ArghWater

Mod version 4. 45.  It is compatible with NMS Adrift patch 4. 72.

Description

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A water shader mod for No Man's Sky, featuring many new visual enhancements:

Wave Generation:

Improved height, detail, and motion

Created new custom texture volumes

Added depth-based geometry changes

Specular Highlights:

Made properly follow sun position, and better match sun size

Improved coloring, distance/angle diffusion, and atmospheric transition

Made reflected terrain diminish brightness

Reflections:

Made actually based on wave geometry

Improved fresnel settings, and underwater coloring

Added blur effect

Improved reflected terrain quality & lighting

Water Color:

Fixed waterline level rendering

Improved texture and shading detail

Added depth-based shading at higher altitudes

Added backlight scattering effect

Improved texture appearance, blending, and visibility

Moved onto waves, made shift & ripple with wave motion

Made thickness & transparency change based on wave motion

Made lit by environment lighting

* Fixed/reduced multiple view-based distortions and rendering issues

Installation

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Copy ArghWater_445.pak from zip into "No Man's Sky\GAMEDATA\PCBANKS\MODS\" (delete older versions of mod if present).

Rename or remove DISABLEMODS. TXT in "No Man's Sky\GAMEDATA\PCBANKS\" if present.

Files Modified

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SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\LIGHT_FRAG_SUNLIGHT_0. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\LIGHT_FRAG_SUNLIGHT_SCAN_0. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\LIGHT_FRAG_SUNLIGHT_SPLIT_0. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\LIGHT_FRAG_SUNLIGHT_SPLT_S_0. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\LIGHT_FRAG_SUNLIGHT_TERRAIN_0. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\SKY_FRAG_LIGHTING_LOWQ_0. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\SKY_FRAG_REFLECT_0. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\TERRAIN_FRAG_REFLECT_WATER_#. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\TERRAIN_VERT_REFLECT_WATER_#. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\WATER_FRAG_FULLSCREEN_#. SPV

SHADERS\CODE\BIN\PC\WATER_FRAG_FULLSCREEN_BELO_#. SPV

TEXTURES\SHADER\NOISEINVERT. DDS

Compatibility update.

Compatibility update.

Reflections back, reverted temporary workaround to original behavior.

Made Fractal's near-surface caustics smoothly fade out.

Fixed several scan-effect issues.

Fixed an atmosphere transition issue.

Tweaked coloring on Fractal reflection compensation.

Compatibility bugfix update.

Added visuals to partially compensate for Fractal's missing water reflections.

Compatibility update.

Added directional environmental lighting to reflected terrain.

Improved coloring for swamp/lava biomes & storms.

Reduced reflected nebula brightness to better match Frontiers' sky changes.

Fixed most VR rendering issues.  (Special thanks to Illogic1 for helping me beta test.)

Fixed several FOV-related issues.

Fixed a depth-based geometry issue.

Added more setting overrides to workaround some mod conflicts.

Initial release.

Development Notes

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So who says NMS Vulkan shader mods are impossible? ;)

I originally started this as a GLSL shader mod way back in Next/Visions.  Initially inspired by Lo2k's True Water shader mod, it quickly expanded with improvements to specular highlights, reflections, & foam rendering.  Unfortunately, before I was able to release my mod, Hello Games made the switch from OpenGL to the Vulkan API for the upcoming Beyond update.  This move essentially killed all shader mods dead in their tracks.  I put this mod aside and moved onto other things.

Around the release of Origins I got the itch to work on it again, if only as a learning experience for myself.  Still working under the older NMS version 1. 77, I started implementing more advanced features like proper wave-geometry-based reflections & motion-based foam dynamics.  I was very happy with the results, but disappointed being unable to share them.

At the same time, GaticusHax made important advancements with Vulkan shaders: successfully decompiling, changing, & recompiling them back into the game.  Many obstacles remained though, leaving most shader mods still out-of-reach.  The