Smooth, long-range shadows - (goes well with dynamic characteristics)

A setup guide for creating long-range shadows, smoothly and discreetly transitioning LOD shadows, and for softening shadows to reduce the blocks of shadows on close characters.

Like this:

I noticed that LOD shadows pop up when you approach, which can be quite annoying on a very visible background, such as the porch shadow on the white house background. I wanted to fix this, and also create shadows on very distant objects. I adjusted shadow settings until I found the optimal balance between missing LODs, distant shadows, and shadow detail. The maximum range of shadows - 270 meters, at which the standard uGrids should show the objects of the terrain and fade beautifully.

The trade-off is that shadows are a little more blurred and not as detailed in the vicinity, but as I was told by graphical programmers, it is always a trade-off with shadow settings, and the best thing to get is a good balance. :) Imagine that there are a few clouds scattering the light, so you won't have perfectly clear shadows like on these cloudy days. :D

Shadows are performance-intensive, so ShadowBoost Dynamic Performance Tuner and Load Accelerator do a great job of it, because you can have long-range shadows in a wide wasteland where you get good performance, and when you get to a high-FPS area, such as a city where visibility is usually reduced, the shadow range is reduced to increase performance. Close Shadow Range is something that should look good in cities and have good performance, 30 meters.

Settings:

1. ShadowBoost Dynamic Performance Tuner and Load Accelerator are recommended because shadows are more resource-intensive than larger shadows, and long-range shadows require more resources than normal settings. Dynamic Performance Tuner and Load Accelerator are not required if you have a really powerful system. You may also need ENB or fraps to check fps to adjust fps settings. I use ENB to test performance.

2. Back up your files so you can undo your changes if you don't like them.

Fallout4Prefs.ini in \Documents\My Games\Fallout4\

ShadowBoost.ini in the Fallout 4 .exe folder.

3. Edit Fallout4Prefs.ini, make sure there are no duplicate lines in the file, delete/cross out old settings:

; long smooth shadows

fDirShadowDistance=27000.0000

fShadowDistance=5000.0000

iShadowMapResolution=1024

iDirShadowSplits=3

fBlendSplitDirShadow=600.0000

uiOrthoShadowFilter=3

4. If you are using Dynamic Performance Tuner and Load Accelerator, edit .ini with similar settings and customize them to fit your system:

[MAIN]

fShadowDrawDistMin=3000.0

fShadowDrawDistMax=27000.0

5. If the settings are correct, you should see the game's shadows of greater range.

Enjoy! :)