Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin - InfiniDetail

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
• Improved lightshaft quality
• Improved Depth of Field (DoF) quality, now has a bokeh-like effect
• Increased shadowmap resolution (ModEngine1 required, supplied with the mod)
• Increased light draw distance
  

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 (recommended)

• 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).
• 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 (not recommended)
There is a way to run this mod without ModEngine too. Do note you will miss out on the shadowmap resolution increases with this method.

• Extract the contents of the zip archive to a temporary directory.
• 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.
• Take the contents of the 'InfiniDetail' directory, 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).
• 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.
• You can now start Dark Souls II: Scholar of The First Sin with the mod applied.
  

NOTE: If you want to use the DS2 Lighting Engine mod together with this mod, make sure to delete the 'filter' and 'shader' files supplied by this mod and use the ones by the DS2 Lighting Engine mod instead.
TODO
If/when my knowledge of Dark Souls modding improves, I'd like to be able to do the following:
* Stop enemies from animating at half rate from a far distance
* Improve cascade shadow render distance (max shadowmap resolution in the game seems to be 4096x4096, would need to be able to go beyond this)

TOOLS USED
* ACB Editor
* DSMapStudio

CREDITS
* Fromsoftserve, for his inspirational videos
* DSMapStudio authors for the amazing tool. This mod would not have been possible without it.
* ACB Editor author.
* Ragevitamins, author of the excellent DS2 Lighting Engine. He provided me with enhanced stock shaders for lightshafts.
* ModEngine authors (comes bundled by default to allow for easy installation)

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 3 and Sekiro were developed alongside this mod, and will appear in the near immediate future.