Arknights : Endfield - HDR Mod (DX11 Only)

[SGTForgery]

RenoDX Addon by Spiwar & Forge with help from Miru & Musa

!!! Addon only works currently with DX11, there are no major perf regressions compared to VK. FG is the only exclusive feature however Reshade VK currently doesnt support FG. Raytracing isnt supported on PC either !!!

!!! Please refer to Discord thread if possible, the addon is getting updated multiple times a day with new features so snapshot might not be update to date !!!

Gallery

Breakdown

The latest title by HyperGryph that utilised a heavily customised Unity fork of theirs. Built from the ground up to support their vision for Endfield. Uses imo a fantastic blend of PBR and NPR materials that helps to elevate it above its peers or even rival other titles that have superior rendering via raytracing. Hopefully in the future, raytracing graphical options are added to PC since the game would greatly benefit from RTGI and RTAO.

Game has very minimal rendering / colour grading based 'shenanigans' that hamper HDR output compared to most other titles we've worked on. It is very straight forward and in some ways simplistic but it works as the game's art design and materials do the heavy lifting...

• Has some clamping via resources such as r8g8b8a8_typeless, r8g8b8a8_unorm and r10g10b10a2_unorm
• Outside of resources, the game primarily just clamps in Unity style uber shaders at the very end via custom filmic curve + LUT
• Single LUTbuilder

HDR linear rendering is handled well and outputting HDR via RenoDX showcases all of this. Certain elements such as the skybox sun are rather muted due to SDR creative limitations. We've reworked such elements to be more in line with 'HDR' expectations.

We did discover that the game has some issues with DoF specifically whilst using DLSS/DLAA and their GTAO implementation is very subpar with extreme ghosting and low internal res (we have a solution for custom AO alongside Reno)

Addon Features

• Max channel Hermite Spline tonemapping with per channel blowout to maintain SDR hues
• Separate gamma correction for game scene and UI
• Full RenoDX colour grading suite for preference adjustments
• Vignette strength slider
• Bloom strength slider
• Shortfuse perceptual film grain
• UID and global UI toggle (for screenshots)
• HDR ITM processing for videos
• HDR sun improvments
• Improved Shadows
• Reshade shader bypass (to allow the use of AO that is rendered before UI, FX, DoF and other in-game shaders)

Installation

1. Download latest version of Reshade with Addon support

2. Run through the reshade installer process, the .exe we need will be found in (GRYPHLINK/games/Endfield game). (You do not need to select any shaders or other addons), find the dxgi.dll after and rename to d3d12.dll or alternatively extract the ReShade64.dll from the reshade.exe and rename to d3d12.dll

3. Download RenoDX addon from either github snapshot or Discord thread (typically updated more frequently) and add it to the same folder as reshade .dll

EVEN THOUGH THE GAME WILL BE USING DX11, HOOKING OF RESHADE AS D3D12.dll STILL WORKS AND DOESNT GET BLOCKED BY ANTICHEAT

OLDER METHOD (STILL WORKS)

Anti cheat blocks / crashes regular dxgi.dll loading of reshade, inject64 has to be used to bypass

1. Download the file zip below and put them in the game folder (GRYPHLINK/games/Endfield game):

   zip is a all in one package with latest reshade, inject64, and launch.bat (which will both force -dx11 command and launching of inject64)

2. Grab the Endfield RenoDX addon from either github snapshot or Discord thread (typically updated more frequently) and add it to the same folder as in step 1

3. Right click on inject64.exe -> Properties -> Ensure 'Run this program as administrator is checked

4. Only launch the game moving forward via the included launch.bat

   Endfield Reshade Injector.zip

Compatibility

• Please ensure RTX HDR is disabled to avoid double tonemapping, AutoHDR will auto disable itself since Windows will recognise a HDR swapchain e.g HDR10 in this case

• This will be incompatible with most ReShade presets. Almost all ReShade effects are made for SDR. (This also applies to NV overlay based filters)

[Heliumrich]

The (amazing) "improved shadows" feature sadly cause this bug on characters hair

Mostly visible on (best girl) Perlica, but also affect the bangs of all characters
When a "cloud" occlude them, as far as I can tell 😔

Improved Shadows ON:

---

Improved Shadows OFF:

(HDR screenshots exported to SDR with SKIV, so they can fit here)
These screenshots are from a build from yesterday, but I just tested the very latest discord build and the issue is still there

[Heliumrich]

It happens during cinematics but also when walking around in that area.
100% sure when below the sky, when clouds pass by, but iirc also when occluded from terrain/buildings (not 100% sure, and I can't check right now)

Just stand in the middle of the first area, and zoom on Perlica face, and wait for a cloud to pass by (like every 5-10sec)

Can't you make your improved shadows not impact characters ? Or at least the face/hair part.

I will test other areas tomorrow.

Sadly it's pretty ugly and hard to ignore during cinematics

[SGTForgery]

It happens during cinematics but also when walking around in that area. 100% sure when below the sky, when clouds pass by, but iirc also when occluded from terrain/buildings (not 100% sure, and I can't check right now)

Just stand in the middle of the first area, and zoom on Perlica face, and wait for a cloud to pass by (like every 5-10sec)

Can't you make your improved shadows not impact characters ? Or at least the face/hair part.

I will test other areas tomorrow.

Sadly it's pretty ugly and hard to ignore during cinematics

Bangs get specialTM rendering so isnt applied in the same pass lmao (Trying a fix)

[SGTForgery]

Fix here, as well as in discord thread... Now for me to figure out how to circumnavigate github 10mb file limit so I could post some HDR screenshots

renodx-endfield.zip

[Heliumrich]

@SGTForgery I just took your latest build from discord ("Slop fixed" Jan 27 18:13) and the bug is still there 😔

But your build above fixed it though ! ☺️
So I think you just forgot to include this fix in your latest build ?

BTW I am using DLSS Quality on a 4K display.
As long as I don't use "Reshade before UI", that should be fine, right ?

[SGTForgery]

renodx-endfield.zip

Reshade bypass only works with native scaling, if you dont care for reshade based AO then toggle bypass off and you can use upscaling

[Zharay]

Question: Is possible to add a toggle for the connection bars as well? OLED burn-in is always in the back of my head when playing games like this.

[Zharay]

Test this

Yep this is working great at 4K for me. Switching on/off on any of those UI settings isn't affecting anything else it seems. Awesome!

I did run into a separate issue though: I cannot get Lilum HDR Analysis working with this version of RenoDX. Don't think its a problem on your end but still wanted to point it out. Note: This was happening before this version, too.

[Zharay]

Scratch that, I did run into a minor issue involving the dialogue and the connection meter. The vignette effect at the top and bottom will cut in/out between messages while the connection meter is hidden.

[SGTForgery]

Scratch that, I did run into a minor issue involving the dialogue and the connection meter. The vignette effect at the top and bottom will cut in/out between messages while the connection meter is hidden.

Working on a fix for that, it appears to be area dependant. Lilium's not working might be due to reshade bypass being activated, it will fail to compile since we're now telling reshade to draw shaders way earlier in the rendering pipeline. If you want to use the analysis, make sure 'Reshade before UI' is off

[SGTForgery]

Scratch that, I did run into a minor issue involving the dialogue and the connection meter. The vignette effect at the top and bottom will cut in/out between messages while the connection meter is hidden.

renodx-endfield.zip

New build, latency bar should now work without turning off speech vignette or borking up AIC blueprint tab

[Zharay]

So far after a few hours, and several dialogue events, no vignette issues that I've seen. I did find an anomaly elsewhere though.

If you do an Etchspace Salvage run (the weird random rogue-like on the ship), the short opening cut scene will show connection bars, ping, and UID until the camera is back on your main. Its the only minor edge case I've found so far.

[Heliumrich]

Imho, the alt fog is way too subtle (compared to original fog)
Is this normal ?

Well, I don't think real fog would preserve hue anyway (or it would, if whitening is not considered changing hue, because here it feels too transparent, not enough white)
Besides being too far off from "artistic intent", it also make some background terrain visible when they shouldn't be (and they look really bad)

I think the default should have alt-fog be disabled ; it change the look of the game too much (subjectively, not pure objective improvement)

[Heliumrich]

Another bug, this time your glass improvement feature @SGTForgery
See how the waterfall get darkened quite a lot (doesn't seem to impact any other type of body of water)

Vanilla (left) versus glass transparency improved (right):

I am not using your "hue-preserving fog" feature here.

And here how it looks with your alt-fog:
Alt-fog (left) vs alt-fog + glass transparency improved (right):

(These were HDR screenshots exported as SDR in SKIV so they fit here)

[Heliumrich]

Could you split "improved shadows" into "improved shadows" and "improved shadows for grass" ?
Grass doesn't have sharp/deep shadows IRL, they are semi translucent lol

Left: improved shadows ON (grass look bad) ||| right: vanilla shadows

Both are with your improved GTAO.

The improved shadows here look really bad ; grass doesn't look like that IRL, please kindly touch grass 😝
Even then, there are weird thick shadow lines that don't make any sense

[Heliumrich]

You can see shadows for the grass 2D cards... clearly look weird and nonsensical :/ @SGTForgery @spiwar

I use 4096 shadow res like you, AO at 1.0, that's all, nothing else changed

[Heliumrich]

@SGTForgery Using your latest Gamebanana build, it seems the hair shadows are broken again :/

[grayexoc]

After applying the RENODX you provided, the game has completely changed. I am very satisfied and enjoying it.

However, since my resolution is 3840×1600, the PING and UID hiding features do not seem to work properly.

Also, when taking screenshots using ReShade, a large semi-transparent white rectangular overlay appears on the right side, but only in the screenshot itself.

[Heliumrich]

Which build are you using ?
Afaik, in order of most updated : discord > gamebana > github (last)
Gamebanana work fine for me

[grayexoc]

I was previously using the snapshot version, but after switching to the GameBanana version, several additional features became available and the UID hiding function now works correctly. I apologize for not reading the instructions carefully enough.

[Desu21212]

Environment rendering appears to be broke with the 1.1 update. HDR sun, GTAO, improved shadows broken.