The photographers guide to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

A quick and simple guide to help you download the necessary files to let you take glorious screenshots, and tips to improve your game.

Pleasantries

Hello everyone!
Welcome to my guide for how to take stunning screenshots in The Witcher 3.

Thankfully, 'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt' holds some truly jaw dropping vistas to experience. Undisputably one of the best looking games to grace our machines ever.
Inexplicably however, CDPR did not think that maybe we'd like to capture some of those moments and share them.

Not to worry; modders will always a way, and they did, only a few days after the game was released in fact. So If you are willing to download a couple of things, and tweak some settings, you'll be up and running in no time.

Note: Mods are liable to break if the game is updated, and devs change something important.


This guide will cover:

• The mods you will need to have available

• How to use them appropriately

• How to turn off the HUD (Clear sceen, no menus)

• Certain problems you might face

It is obvious that your pictures will be prettier if you use higher quality graphics options. Tweaking the .ini files can also be useful to improve the graphics. The best guide I've found to tweak the files is written for Geforce Optimize[www.geforce.com].
It details the effect and the performance impact of each option and give some nice advanced tweaks.
Key note: Turn off Nvidia Hairwork!

You can follow me, and see the rest of my guides here:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/StarSide/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides

What you will need

19/05/16 Update: I have become aware of an awesome new mod which allows you to stop time, change weather, and freeze enemys while you can walk around to set up a shot.
I would hightly recommend having a look.

http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/190/?

Note: You will still need to have a seperate mod to enable the debug menu, and/or free cam.


Right, so the key to getting the camera off Geralt and letting you run free is the Debug Menu.
The devs didn't expect you to try and get into it so they locked it off behind code. Mods can get you past this and get into into the Witcher 3 Command prompt.
From here you can type in various commands which allow you to give yourself weapons,armour,change character to Ciri, or generally change your stats. However for the purposes of this guide I will focus on the only thing I'll be using; the ability to go into free cam.


Note: The complete list of Console commands can be found HERE[github.com]

The mod you will need can be found here[www.nexusmods.com]: 

You will want an extraction software to place the file in the proper location. WinRar [www.rarlab.com]or ZZip [www.7-zip.org]are the ones I would recommend.

>Simply download the file
>Use the extraction software


















>Extract to folder in the witcher 3 registry: "x64". You can get there though:
Mycomputer>Whatever HD you have Witcher3 on, e.g HDD:C> SteamLibrary> SteamApps>Common>TheWitcher3>Bin>x64




Everything should now be working!
You now have the necessary software in order to access the commands you need.


The old version of this file can be found 'here[www.nexusmods.com]'. Note that after an update this file will no longer upon the command manu. I only include it for posterity.

WARNING

Some people might find they cant run the Witcher 3 after installing any of these mods. Not to worry, simply download this official peice of Microsoft software[www.microsoft.com]. This should fix the issue.

Never the less, I should not have to remind everyone I am not responsible for any crashes or failures this incurs. Sorry to be blunt. I only create the guide, not the mods themselves.

Accessing console commands and removing HUD

Here we go, the stuff you've been waiting for.

The first thing you'll probably be wondering is how you're supposed to be taking screen shots when there is all sorts of clutter all over your screen. Fear not!
The game comes with the option to turn off all on-screen promts. Just go options>"HUD configuration", and turn off all of the siders.




















Note: You can also hide the hud by typing "dlgshow", and "dlghide" to remove the HUD.


Now you'll want to boot up Witcher 3, get in-game, and click 'F2' to bring up the Debug menu.

You'll want to input "testpause" to freeze the game




















You are half way there!
Now that time has been effectively stopped, you'll want to remove the camera from it's shackles behind Geralt.
Simply click 'F1' to seperate the camera.

Note: The camera is is very glitchy, and usually instantly becomes stuck in Geralt's head. Simply move back and find a better angle, or make use of the zoom feature.

You are now free to move around the world and take much more varied and interesting screenshots.

This is an example of how simply moving the camera a bit will produce amazing results. Here are some I took to illustrate this:










When you are done you simply click 'F1' to snap back to Geralt, then bring back the command menu ('F2'), and type "testpause" to resume playing.

Controller Layouts

Although a Keyboard and mouse is completely fine, I recommend using a controller for greater easier movement and accuracy.

The layout for a controller is mapped below: (360,Xbox One, PS4)




The following chart shows all the important button promts on all systems on their respective forms of input.

Commands

360/XboxOne

PS4

PC

Navigation

Left Stick

Left Stick

W,S,A,D

Moving Camera

Right Stick

Right Stick

Mouse

Rotate Right

Right D-Pad

Right D-Pad

F

Rotate Left

Left D-Pad

Left D-Pad

R

Move Up

Y

▲

Q

Move Down

A

X

E

Zoom In

Down D-Pad

Down D-Pad

N/A (Confirm anyone?)

Zoom Out

Up D-Pad

Up D-Pad

N/A (Confirm anyone?)

Speed Up Camera

LT

L1

Shift

Snap back to player

B

O

N/A

Known issues

Using the Debug isn't without its flaws. Obviously you wern't supposed to be able to view the world like this, and it shows.
Things like foliege and trees tend to lose detail when viewed at different angles. Even worse, characters become horribly disfigured when the game doesn't expect you to see them. This cannot be fixed as far as I know, and you would do well to just attempt to stay at least close to Geralt.

Face the horror..

Parting Notes

So there you are. You should now be fully versed in taking screen shots.
The game does not officially support activities like this, but that's one of gaming biggest tropes; making something awsome you wern't supposed to be able to do.

I hope you have enjoyed my guide. I have also written various other guides. I have including links to the 'Photographers Guide' series down below.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=339361550
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=899439083
If you happen to spot something that seems factually incorrect, please leave down below in the comments section. This also applies to spelling and grammar also.
Please leave a Like & Fave if you found this guide useful, It really makes a difference, and brightens up my day.

Please feel free to share your screen shots in the comments.
Here are a sample few of mine:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=458058792
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=458206589


Disclaimer: All screen shots and screencaps were taken and edited by me. The mods in this guide I have no affiliation with.

[Optional] Donate!

If this guide helped you out, and you would like to say thanks,throw something my way.
Of course this is not necessary however; It just gives me a little more insentive to write and edit more in the future!

https://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffer/new/?partner=38602821&token=A3SrzMse

[GSG Evans]

Bugged people in debug mode are the true monsters geralt should be hunting

[Deepfield]

And if you are a Nvidia owner, Nvidia Ansel will rock your screenshot world!

[NoahGotStyle]

Please! PLEASE help! it doesnt work for me at all! please help!

[❀ Hannahnasje]

Not sure if this was mentioned somewhere, but you can press the 'Home' button to hide/show the HUD easily without having to adjust the sliders all the time. Nice guide anyway!

[FoxDie]

Pause for controller XboxOne don't work

[GeeTee]

@Skifcha here you go http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/190/?

[Slothie]

Doesn't work for me :/ I downloaded it and then extracted the ''debug_console'' into x64. But i can't start it ingame

[Skifcha]

Wasn't there a way you could Num 0 and simply pause the game? i find it much more useful than tyiping testpause, because i always end up pausing for screenshots in the middle of the battle, don't really have time to type in the console. I know i used to do that in 1.11

[Psychedelic Adventurer]

Thanks, I'll update the guide to the latest update.

[sh.in]

http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1168/?