Metro Exodus: Lights and Shadows

[VR-Punk]

Hi,
the game works in every sense, but there is something wrong with the 3D Effect of the shadows and the lights. ("It looks weird and it dazzles in a special way.")

Setting the strength of the 3D Effect in the Nvidia app in the Windows Control Panel lower will reduce this wrong 3D Effects, and i guess that the convergence has to be adjusted for VR.

My Settings:

Windows 10 1909
Nvidia 425.31

user.cfg
r_adapt_q 0
r_af_level 1
r_api 2
r_aspect_ratio_mode 1
r_base_fov 60.
r_blur_level 0
r_dbg_stereo_separation_base 0
r_dbg_stereo_separation_zoom 0
r_dlss 0
r_dx11_tess 0
r_enum_ssaa 10
r_exposure_control 0.
r_exposure_hdr 2.
r_foliage_shadows 1
r_fullscreen on
r_fur 0
r_game_mblur_scale 0.
r_gamma 1.
r_hdr 0
r_hdr_max_luminance 1000.
r_hdr_white_paper 200.
r_old_ambient_envlit 0.
r_quality_level 0
r_res_hor 2880
r_res_vert 1620
r_shading_rate 1.
r_shading_rate_dlisp 1.
r_ssaa_auto 0.
r_sun_za_pixeloffset -0.5
r_taa_enabled 1
r_terr_displace_density 2
r_terr_displace_enable 0
r_vsync 1
r_wmark_project_dist 0.05
r_xbox_color_space 1
ranger_mode_game off
raytrace 0
raytrace_cull 2
r_dbg_stereo_auto_separation 0

[Bo3b]

That sounds like it might be running in Compatibility Mode instead of geometry 3D mode. CM will have halos around close up stuff like hands/weapons, and also no popout effects. Anything up super close get flattened out like a billboard.

Check if it's in the wrong mode with Ctrl-Alt-Ins which brings up the NVidia green text, lower right corner of the screen.


If that doesn't seem to be it, please post a screenshot and I'll take a look. You can make 3D Vision screenshots using Alt-F1.

If this seems to be VR specific, you can make a VR screenshot with System+Trigger on VR controllers.

You can see some examples of these in our screenshots on store page, and also in the Artwork section here.


(Always possible that game updates broke the fix too. Would be worth checking/asking on mtbs3d.com)

[VR-Punk]

It is VR specific in Katanga and the Compatibility Mode is deactivated. The PC Monitor is contemporaneous typically coloured anaglyph with blurry double images.

I have the old Vive Controllers 1.0 and i am not able to take screenshots by pressing System+Trigger ?

[Bo3b]

Originally posted by VR-Punk:

It is VR specific in Katanga and the Compatibility Mode is deactivated. The PC Monitor is contemporaneous typically coloured anaglyph with blurry double images.

I have the old Vive Controllers 1.0 and i am not able to take screenshots by pressing System+Trigger ?

One thing worth trying would be to restore vanilla settings for the game. It's very likely that Losti used default settings as a base to start fixing 3D, and different graphic settings might not be properly fixed.

In particular, the earlier Metro games supported 3D natively, and in your cfg there I see mention of stereo settings. Losti's fix won't be using anything from their 3D implementation I think. Also be sure to use 1080p for testing as a known good resolution. This fix has limitations on supported resolutions and aspect ratios.

Losti also notes in his fix description that high convergence can introduce problems. But not high separation, which is what you are describing. Not sure.


Old Vive controllers work for stereo/VR screenshots:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1177107620

When it works, you'll see a blue popup in VR saying Screenshot Saved.

The files wind up in a weird place for me though, hard to find. Try the SteamVR location, and if that doesn't show up, do an image search in the Steam->userData folder for jpg sorted by date. I've had these randomly move to different locations depending upon version of SteamVR in use.

[VR-Punk]

ok, i took some vr snapshots but the strength of 3D Depth and the Convergence are not visible and therefore not the wrong shadows. The only way would be to take a picture thru the lenses of my Valve Index. When i play around with the 3D settings the landscape has a good 3D Effect and is sharp but my weapon disturbs with its 3D Depth and and vice versa. In other words, if i increase the 3D Depth minimal, it will get blurry and get double images. If i adjust the Convergence to balance this, my weapon will disturb with its 3D Depth so much, that it will be unplayable.

i have done a reset of all game settings, and of course it is 1080p 16:9

everything else of the game is 100% Helixvision compatible, we need the exact values for 3D Depth and the Convergence only.

[Bo3b]

Originally posted by VR-Punk:

ok, i took some vr snapshots but the strength of 3D Depth and the Convergence are not visible and therefore not the wrong shadows. The only way would be to take a picture thru the lenses of my Valve Index. When i play around with the 3D settings the landscape has a good 3D Effect and is sharp but my weapon disturbs with its 3D Depth and and vice versa. In other words, if i increase the 3D Depth minimal, it will get blurry and get double images. If i adjust the Convergence to balance this, my weapon will disturb with its 3D Depth so much, that it will be unplayable.

i have done a reset of all game settings, and of course it is 1080p 16:9

everything else of the game is 100% Helixvision compatible, we need the exact values for 3D Depth and the Convergence only.

Please go ahead and post your screenshots, I can view those directly using parallel viewing.

What you are describing with the weapon being too much, or alternately the scene being too little is actually a common problem with first person games in 3D Vision. The game developers have always cheated the perspective because they only ever targeted 2D, and so they made the weapons and hands absurdly big.


Maybe take a look at the Prey screenshots I've added to the Demo. You can get to it via the HelixVision folder->Tools->Katanga->katanga.exe. Those are setup with 25% depth/separation, and then an amount of convergence that brings it to roughly VR experience. You will see the hand/wrench is probably a bit big, but not so bad as to be unfocusable.

I think that the best compromise is found somewhere around the 25% separation, although everyone is different, so you might find something else you prefer. Start with 25% separation and then dial up some convergence to where it feels natural.


One thing that long time 3D Vision users do is to look past the hands/weapons while playing, because they tend to prefer a lot higher separation to enhance the 3D. And thus the weapons are too big and close to focus upon.

Most of the fixes handle this play style, so that aiming with scoped guns will automatically lower the convergence, and make it possible to see the scope reticle. Some of the games with iron-sight aiming do the same. I am not sure how Losti has Exodus setup.

[VR-Punk]

i have deleted the old screenshots, this new ones are better.

https://ibb.co/gTcrghw

https://ibb.co/s1SWLNM

[Bo3b]

Thanks for the screenshots. Those definitely look pretty much completely broken actually, like the fix itself is not installed or functioning correctly.

The lighting effects on the first shot show eye to eye differences on stuff like the lights in the lower left corner. On in left eye, off in right eye. And the shadows are different in both screenshots.

This doesn't match the screenshots Losti posted in the forum thread, which is what suggests the fix is broken or not installed correctly.


If you bring up the NVidia info text with ctrl-alt-Ins, do you see "Fixed by Losti"? That will say whether the profile was updated automatically.

And maybe go to the game folder and find the d3dx.ini file, and set the calls=1 in the header, which enables logging for 3Dmigoto. Then when you run game you should get a d3d11_log.txt file there. If you don't get that log file, that would mean that 3Dmigoto is not running.


Are you running the game with in-game settings to 1080p? The fix has a dependency upon the game resolution, such that if it's running in an unknown resolution it will look broken.


The arms and gun are definitely really bad. That's with convergence set very high. You might try lowering convergence down (ctrl-F5) so that hands look at least partly OK. Big popout for these is OK, but preferably not so far out that you can't focus on them if you try. Then turn the depth up using Ctrl-F4 to something that is playable and seems OK.

These shots look to me like depth is close to zero, and convergence is too high. There's not a one-size fits all, everyone is different, but start with lowered convergence, higher depth and tune from there.


Edit: Also- I see that Losti wants the fix to be run using his cmd bat file. Add that to the HelixVision profile as the exe to run before the game. A .bat file can be specified there as well.

[VR-Punk]

I have cleaned and reinstalled Nvidia 425.31, Helixvision and Lostis Fix.

Game Settings are default and 1080p 16:9.

Nvidia info text with ctrl-alt-Ins, shows "Fixed by Losti"

StereoConvergence: 0.33

3D Depth: 25%

The result is very much better, but not perfect so far. Some Reflections and Shadows are not correct.

https://ibb.co/Q6zrCrD

https://ibb.co/RcPwrYv

My English is very short, how does this work with the .bat script. Why is it necessary ?

[Bo3b]

Those shots actually look pretty good. Within the constraints of my viewing they seem fixed and good. The reflection off the lake for example seems pretty good.

I'm not sure what Losti's bat file does, but in his instructions he suggests that it modifies some user.cfg settings. In particular it modifies motion blur. That's an effect that rarely looks good in 3D, and could be the problem you describe from your OP.

See the HelixModBlog page for details here: http://helixmod.blogspot.com/2019/03/metro-exodus-3d-visionreadyfix-losti-v11.html

Section 4 describes the cmd file and suggests that it he thinks it is required for this game.

There is a section 4.2 on manually setting it up that you will want to follow if you don't want to use the bat file.

[VR-Punk]

I added the .bat launch script to the Helixvision Metro Exodus Profile as additional .exe, it starts with admin as the default game launcher .exe

If i choose "play in 3D" in Helixvision to start 3D Vision on my PC Monitor, the script will start the game. But if i choose "Play in VR" the script will start the game on my PC Monitor and an Katanga in the backround, but the game will not be displayed in Katanga or my Valve Index.

[Bo3b]

Originally posted by VR-Punk:

I added the .bat launch script to the Helixvision Metro Exodus Profile as additional .exe, it starts with admin as the default game launcher .exe

If i choose "play in 3D" in Helixvision to start 3D Vision on my PC Monitor, the script will start the game. But if i choose "Play in VR" the script will start the game on my PC Monitor and an Katanga in the backround, but the game will not be displayed in Katanga or my Valve Index.

Thanks for trying that out. I took a look at Losti's script in the fix files. He is doing a specific "start MetroExodus.exe" in the bat file, which is why it's not seen by Katanga. He's made it easier for a regular 3D Vision user, at the expense of making it less compatible with other mods like HelixVision.

In order for it to work under HelixVision, we typically need to have Katanga do the actual launch of the game.


It doesn't look to me like the script actually needs to be run every time, I'm not sure why he recommends that. It modifies the user.cfg file, and once modified it should work I think.

Double check the cfg file and make sure the r_blur_level 0 and r_game_mblur_scale 0 in the file. These are the most important ones I think.

If those are still set, then you should be able to remove the Start Additional Exe bat file and Play In VR and have it work correctly.

(Those settings are set instead by default during a normal Play In VR launch, as specified by the Game Configuration in the HelixVision profile however. So this might be the problem for what you are seeing.)

[Bo3b]

Looking at your screenshots with my usual 3D Vision setup, and it definitely looks funny.

The landscape is too flat out to distance, and we almost never see this. I'm not sure what would cause that, but might be low separation. Typically with low separation it still looks good though. There are stereo flags in the user.cfg as well, that are updated by the bat file.

The reflections in the water are close, but definitely off. Slightly out of sync with their reflecting object in each eye. Fix is not completely broken though, maybe. Usually things are much worse.

Did you change FOV from default? The entire image is stretched, and Losti notes that FOV can be problematic.

Outside of that, it might be mostly working, but game updates have actually broken the shaders. (Would be unexpected here because he is using RegEx matching.)

[VR-Punk]

I have cleaned and reinstalled Nvidia 425.31, Helixvision, Lostis Fix and deleted the .cfg Files for the game settings, again.


For the first time I had to pick up the MetroExodus.exe and drop it on the Lostis .bat script, and the script detects my steam version of the game correct, and runs it from now on automatically after starting the game with Helixvision "Play in VR" (via Steam ID as default launcher in the Helixvision profile.)

The FOV is the default 60, and default 1080p Resolution.

StereoConvergence: 0.33

3D Depth: 25%

Finally in my opinion the 3Dfix needs a small update, 3D is not broken at all and everything else of the game works perfect, but for me is this a reason to wait for an update, even if it will take a while.

I would pay a steam price of 50€ for Helixvision, if you hire someone of this money to update all 3Dfixes for VR, and i think many other Helixvision Lovers would do that, too.

[Bo3b]

Originally posted by VR-Punk:

Finally in my opinion the 3Dfix needs a small update, 3D is not broken at all and everything else of the game works perfect, but for me is this a reason to wait for an update, even if it will take a while.

Your analysis seems right. I think this is very likely to get an update, Losti is good about coming back and updating his fixes.

For 3D Fixes via HelixMod, they fairly often break upon game updates, and it looks like Exodus probably updated for the new DLC. They change the shaders, which can break our fixes because the hash codes change. Refinding the new hash code and applying the fix is a lot simpler and easier than working out the details in the first place.

Some games like Early Access, are updating so often, that it doesn't make sense to make a 3D fix, because it's too much busy work keeping up.

The sweet spot for playing fixes is when the game is first fixed by a ShaderHacker, and known to be working well, or quite a lot later after the game is 'dead' and stops getting updates. Stuff like Dead Space 2 or the original Metro LL still work, because the devs stopped 'improving' stuff.

Waiting for a bit is likely to bring this one back to fully fixed, and also be supported directly in HelixVision.

I would pay a steam price of 50€ for Helixvision, if you hire someone of this money to update all 3Dfixes for VR, and i think many other Helixvision Lovers would do that, too.

This is the downside of HelixMods, games can break, and if no one is interested, may not be fixed. Since it's all volunteer it depends upon how they want to spend their time.

HelixVision is mostly a vehicle to bring HelixMods to more people, and show what we've been able to do. It's never going to be a money maker.

Not impossible that we figure out a business model that allows us to keep going, but realistically- unlikely. We can't be on the hook to keep updating indefinitely, which is why I emphasize people should only buy HelixVision for what it does right this moment- not for future expectations, because we don't control all the pieces.

The business model that would actually work here would be subscription based, which would provide the incentive and long term cash flow to keep things working. It seems like subscriptions are a non-starter for gamers though.

[Bo3b]

Just a quick note- There were in fact some broken shaders introduced during game updates.

Losti has fixed the game again, and should be 3D Vision Ready again.

https://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=171122#p171122


Also of note, GoG now has Metro Exodus available, and it's on sale for 50%.