impact on framerate. I still do get some instant close-range decal fades on building walls though. Couldn't manage to fix that with any config variable.
Shadows in Witcher 2 were generally dithered and it looked ugly. Likely this is done to improve framerate, but it's not worth it, especially not if it's not optional. W3 has such great art design, and then the technical implementation of the graphics engine wreaks havoc on that.

No console vs. PC combat, please.

Also, from what I can gather, drawing details closer to the camera takes the load off of the engine, avoiding more significant things drawing in late (like NPCs and entire buildings). If you have the hardware to achieve better results with the mod, that's great, but it is not likely something that can be achieved across the board.

Plus, I don't see much of any near-object fading at default Ultra settings on my system (no mods). I get an occasional scene where details like plants on a windowsill will fade in, but it doesn't happen often or consistently here. In fact, the only noticeable, recurring thing I've seen that happens all the time is the "fishnet" on the wall outside the door to the tavern in Oxenfurt. At other times there's a window here or there that switches to a high-poly model a bit too close for comfort.

I also tweaked all 4 of the CascadeShadowDistanceScale settings up by 1.0. That extends shadow detail and prevents the awkward indoor transitions I was seeing on my rig. You can give that a try to see if it improves things.