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Halo 2 Restored Lighting

Nexusmods version for Gamepass/MSStore users: https://www.nexusmods.com/halothemasterchiefcollection/mods/2603

A project of mine that restores the dynamic lighting in Halo 2, using SEV's custom shaders
( https://github.com/777Sev777/Halo-2-Custom-Shaders ) for better shadow filtering.

The plan is to restore what was supposed to be the game's original per-pixel lighting in all missions to make the models and textures look a bit more like they were supposed to before the Pstencil engine was scrapped

SEV's Youtube channel: https://youtube.com/@i_sev_i?si=P-T7H2Ou-5t2C9PG

About SEV: he is the guy who basically started all of this. He made a video showcasing the dynamic lighting in Halo 2 a few years ago, and he is also the author of the "Halo 2 E3 Pre-Release" mod that can be found in NexusMods (but sadly hasnt been updated to the lates MCC version), which was the first mod that tried to recreate the original lighting, along with some other things, like encounters, weapons, etc. He's also the creator of the shader that i have been using for the improved shadow filtering, which is publicly available for anyone to use. Currently, he's working on the Ruby's Rebalanced team for Halo 2 to add this lighting to that mod.


Note: this arent stencil shadows. Even when the mod tools say so, they are shadow maps, and act like shadow maps. Stencil shadows would be pixel perfect, this ones are not

Note 2: the performance hit is quite big because of the additional lights placed on the levels and the shadows being casted from them (enough to make a 1080ti drop drom 144fps at 1080p), so be prepared for framerate drops


Known issues (all unfixable, sadly):

Shadow resolution too low: its a problem with how Halo 2 works, and the resolution can't be manually changed, its all dependant on the light properties (size, fov, and range)

Dissappearing shadows: caused by the game culling the objects that generate the shadows when they are out of your FOV. Consecuence of the game's optimization

Lights appear/dissappear at range (mainly large levels): again, because of optimizations with LODs, lights can suddenly pop in and out depending on how far you are from them.

All campaign missions starting from Cairo Station are available