Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin – InfiniDetail mod

This was a fun research sideproject. It did not take any development resources away.

Download this on NexusMods here.

This mod does the following:

• Reduce/eliminate texture LOD (Level of Detail)

• Increase draw distances, less pop-in of mappieces and objects

• Draw some mappieces that were inside the level files but never rendered ingame

This mod takes a conservative and disciplined approach. It does not seek to alter
the game’s look, it does not add additional lighting, it does not remove spot lights or
remove baked shadows. In other words, it tries to look authentic to the original game,
and yet a still noticeable visual upgrade.

NOTE: Mappieces that have shadow source/target disabled have not been altered.
There will be a second version of the mod in the future that will enable shadow
source for certain mappieces. Enabling it for all mappieces at once did not turn
out to be a good idea, so it has to be done judiciously.
Altered objects meanwhile do have shadow sources enabled

REQUIREMENTS

• A copy of Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin (PC version)

This mod will not work with vanilla Dark Souls II.

HOW TO INSTALL

Easy mode

1. Extract the contents of the zip archive to the Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin directory (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Dark Souls II Scholar of the First Sin\Game).
2. Start Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin from Steam, or run DarkSoulsII.exe from the DS2 install dir.
   This will start the InfiniDetail mod with ModEngine (supplied in the zip archive)

Hard mode

There is a way to run this mod without ModEngine too.

1. Extract the contents of the zip archive to a temporary directory.
2. Download UXM (https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/26)
   Run UXM, point it to the DS2 SOTF exe (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Dark Souls II Scholar of the First Sin\Game\DarkSoulsII.exe). Click on ‘Unpack’ and wait until it’s done. Close UXM.
3. Take the contents of the ‘InfiniDetail’ directory (see Step 1), and copy them over to the DS2 SOTF directory (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Dark Souls II Scholar of the First Sin\Game).
4. Run UXM, point it to the DS2 SOTF exe (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Dark Souls II Scholar of the First Sin\Game\DarkSoulsII.exe). Click on ‘Patch’ and wait until it’s done. Close UXM.
5. You can now start Dark Souls II: Scholar of The First Sin with the mod applied.

TODO

• Stop enemies from animating at half rate from a far distance
• Improve the quality of light shafts
• Improve cascade shadow render distance (max shadowmap resolution in the game seems to be 4096×4096, would need to be able to go beyond this)

TOOLS USED

• ACB Editor

• DSMapStudio

MEDIA

See some before/after screenshots here.

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FAQ

• Can it be used with DS2 Lighting Engine mod?
  Yes, it works fine. First install the DS2 Lighting Engine mod, then walk through this mod’s installation instructions (How To Install).

WHAT’S NEXT

InfiniDetail mods for Dark Souls Remastered, Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro were developed alongside this mod, and will appear in the near immediate future.