Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Fix by Eincrou

BEFORE	AFTER

 

Description:
nVidia neglected to rate this game's compatibility with their 3D Vision drivers, but I would estimate that they would rate it "Fair."  The UI and nameplates are 2D, there are shadows that render in one eye, and circles on the ground showing bombs' detonation radius are 2D.  Other than these problems, the game is absolutely fantastic to play in S3D.

Using the Helix Mod, I was able to increase the game's S3D performance to, in my opinion, Excellent.  I removed the shadows that render in one eye, which seem to be shadows from specific light sources in the game world, such as torches and fires.  The character shadows that are always visible render properly in 3D, and remain enabled.  Interestingly, the mouse cursor that appears when playing with mouse and keyboard is part of the main UI's vertex shader, so the cursor now has depth.

I was unable to fix the 2D bomb radius and character circles.  The character circle isn't really necessary, but is very annoying, so I removed it.  The bomb radius is only visible if you have plated a bomb, so I left it in so you can still have an idea of where the bomb will do damage.  I will continue trying to figure out why I can't get these to render in 3D, and if I figure it out an update will be released.

Fixes:
1) UI and mouse cursor given depth.
2) Pickup notifications given depth.
3) Bad shadows disabled, but good shadows were left alone.
4) Circle beneath characters removed.

Remaining Problems:
1) Circle beneath characters and bomb detonation radius need to be fixed to render in 3D.
2) Would like to see if the mouse cursor can be isolated from the main UI. I don't think the main UI needs to have depth, but it's linked to the cursor so there's no choice.

v1 05/12/12: Initial fix removes bad shadows and adds UI depth.

How to get it working:
• Follow the standard Helix Mod fix installation guide.
• To customize the UI depth:
   1) Go to the ShaderOverride folder. Use a text editor to open 63EA60B8.txt and E85329BD.txt.
   2) In the text file, look for the line: "def c220, 0.2, 0, 0.0625, 0"
   3) Change the first value after c220 (highlighted above in red) to whatever percentage of the maximum scene separation you want for the element.

Download links:
Helix Mod Release
HM-LCGuardianOfLight_ShaderOverride_v1.zip