Sunday, April 28, 2013

Deadlight

Deadlight - by bo3b

BEFORE:


AFTER:


Description:

Deadlight is a side scrolling game that is similar in look and play to Limbo.
It's got some good puzzles, and some regrettable dialog, but with the fix applied it looks really impressive.

- Shadow and character halos fixed by setting convergence to specific levels.
- 5 preset levels of convergence used in different parts of game.
- Lighting effect fixed with shader override.

How to install:

Extract this Deadlight.zip into your game directory.

Steam version was used, as:

 x86: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Deadlight\Binaries\Win32
 x64: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Deadlight\Binaries\Win32

The exe is "LOTDGame.exe".
The default profile is OK.  Other profiles did not add value.


The 3D will turn off and not turn back one if you switch out with Alt-Tab.  To fix that, go to:

...\Documents\My Games\UnrealEngine3\LOTDGame\Config\LOTDEngine.ini

And change:
   AllowNvidiaStereo3d=False
to
   AllowNvidiaStereo3d=True


How to play:

This is a little weird, so please bear with me.  To play the game you need to manually change the convergence depth using Helix presets.  There does not appear to be any way to have this done automatically.  It's not bad though, it's generally slow paced and easy to choose your setting.


There are 5 settings for convergence, and the right choice depends upon the screen zoom.

When Randall is in a small room, we are zoomed in and his character looks big onscreen. We use the lowest convergence. When Randall is in a big outside world, we are zoomed far out and his character is small relative to the screen. We need the largest convergence.

There are 5 levels of zoom that I've found.  You use whichever convergence setting gives you the clearest image. Best results are typically when Randall's image is clearest, but you can also use railings to find the minimal ghosting preset for a given room.

I put a fair amount of effort into dialing up the right convergence for each setting, but you can always change any given setting with Ctrl-F5/F6 and saving with F7. I also preset the depth to 50%, but you can change that this way as well.  Any depth works fine, but convergence is 'locked' in the sense that it needs to be a specific value to align the images.

I set the default to the most commonly used convergence, 839, which is also the first room.  Roughly half the game works at this convergence.


Use the "q" key to cycle through the 5 presets.
Use the "z" key to set the default convergence of 839.

I used "q" and "z" as being close to WASD, and unused in the game.  This way you don't have to leave 'home row' to cycle the right look as you play.  The "z" key is sort of a home key.  I also successfully tried it with a controller and keypadder to bind joystick down clicks to "z" and "q".

There are also 5 preset keys to set specific convergence, convenient for swapping between two, without having to cycle.  I made these starting with the Backspace key as an easy to find key while playing.

Backspace = lowest of 583
"=" = default of 839
"-" = medium of 945
"0" = medium high of 1223
"9" = maximum of 1500

Why both key sets?  Sometimes it's easy enough to cycle around in a circle using "q", and other times I want to be able to do an A/B comparison of a given look, without having to loop around.  I found myself using the Backspace..9 keys more often than "q".

Use the "`" key to temporarily set convergence to zero for occasional conversation scenes, or loading screen.



Screenshot Gallery

Thanks to TsaebehT and birthright for review, and eqzitara for suggestions, motivation, and that 3d enable fix.

1 comment:

  1. DHR made a better fix which you can get here.

    His fix is better because it does not require you to cycle through the assorted convergence levels, it will work at any given convergence+separation you prefer.

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