Shadow Blurriness

[Cephys]

I noticed one other post about this a couple days ago, but does anyone else have issues with shadows turning blurry as you approach them. There is a noticeable actual line really where it cuts across the shadows and turns them from crisp shapes into blurry ones. It is like the lod of the shadows is weird and gets worse the *closer* you get to them. I first noticed it the worst in the castle outside Nowa's room (specifically on the shadows on the floor from light coming in) and haven't been able to unsee it since.

On a related note I toggled the different settings for shadows in the graphics options and weirdly to my eye the low quality shadow setting actual looked better than medium. The weird blurriness of the high shadows though match exactly to the awful medium quality when that setting is used. It's just a weird graphical bug I really hope gets fixed. Not game-breaking but definitely off putting once I noticed it.

[king_of_jamaica]

That's the shadow LOD distance. The "blurry" and darker shadows are actually the higher quality shadows. If anything, they need to increase that distance significantly so the switch isn't immediately noticeable right in front of the screen.

As for the general blurriness of the shadows, that's just because they need to also significantly increase the shadow resolution.

I also made a topic about it, but every other topic is getting drowned out by all the localization topics.

[Cephys]

Originally posted by king_of_jamaica:

That's the shadow LOD distance. The "blurry" and darker shadows are actually the higher quality shadows. If anything, they need to increase that distance significantly so the switch isn't immediately noticeable right in front of the screen.

As for the general blurriness of the shadows, that's just because they need to also significantly increase the shadow resolution.

I also made a topic about it, but every other topic is getting drowned out by all the localization topics.

I figured it had to do something with the LOD of the shadows being mucked up somehow. It's just weird that that in some places there is no issue at all with them like that. With shadows such as on the castle floor being cast by bright light shining in though, there is an actual noticeable line going through them as you approach and move away in their quality. I have noticed the same actually with the rays of the light themselves as the camera turns, having a noticeable line running through them.

Overall I am not too upset with the actual shadow resolution in the game. Their quality is a good mix of the pixel characters with the rendered background so it does a good job of blending the two. I play with high shadows, but figured I would mess with those and depth of field to see if it would solve the issue with the LOD but it did not sadly. It is just something they need to look at for sure.

Your's is honestly probably the topic I had seen before too. At the time I had not gotten to a point where I had noticed what you were mentioning, but now that I have I can't stop seeing it lol. It is a shame that any actual discussions about the game and its mechanics, graphics, etc. are being so quickly bogged up with all the localization ones... It makes it hard to have an actual conversation about the game when it is so quickly covered up.

Thanks for your reply! Glad to know I am not the only one who has seen it or having that issue. Always good to know you aren't crazy

[king_of_jamaica]

I just did a bit more testing and I'm pretty sure the settings are labeled incorrectly while also being possibly broken. The options are even in the wrong order in the menu, hence why I did some testing. The menu actually goes Low -> High -> Medium.

Medium and High should be switched. Medium has higher quality shadows than High does, BUT, medium also has lower draw distance.

So what I think they need to fix is the following:

1. Swap the shadow resolution and draw distance of High and Medium to match what they should be.
2. Rename the settings so High -> Medium, and Medium -> High
3. Add a new Very High setting that increases both shadow resolution and draw distance over the new, fixed, High setting. And by increase I mean double each minimum.
4. Fix any outstanding shadow bugs in various locations. The settings being wrong doesn't account for the absolutely abysmal shadow resolution in the first town at the very start of the game.

So it looks like if you want the best quality shadows, you should use Medium. But if you want the highest shadow draw distance, you should use High.

[Cephys]

Funnily enough after I got back on earlier I was messing around with the shadow quality options again as well and I thought the same thing. Medium looks better than high? Again glad I am not the only one who saw that, or noticed how the options are weird and high is before medium. With medium shadows the bricks in certain areas for instance just "pop" more, whereas on high they seem to be more flat. Something weird is definitely going on there.