Antialising working perfectly using ReShade and SMAA shaders

[Siramods]

Hi, I'm new to the OAD, and don't know if this issue had been solved, but since I've discovered this game a month ago, it constantly bothered me to not have AA. (As much as I forced my ATI vga to do it, nothing happened). So, when I discovered reShade (free from https://reshade.me/), it was a no brainer to try and it seems it works perfectly with SMAA antialising shader (tested on win7x64 - select opengl when asked). Also, with reShade you can enable a ton of other eye candy stuff, including stereoscopic support for VR, cardboard included. If someone makes a cool shader preset, just post it here.

So, here you have it - hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Cheers.

[Lion.Kanzen]

@stanislas69

[Stan`]

Looks nice. Indeed it's not fixed yet but it's in @vladislavbelov's plans.

@Lion.Kanzen We can't use this directly as it's better if someone writes the shader code directly into the game. This way users on Windows Mac and Linux can benefit from it.

 

[gameboy]

This should be implemented as a function.

[Stan`]

Yes and it will when someone has time to do it.

[gameboy]

Hopefully it will come soon.

[Sundiata]

Nice...

[gameboy]

@vladislavbelov

Will this long-awaited new feature be available for us to experience at Christmas? 

Edited December 7, 2018 by gameboy

[vladislavbelov]

10 hours ago, Siramods said:

Hi, I'm new to the OAD, and don't know if this issue had been solved, but since I've discovered this game a month ago, it constantly bothered me to not have AA. (As much as I forced my ATI vga to do it, nothing happened). So, when I discovered reShade (free from https://reshade.me/), it was a no brainer to try and it seems it works perfectly with SMAA antialising shader (tested on win7x64 - select opengl when asked). Also, with reShade you can enable a ton of other eye candy stuff, including stereoscopic support for VR, cardboard included. If someone makes a cool shader preset, just post it here.

I see a strange artifact there:

AA is good thing, but it requires a precise work to not add new artifacts (e.g. artifacts on textures with thin lines).

 

1 hour ago, gameboy said:

Will this long-awaited new feature be available for us to experience at Christmas?

Time will tell.

[Siramods]

@vladislavbelov : an informed observation, but it only affects boundaries of straight interface elements, and only in some cases, depending on background. In my opinion, a very acceptable trade off for the improved overall image quality. The shader has its source code editable from the game (maybe you can have a source of inspiration there) and can use various strategies, having several parameters configurable by interface - it might be possible to obtain a better result tinkering with it.

@gameboy: the beauty of it is that reShade is free and OPEN SOURCE, is here now, it installs over the game in less than 5 minutes (it simply puts some files along the executable) and can be removed at will. Also it offers a treasure of additional plugins and effects, that can be used to enhance the graphics of the game beyond any future development you might have hoped. While no doubt AA is a very important quality feature, this is a free development, and having to do a small customization yourself, is a little price to pay. Not to mention the fun you can have modding yourself..

Here is a short tutorial on how to install reShade as to enable SMAA anti-aliasing:

1. Go to https://reshade.me/ and download the setup. Direct link: https://reshade.me/downloads/ReShade_Setup_4.0.2.exe
2. run the setup, it will ask you to locate the game executable. ("..0 A.D. alpha\binaries\system\pyrogenesis.exe")
3. when asked to select engine type, you click on OpenGL radio button (possibly already checked)
(also repeat those steps to un-install if needed, or add new shaders)
4. will ask if to download shaders library, say yes, and from the list select ONLY SMAA for start - click next - etc.
it will say that it succeded instalation, and you can close the window at this point.
5. Start the game normally - even start a skirmish session
6. Use HOME key to bring/hide reShade interface from within the game
7. Check the SMAA checkbox, check Performance mode, maybe hit reload. The AA should be visible by now
8. hit HOME to hide the interface
9. Have fun.

There are gamers out there reShading every game they have. As for myself, I love the thing, I already install it on varius games to play with Depth3D. A must for every PC hardcore gamer out there - and a wonderful exmple why PC gaming is great.

Trivia: SMAA is opensource and was developed at Technical University of Zaragoza, my city. Makes me proud a little.

Peace.

[vladislavbelov]

14 minutes ago, Siramods said:

In my opinion, a very acceptable trade off for the improved overall image quality.

If you'll select many units, artifacts would be noticed well. Also reshade touches our texts, so they became blurry. About image quality: on high density display I don't see the aliasing at all, on low density display I see both (aliasing and SMAA artifacts). So the image quality is pretty subjective. It'd be good to give a choice in options.

1 hour ago, Siramods said:

the beauty of it is that reShade is free and OPEN SOURCE

That's good. To use any line of its code they should have a compatible license, and it has BSD 3-Clause license. So, probably it's compatible.

[gameboy]

@vladislavbelov Yes, this code should help you. I think we will have a 0 A.D. own SMAA at Christmas. Thank you.

[aeonios]

On 12/7/2018 at 9:33 AM, ffffffff said:

@aeonios

 

eae

eh? I have no idea when I'm going to be able to get any work done again. I honestly want to do a more sophisticated AA using depth and normals to detect edges more precisely and for less cost than MSAA. I dunno about ReShade I'll have to check that out to see how that works.

[Siramods]

Well at least some pressure had been taken off, now that there is an option for the "can't live without AA" people.
You take it easy, and when the day comes you wake up thinking "Hmm.. that's a day I feel like the best possible thing that I should do is AA for 0AD!" you WILL do it, and it will be AMAZING :)  

- "Lagertha, bring us our laptop and our morning meal .. !" 

 

[aeonios]

17 hours ago, Siramods said:

Well at least some pressure had been taken off, now that there is an option for the "can't live without AA" people.
You take it easy, and when the day comes you wake up thinking "Hmm.. that's a day I feel like the best possible thing that I should do is AA for 0AD!" you WILL do it, and it will be AMAZING

 

ReShade actually has a depth-based SMAA which would be a great reference for building a depth/normals based one, so I may end up doing that sooner than expected.

[Stan`]

Maybe we could ask them for a collaboration

[Siramods]

Please note that individual shaders for reShade are written by third parties.

SMAA authors and a trove of information can be found here: http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/ 

This might be also worth looking at: http://mrhaandi.blogspot.com/p/injectsmaa.html (adds "Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing" to an application)

Also mailed them a link to this post.. ;)

[vladislavbelov]

17 minutes ago, Siramods said:

Please note that individual shaders for reShade are written by third parties.

As far as I see reShade has own modification (or implementation) of the SMAA: https://github.com/crosire/reshade-shaders/blob/master/Shaders/SMAA.fx

But the original one is present there as well: https://github.com/crosire/reshade-shaders/blob/master/Shaders/SMAA.fxh

 

[Siramods]

Hmm, you lost me there. I was under the strong impression those files are a whole. Like fxh being "headers" for fx. In fact, if I remove the fxh only, reShades starts with an arror: "failed to compile" and SMAA becomes unavailable.. maybe is not "another implementation" just that the library (fxh) is made by "iryoku.com" people and the calls by reShade.... just guessing.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Siramods

[vladislavbelov]

6 minutes ago, Siramods said:

Hmm, you lost me there. I was under the strong impression those files are a whole. Like fxh being "headers" for fx. In fact, if I remove the fxh only, reShades starts with an arror: "failed to compile" and SMAA becomes unavailable...

It'd be good that they're the same. Anyway thanks for the links!

[gameboy]

We will wait for the big Christmas present.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, gameboy said:

We will wait for the big Christmas present.

Personally, I hope it’s before Christmas 2019. That’s as close this feature would ever come to being commited before a Christmas.

[gameboy]

Great! Let's look forward to the Christmas celebration. Cheers.

[gameboy]

@vladislavbelov

[gameboy]

@stanislas69 Because reShade is open source, I think the 0 A.D. development team can incorporate its anti-aliasing SMAA code into the 0 A.D.