Fix by mike_ar69
Fixed
1. Lighting
2. Halos
3. Shadows
4. Heat Haze
5. Wall Reflections
6. Hud Elements
7. Fog, smoke
8. Provided two convergence presets (high/low) (toggle with key "9")
9. Left in a toggle for fix on/off (toggle with key "0")
Screenshot
BEFORE: AFTER: BEFORE: AFTER:
Summary
A surprisingly fun game, once you get past the stage where all you have is a crappy little gun. Varied levels, and performs great.
Out of the box stereo is TERRIBLE. Everything is wrong with lighting and shadows, fog, smoke etc.
I would rate the fix as GOOD, since there are still issues remaining, but it is entirely playable, and if in doubt at any point how bad it was, press the "0" toggle key.
Outstanding Issues
1. Lighting is vastly improved but there still remains visible 'light cones' or more correctly 'light domes' around lamps and wall/ceiling lights. Quite ignorable though after a short while, though some wall lights also look a bit 'off' since I removed a fix that aligned the lights properly but enhanced the 'dome' effect and I think it looks better this way.
2. Shadows are vastly improved but not quite 'fixed' in the perfect sense. The shadows are perfect when the convergence is set = 1. I do not know why. I provide two convergence presets, one for when C=1, and one for when C<>1. You should not mess with the C=1 preset, those shadows are perfect and if you don't mind playing a bit flat, it's not too awful. The other preset uses an approximation for the shadows for all other values of convergence and it does not look bad - the shadows just look a bit 'under the ground' rather than stuck on it. I finally discovered why this happens, but have not found a solution yet, other than to look for a different shader that might fix the shadows (I fixed a Vertex shader, but there is also a Pixel shader). The reason the shadows don't work for all convergence is because in the vertex shader, after doing the VPM transform the transformed value for r0.z is ALWAYS =0, and the transformed value for r0.w is ALWAYS =1. i.e. there is NO DEPTH INFORMATION. I have never seen this before.
3. HUD - in the menus there is in a couple of places where you select from a list an orange stripe that highlights the selection that is always at screen depth. Could not find a shader to turn that off. Press "0" to disable all fixes while in menus to put all the HUD at screen depth if this bothers you.
4. Some minor effects. For example on the Bridge Level, the rain drops that splash on the ground are in 2d at screen depth.
Some of the games 2D rendering is a bit crap and cheap, and nothing to do with stereo 3D or the fix: for example shadows rendering quality visibly changes from 'OK' to 'awful' before your eyes as you get closer to or further away from them; in game setting disable the 'adaptive lighting', it makes things look dark in odd ways (I think its trying to do some kind of HDR).
Installation
1. Extract this zip file to the games exe directory. In my case this is D:\Steam\steamapps\common\PAYDAY The Heist.
2. Play.