Increased blockiness with higher far dynamic shadow map

[Tweetie-AT]

I'm not sure if this is expected, but higher dynamic light (far) shadow map resolutions increase the blockiness of self-shadows cast by player characters. This doesn't seem to affect your PC. The blockiness is still present at lower resolutions, but seems to be less noticeable due to blurring of the edges.

[Drahsid]

Can you give me your settings and a situation where I can repeat this?

[Tweetie-AT]

This specific example is in the Gold Saucer around the booth where the mini-cactpot and triple triad/mender/food merchants are. You may need to angle your camera so that it's facing away from the desk. Again, doesn't seem to appear on my character. I noticed it on someone else's (my PC is behind them in the previous screenshot.)

I am using the 8k setting for global shadows, 4k for the Far dynamic shadows, and 16k for the other 2 settings. No custom shadow cascades.

Graphics settings set to maximum with LOD disabled, shadow softening set to strong, transparent lighting set to normal, and ambient occlusion set to GTAO standard.

[Maxunit]

I noticed a very weird case of very broken/blocky shadows as well on the Moon with "Global Sun Shadow Map Settings" set to RES_4096

It goes away if I set the RES value to 2048.

It is more dominant with "Enable Custom Cascade Values" and "Use Dynamic Cascade Values" enabled, no matter the settings. Switching every RES value back to 2048 seems to fix it.

[Maxunit]

Here's my preset for "Enable Custom Cascade Values" but the same issue shows up with most other presets supplied by the plugin as well.

[Maxunit]

Sorry for the spam:

Enabling the plugin with no option enabled in it settings really shows the issue a lot, everywhere. There's something really weird and broken. Either the config i use or the plugin itself has some big issues somewhere with shadow maps.

EDIT:

I run FFXIV at max settings and FSR at 100 on a RTX 4060. ReShade is installed as well with REST and I use iMMERSE RTGI. Just supplying that information, just in case, but i doubt that ReShade and RTGI might cause problems with Better Shadows.

EDIT 2:

Sorry!!! I saw the same issue mentioned in the other issue tracker. Sorry for posting it here as well. I blame half-tired me.

[Drahsid]

I noticed a very weird case of very broken/blocky shadows as well on the Moon with "Global Sun Shadow Map Settings" set to RES_4096

It goes away if I set the RES value to 2048.

It is more dominant with "Enable Custom Cascade Values" and "Use Dynamic Cascade Values" enabled, no matter the settings. Switching every RES value back to 2048 seems to fix it.

This one has to do with the strongest shadow softening setting and requires some specific settings to look correct.

This specific example is in the Gold Saucer around the booth where the mini-cactpot and triple triad/mender/food merchants are. You may need to angle your camera so that it's facing away from the desk. Again, doesn't seem to appear on my character. I noticed it on someone else's (my PC is behind them in the previous screenshot.)

I am using the 8k setting for global shadows, 4k for the Far dynamic shadows, and 16k for the other 2 settings. No custom shadow cascades.

Graphics settings set to maximum with LOD disabled, shadow softening set to strong, transparent lighting set to normal, and ambient occlusion set to GTAO standard.

I am failing to replicate the illustrated effect with these settings.
When you toggle "Show Debug" what does it say the shadowmap dimensions are? Can you confirm that the overrides are all set to 0?

[retep998]

I can also confirm that I can reproduce this issue. When I set my Dynamic Light (Far) Shadow Map Settings to RES_2048 or higher, I get a blocky pattern that goes away on RES_1024 or lower. It only happens in certain areas under certain lighting conditions.
Here are my debug values when the issue occurs:

One example of a location where this reproduces is at X: 5.0 Y: 4.8 in the gold saucer. Basically you need a shadow casting light source that has a large enough range that you can stand far enough from it to get Dynamic Light (Far) shadows. As I step closer to the light my own shadow suddenly increases in resolution, and the blockiness goes away.

[retep998]

Basically you need a shadow casting light source that has a large enough range that you can stand far enough from it to get Dynamic Light (Far) shadows.

As an addendum, this is specifically if you want to see the blocky shadows on your own character. For NPCs and other players they get Dynamic Light (Far) shadows at a much closer distance and are able to cause this blocky banding issue more easily. It still depends heavily on the angle relative to the light source, so that it's just barely self shadowing.