Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Hydrophobia the Prophecy: 3D Vision Fix

3D Vision Fix by mike_ar69


Fixed:
- Haloing/FOG/Smoke/Fire
- Shadows
- Lighting (lights, reflections)
- Put cross hair at depth




Added:
- Presets for convergence ("0" key").  Helps to have low convergence when using the MAVI.
- Cross hair at depth
- Presets to toggle certain hud elements at depth (because they are linked to the cross-hair) ("9" key)
- Toggle to turn off the FOG while underwater as I was not able to fix it (works above water though) ("8" key)
- Preset to toggle the screen drips on and off ("7" key)


Known Issues:
- Fog does not get corrected properly underwater.  The toggle key "8" can be used to turn it off during underwater sequences.
- Some HUD elements are coupled to the cross hair, and so get pushed to depth which looks wrong.  The "9" key can disable the depth correction while looking at the map and in particulalrly when looking at the database.
- Bloom is at screen depth.  This is only a minor annoyance.  It is coupled to the same shader as the hud so can't be disabled, and can't be separated.
- Game writes installation directory to the shaders, so you need to use the installer provided (instructions below).


Summary
An underrated game in my opinion.  I pikced it up for $0.49 and for that money it's a no brainer.  It's back to $4.99 on team but even that is a bargain for this game.  It reminds me of Tomb Raider 2013 actually, just set on a ship, with lots of water.  Same 3rd person view, similar kind of character movement, with climbing etc.  Even the shooting mode changes FOV like TR2013.  Graphically the game is good in 2D, but I think it's fantastic in 3D, the water physics and effects are worth it in 3D just by themselves.

Out of the box the 3D is a disaster (try it).  With the fix, I would rate the game "Excellent", with the caveats of having to use toggle keys as noted above.


Installation
Installation of this fix is a bit more involved than normal, since the game generates shaders with different crc's depending on where the game is installed. So I provide an "installer" to build the correct shaders and DX9Settings file on the fly. I have tested this and it has worked on several test installations, but the script is pretty basic with very little error handling - please ping me if you have problems.

I provide three batch scripts to make this relatively easy. The installation is in two steps:
1. Run the game once in debug mode to generate your version of the games shader dump.
2. Run main install script to generate your fixed shaders. When you start the game next it will be in release mode and should be fixed.

Steps:

1. Extract this zip file to the games exe directory. In my case this is D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Hydrophobia.
2. This will install into a subdirectory called "HelixModInstall_Mike_ar69_Hydrophobia_v2". Rename this to HelixModInstall".

3. In the directory HelixModInstall open up the following 3 files in notepad or whatever you use:
- CopyDebugFiles.bat
- RemoveDebugFiles.bat
- 3DFix.ini
4. You will see that these all reference files and directories in a Steam directory that has been installed on drive L:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps...etc.
5. EDIT AND CHANGE all these links to point to wherever your installation is. Then SAVE all three.
6. *** If your installation is the same as this default, then leave them as is.

7. Go back into the HelixModInstall subdirectory and double click the batch file "CopyDebugFiles.bat"
8. This will copy a debug dll and a basic DX9Settings.ini file to the games exe directory.
9. Start the game. You should see red text at the top (that's the debugger dll). Select New Game and get to the Home Screen, look at how bad it is.
10. Quit out of the game. Check that a subdirectory called "dumps" has been created.
11. Go back into the HelixModInstall subdirectory and double click the "Remove DebugFiles.bat" batch file, to remove the temporary debug files.

12. Now the main fix: double click the file "ShaderReplace.vbs". Wait about 20s until a file called "3DFix_LOG.txt" appears and a dialog box pops up. This file will summarise the shaders that were updated by showing the mapping from my CRCs to your CRCs.
13. If there were no errors, you should be able to start the game.
14. If you cant run the vbs file as you ahve it associated with notepad+ or whatever try running "cmd" in the Run Box and type assoc .vbs=VBSFile  (thanks to Marcin Tehace for pointing that out).

If you have errors, post a note in the blog comments below, I have watch on this game and will pick it up quickly.

22 comments:

  1. Very Nice Fix purchase the game from Steam if possibly could you make a toggle for Water dribbles and drops on the screen.

    Thanks,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Added preset - key "7". By default all toggles are "on" i.e. fog is on, drips are on, and depth correction for gun cross-hair is on.

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  2. Looks good, will buy it, Thanks

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  3. Updated to v2 to add toggle (key "7") to turn screen water drips on and off. It's a matter of taste, I just find it odd that the game makes 'your' view all distorted when the camera is being splashed, it's not related to whether Kate is getting splashed.

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  4. Cool!, Thanks Mike_ , I love these games with puzzles, and partial 360 controller. I appreciate the fix and will give it a go in a couple days. Just finishing Deadfall, puzzles on Hard, Combat on Easy. Anyway, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Should try Castlevania lords of shadow 1 [NOT 2] and set difficulty to easy. Tons of puzzles surprisingly.

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    2. Or try the LEGO games lol. Easiest puzzles in the world, but great fun.

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    3. O yea, was about to reinstall Orcs Must Die 2 and remembered you. Tower Defense games might interest you. They are kind of puzzles in a way. Sanctum /Orcs must die 2 I recommend.

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    4. http://www.3dvisionlive.com/ugc/18535/sanctum-3d-helix-mod

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    5. Thanks you guys, I'm gonna be busy for a bit! I appreciate the fix's and time saving recommendations :-)

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  5. mike the last and only boss in the game the water efforts breakup .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah crap. I did not get there yet, I'll sort it as soon as I do.

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    2. So I finally got here and am not seeing any issues. Please can you tell me what is going wrong? Thanks.

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  6. Here's an Install script if anyone's interested, no need for editing the directory/ini/bat files or running them for that matter.. Just run this .bat from the install folder(where hydroPC.exe is located), it'll create the ini, copy the debug files, check that vbs are associated properly and if not do so, run HydroPC and delete the debug files when finished ... for whatever reason I couldn't get it to run the vbs script(error at line 66) so you'll have to run that manually when it's finished. So you can just run this in your Hydrophobia folder and then run ShaderReplace.vbs in the HelixmodInstall folder and you're done. :)

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/vp63lsb80dat8dz/Hydrophobia_Install.bat

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cool stuff, thanks :-) Line 66 might be giving an error as it assumes "3DFix.ini" is in the same directory as ShaderReplace.vbs, or at leats in the 'current' directory (I don't fully understand how VBS resolves this tbh). I can't tell if your script alters that perhaps by calling the script from the exe directory? I have to do it this way because there is no other information beforehand until the 3DFix.ini is read in. Perhaps in your script you could move to HelixmodInstall dir first, then try and run the .vbs? I'm sorry I don't have time to try it out yet, but wanted to get back and say thanks :-)

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    2. What exactly is the VBS doing in this? Is it just updating the path references or is it also getting new CRCs from the dumped Shaders? I didn't have much time to mess with it but when I was testing out my alternative install script(the path updating portion) I noticed that my initial install of the fix was still showing your path(D:\***) and not mine(C:\Program Files (x86)\***) ... not sure if the VBS is having trouble with the () or spaces, it was really late and I didn't have time to mess with it. The only thing that looked off in-game that I could see was the middle of that circle/logo thing on the title screen, it was flickering and generally wonky looking. :)

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  7. If any one is interested this at bundle.com this game included in the outer limits bundle.

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  8. Thank you for this fix, mike_ar69. Also, thank you TsaebehT for the install script.

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  9. Is possible change the internal resolution to play in a tablet Atom z8350?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't think so. HelixMod can do arbitrary shader changes and has been used to remove HUD and other changes, but it doesn't have any feature to force a different resolution. BTW this mod is used for stereoscopic 3D, which won't work on an tablet, because it requires NVidia 3D Vision.

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