Diagnosing Reshade Problems

UI Detection, and you

With Gravure Studio, I've implemented a new smart shader called UI Detect, which dynamically enables and disables certain effects like Ambient Occlusion and Depth of Field depending on the presence of certain UI elements. Unfortunately, since this is a rather hacky way of doing things, the process of making this work is rather tedious. Basically I have to manually designate certain pixel coordinates as certain colors in the shader config in order for Reshade to recognize that a UI menu is present, and what this means is that it has to be manually configured for each resolution as the coordinates very as the UI is scaled up and down. I can't even do something convenient like mathematically multiply the coordinates because texture scaling isn't linear and won't produce the same color on the same coordinate as the UI textures are stretched.

BLAH BLAH BLAH TECHNICAL GABBLE the point is... my work is not easy! Well, it's kind of easy in this case but it's tedious! What's more, sometimes UI detect doesn't work for some people even on the intended resolution! I don't really know why this is the case and once again, my ability to troubleshoot is limited if I can't reproduce the problem.

Fixing Problems you might have

A rather annoying problem with this is that it might not even be obvious there's a problem to you. You might instead get that feeling of ordering a McDonalds burger and thinking the burger in your hands looks nothing like the burger in the advertisement. Let me assure you it's not supposed to be that way!

Your game should look nigh identical to the trailers, screenshots etc. I post, and if there's a noticeable difference, something is probably wrong, and the depth buffer is usually the problem! Before we get into the less obvious problems, let's get into the most obvious problem, if you have it mind you.

Blurry UI

This is a sign that UI Detect isn't detecting UI elements. This could be because you're running the game at a different resolution than the prescribed config, perhaps a currently unsupported issue, or it could be that phantom problem that I haven't figured out.

For example, I run the game at 1440p 16:9 aspect ratio (note that other aspect ratio's aren't supported, sorry!). If I accidentally use the 1080p configurations, UI detect won't work and will not properly occlude depth shaders when menus are present. The simple solution to this is to select the right config for the right resolution in the dropdown menu. Don't worry, I'll add support for more resolutions soon!

To access the Reshade GUI, the default hotkey is "Home", or whatever you set it to. 

Dull Lighting and no DOF in scenes

This is the "Why doesn't my burger look like the advertisement?" scenarios. The lighting isn't supposed to be dull and cold with no DOF. This means one of three things. A: UI Detect is detecting a false positive and occluding depth effects even when menus aren't there, B: Reshade isn't detecting the depth buffer for DOA5, or C: Wild card, something I don't know about!

The first step is the same as the previous problem: make sure you're running at a prescribed resolution and using the right config in reshade. If that fails, make sure you're running the Reshade installation and config prescribed in the mod directory and not your own personal customized Reshade. I can't be held responsible if you go in the kitchen and start fucking things up! 

Finally, if all else fails, you can simply uncheck the UI Detect shaders (all 3 of them, UIDetect, UIDetect_Before, and UIDetect_After), and disable Cinematic DOF when you're in Menus, or just don't use it at all. It's not necessary but highly recommended for taking nice looking pics that bring the character into focus!

This is how it should look. See the difference? Of course you do. 

As a final note, my next step is to make UI detect config for 4k, 720p, and a resolution agnostic version which will just disable Cinematic DOF by default so that, in the event shit just doesn't work for you, you can just use that!

Thanks for reading and please be patient with bugs and errors!