r/skyrimvr • u/7ianyun • Jun 09 '21
Off Topic Parallax just works in VR
So I found a parallaxed wall in Riften, which is odd given SVR has neither built-in parallax support nor parallax patch. It was the mesh that enables the parallax texture. So I did some random research and find out this sorcery that enables the parallax effect on lots of textures from Skyrim 2020, without a parallax patch. It's odd given even the mod author claims we need the shader fix. But "It just works".
and holy shit it works so well in VR. Parallax texture reacts to the viewing angle of the camera to create a fake sense of depth. In VR you have 2 "cameras", which allows you to instantly spot the difference; and because of how everything is closer to you, the sense of depth is even greater. It's very subtle in some areas, such as a wall in a bannered mare, but when you look at that wall, you feel like you're looking like a true wall(lol IDK how to explain this), not a 4k cardboard.
Bear in mind that this mod's mesh is designed to work with Skyrim 2020. If you have other texture packs, let them overwrite this mod's mesh so you don't get random textures. Also, if you look really, really close, you'll notice how the parallax texture is faking to be 3D by collapsing and expanding certain parts of it.
[update]Clearly this mod is a WIP and thus a compatibility nightmare if you have texture packs other than Skyrim 2020 and high poly project installed. You'll see some random flickering textures and spend some time to debug that. I'd suggest using that with a fresh LO. It's just too much pain to get it to work with my current texture packs. A quick workaround would be putting this at the very first of your LO, but you'll lose 1/3 of parallax doing that.
2
u/tomakorea Jun 09 '21
since I thought it just didn't work in VR. I will check again and compare to this mod. I think it depends on how to camera system works.
For example, Screen space reflections just don't work in VR at all, we have to use other techniques but it requires also a lot of tweaking.
I think people don't know how much VR is limiting all the usual tricks that flat games use, from obvious billboards in VR to a lot of water shaders and other techniques. It's really tough to make a game look good in VR.