#otis camera tools faq

[pictureamoebae]

Hello! When using Otis camera mod and the dof addon shader, do you turn off the games own TAA (anti-aliasing) like he recommended? And another question about same topic, how do you get the hair to look so good when taking screenshots? I turned of the TAA but still think my hair/beards look very low quality and cartoony :(( I noticed when turning off the games own TAA my graphics settings automatically lowered themselves, so maybe I need to fiddle with the graphics a bit.. Anyway if you have any ideas or tips I would highly appreciate them. Thanks! (Also you’re a gem for this community, so kind of you to take your time and help people out!!)

Hi anon,

There's a bit of a weird thing with the camera in cutscenes, where you generally have to have TAA or DLAA turned on or the freecam won't move and will instead move the time of day (it's really weird). I'm not sure if it affects everyone, but it's affected enough of us that we're kind of stuff having to use those options, so I play with TAA on (my card doesn't support DLAA), and I know quite a few others do too.

The best thing for getting great looking hair in BG3 is to use the IGCS DoF, because the way it renders frames to get the final scene smooths out the hair beautifully. The second best thing is hotsampling, because the more pixels rammed into a small space the smoother things look.

I hope you're having a great day, anon :)

[pictureamoebae]

Hello lovely helpful person! I have a question about Otis dof addon, is it possible to focus on two characters at the same time (in Bg3). Like a scene where tav and a companions stands next to each other or a romance/kiss scene, it seems that its only possible to focus on one point at once, if that makes sense? everything else gets blurry. Is this just the way it is or can you alter the focus somehow, so several things are in focus, like a group of 4 people? Thank you so much!!! Hope you understand my question (:

Hi anon!

Try to imagine the space in front of you in terms of linear distance from the camera to the farthest point in the distance.

When you focus, you're not focusing on a specific object per se, but rather on a particular distance between the camera and the horizon. Anything in the scene that is at that exact distance from the camera will be in focus, whether it's in the very centre of the screen, or off to the left or the right, top or bottom.

Anything you want to be in focus has to be at that distance.

Let's assume the camera is at 0 and the horizon is at 1, and half way between them is 0.5. If Tav is standing at 0.2 and Shadowheart is standing at 0.4 you can either focus at 0.2 or at 0.4 to have one of them in focus, but one of them will be out of focus. You can't set two different focus points because you'd end up with blur from both of them messing them both up.

There are a couple of ways to work around this, and as always with ReShade both involve compromise.

The first would be to change your composition so both characters are the same distance from the camera. That's nice and simple, but can sometimes ruin the composition you wanted.

The second is to adjust a bunch of stuff to mimic how a real camera creates blurred and in focus areas. Zoom (FoV) will affect how strong the blur is and how quickly it goes from in focus to out of focus. Theoretically, the closer you zoom in (the lower your FoV) the stronger the blur will become and the quicker it will start after the in focus area. Additionally, lowering the bokeh size in the IGCSDoF settings will also create a softer transition between the in focus area and the blurred areas. This can help create a wider zone of space that is in focus, meaning your characters may not have to be at the exact same distance away from the camera.

Unfortunately, because of the way IGCSDoF renders everything, that zone will still always be somewhat narrow, and, especially if you wanted rather strong blur in the background, you'll likely find yourself battling against some areas that aren't in focus that you wish were.

Luckily, there's a secret third way that can come to the rescue: Photoshop*.

I frequently find myself taking a shot with IGCSDoF, and one without, and then opening them in Photoshop to blend them together so I get what I want in focus. I do this a lot with close portraits where I want a decently strong background blur but find as a result only the eye is in focus and the nose and sometimes even the mouth is slightly out of focus. I layer the screenshots over one another, add a layer mask, and paint out the areas of blur I don't want so the in focus parts come through.

There are always going to be limitations with ReShade and screenshot tools more generally because it's trying to mimic real world behaviour in an artificial digital game space, so we have to get crafty sometimes!

*Other programs are available

[pictureamoebae]

Hi! When hotsampling in bg3 with Otis camera mod and his dof addon shader, do you 1. hotsample first and 2. Then render the picture? Or vice versa? Thank you (:

Hi! I usually take a test shot at my normal res to check everything looks as I want, but when I’m ready to take the hotsampled shot I hotsample first and then render the dof. It won’t work the other way around, you’ll just get a black screen.

[pictureamoebae]

hi! sorry for bothering you with this question because you seem to get a lot 🥹 when using Otis camera in cutscenes, i paused the game with the camera mod and it looked good at first for like one second but then the camera moved around weird and it got all blurry like some dof kicked in but i didnt have any reshade on. do you know what the problem could be? i wanna be able to move the camera freely in cutscenes too and others seem to get it to work :(( hope this makes sense

Hi anon, don't apologise, I'm always happy to answer questions if I can!

Do you have the game's own DoF turned off? If not, definitely turn that off. It'll interact weirdly with whatever else you want to do.

Once you've paused the game and activated the camera tools the camera shouldn't move around on its own unless you move it.

Insert activates the camera tools, Numpad0 pauses the game, Delete removes the HUD, and Home locks camera movement so you don't accidentally move it once you've set up a nice shot.

When I want to take a screenshot first I press Numpad 0 to pause the game, then I press Insert to activate the camera tools, then I press Delete to remove the hud. Then I use my gamepad to manoeuvre the camera where I want it, and once I'm happy I press Home to lock it in place. Then I'm free to tweak ReShade, set up IGCS DoF, hotsample, and take the screenshot without worrying that the camera might move if I bump my mouse or press the wrong key.

Then when I'm done I reverse the process.

[pictureamoebae]

Omg i feel so stupid now lol.. thank you for helping! That seems to be the problem why DOF doesnt work for me in bg3 since i’ve only tried using the regular shaders like cinematic or adof.. i’m gonna try Otis shader and see!! I have another question tho, you said it can take long like 30min to render the picture - is that the case even if you chose to not hotsample too, or only when hotsampling? And in cutscenes etc when I wanna be quick with getting a specific shot or serveral, is that possible like can i screenshot serveral times after another immediately and it renders like 2-4 pictures then, or do i have to take one - let it render - before i can move on to take a new one? Hope that makes sense. I usually smash the screenshot button sometimes cause i dont want to miss a specific scene/shot. Or get several screenshots of like the same moment. Thank you so much anyway!!!

If you want to use IGCS DoF you have to be slow and considered.

Otis' website has instructions how to use it, make sure you read them carefully and you'll understand what's involved, but the tl;dr:

Basically, the way the DoF works is completely different to a DoF shader. It moves the camera very slightly over and over again and takes a temporary screenshot each time to slowly build up the final scene (all of those temporary screenshots will be deleted once it's done). This way it gets very accurate information about what's in the scene, which is why it produces such an excellent result.

You set up a shot, you go into the addons tab and choose IGCS, click start session, and the DoF controls will come up (make sure you have the IGCS DoF shader enabled first - that shader does nothing, but it's required for the addon to work).

Then you choose your bokeh strength, and you set up your focus. You have to be very, very precise with the focus. You choose a few other things, like the shape of the bokeh, and you choose the quality. (Those settings will carry over to next time, but you'll have to set up your focus again.)

The quality is what determines how long the shot will take to render. It will tell you at the bottom how many pictures it will take. The higher the quality you choose, the more of those temporary screenshots it needs to take to get more accurate information and a better image quality. Imagine pressing the print screen key 1,000 times and how long that would take.

The lower your fps the longer it will take. If you have high fps it can fire off those screenshots nice and quick. If you have low fps each screenshot takes a bit longer. If you're hotsampling, you're going to have lower fps.

Because my PC is old, I have a quality that results in about 800 screenshots. When hotsampling and using RTGI etc that can take a long, long, long time to render.

Once the shot is rendered you take your own screenshot as normal, and then you end the session.

One thing, anon. You know you can pause cutscenes, yes? Any current dialogue animation may keep playing until that line has finished, but otherwise it will pause.

The thing about using premium tools from Otis and others, if you're just firing off cutscene screenshots hoping one will look okay you're never going to get the most out of them. They're designed for serious screenshooting (obv anyone can use them if they want). Taking your time to set up a shot, being precise about the composition, the lighting, the aspect ratio, the whole scene, is a lengthy process. I'm not especially great at composition, so my screenshots are only so-so, but I try very hard with each one, and it can take me an hour to get one I'm happy with (this is why I'm still in Act 2). Slowing down improves your skill.

[pictureamoebae]

Hi! Do you have any tips when using reshade/otis camera mod in bg3? My dof doesnt really look right, it has weird edges and not these smooth well aligned edges. It looks pretty good in cutscenes but out of cutscenes it just looks weird and its really driving me crazy and also seeing everyone elses pretty bg3 pictures 😭😭 also makes me sad cause when using reshade in ts4 its easy and looks good for me but not in this game.. any tips?? I fixed the depth buffer and all already so dof works and is focused in the center but the edges dont look to good, especially around the hair. Comparing to other people it looks different.. :( what am i missing :((

Hi anon. I'm guessing you're using Cinematic DoF or some other DoF shader? It doesn't work well with BG3 unfortunately. But Otis makes the IGCS Connector addon for ReShade that works with his camera tools (you need his camera tools to use it so you can't use it in, for example, TS4) and it has its own version of DoF that is probably the best DoF you'll ever see.

It works completely differently to DoF shaders, it takes a bit of getting used to. It takes hundreds of individual pictures to build up to one final picture, and because of that it takes a little while to render each shot. The better your hardware the less time it will take. My PC is 8 years old, I've had some pictures take 30 minutes to render lol.

Make sure you really thoroughly read the instructions on his site to avoid too much frustration!

[pictureamoebae]

BIG UPDATE BY MARTY'S MODS

EDIT: If you only use ReLight in TS4, hold fire with resubbing. We've discovered a potential compiling error for TS4. If you use it in other games too, then go right ahead and pick it up if you want. It's likely a dx9 problem. Marty knows about it.

---

Pascal Gilcher, the brains behind Marty's Mods, has released a refresh of some of his most popular shaders. RTGI has been updated, and, most excitingly, thanks to recent renewed interest *cough*, ReLight has been updated as well.

ReLight now uses ray tracing, and has introduced sub-surface scattering. Quite a few of the previous options have changed, although the way you position the lights remains the same. You can still use my previous ReLight guide to help with moving the lights, but many of the other settings I go through are obsolete now. Once I've had a chance to have a proper play with the new version I'll create an updated guide.

ReLight has now been incorporated officially into the iMMERSE Ultimate package of shaders, which can be found by subscribing to his Path Tracers tier on Patreon.

If you're updating, make sure to update all the available shaders and files, and update the regular free iMMERSE shaders, because Launchpad has received an update to work with these new versions.

As always, remember to make a backup of your current shaders first in case you want to revert for whatever reason. There are some reports the new Launchpad doesn't play nicely with dx9 games, so you may run into problems with it in TS4, but I haven't tested that myself yet. You can still use dx11 shaders in TS4 by using DXVK to use Vulkan instead of dx9, so that's always an option.

For funsies, here's a comparison of the above shot with/without ReShade.

[my hi-res bg3 shots]

[pictureamoebae]

A Warning

[reshade 5.9.1; otis_inf camera tools]

[my hi-res bg3 shots]

Before/After comparison. I want to highlight the Depth Darkness shader today. It was recently released by Otis_inf as part of his OtisFX shader package. If you click on the before/after comparison above you'll see the background was pretty boring, nothing special stood out. For random cut scenes in a game like BG3 you can't always choose a nice backdrop, and this is where Depth Darkness can come in handy.

The shader provides a simple fog that can be any colour you want and any opacity all the way up to 100% so nothing shows through. You can change where the fog begins, and you can change the sharpness of the transition (i.e. whether the fog starts suddenly or gently). It's a very simple shader, very easy to use. It requires depth buffer access. Where you place it in your load order is up to you, but it should go below things like MXAO. I have it after MXAO and RTGI, after ReLight etc, and above everything else. This means any colour grading and bloom will be applied to it.

For this shot I chose a dark red colour, and set it at around 85-90% opacity. Raphael is a devil, and while he's not in his devil form here I wanted to bring more of that vibe to the scene.

A lot of the portraits I've posted recently have made heavy use of Depth Darkness, usually at 100%. Getting the transition just right so it starts to darken and obscure around the back 1/3 of the character can make for a really moody shot, like in this portrait of my sorcerer, Vex. It's a fun shader, definitely worth checking out.