I didnt have any problems whit shadows (with Tweaks) but after de patch 1.3, and whith the same .ini the shadows looks bloky sometimes and i saw this rare shadow effect in a dead NPC, indoors.

Are you sure that you had insert 1.5 and three zero? I had a very very similar problem and I fixed it in this mode.
Try to ask here http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=283 The author is really good with shadows of Skyrim.

I noticed this too, but I only get it when I'm indoors. I first noticed it in ver 1.2.

hmm...noticed that iBlurDeferredShadowMask lessens the effect. (not sure at wat cost, but i think it blurs the edges of the shadows)

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/3356/screenshot3yxx.jpg

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=20
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/3810/screenshot2av.jpg

i think im just gonna go through each setting and see wat happens

skyrim.ini
[Display]
fSunShadowUpdateTime=-1.0000
fSunUpdateThreshold=-0.5000

skyrimprefs.ini
[Display]
fShadowBiasScale=0.6000
iShadowMaskQuarter=5
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0 (you can try 8, 20 or 32 with this setting, just test and see which you prefer)
fShadowDistance=4000.0000

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/23/tweaking_skyrim_image_quality/2

That video shows the problem nicely.
None of the ini tweaks fix this.

The sun shadows and the flicker/strobe effect can be fixed... but that shadow bug shown in the video at the Breezehome is the last and only shadow bug that does not seem fixable.

Bethesda if you reading this please fix this.

The banding seems to be gone in this screenshot. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!?

yeah but stand in front of that small cupboard and show us how the shadows look. Your shadows like smoothed, but thats nothing new, other people have been able to achieve that with ini tweaks. e.g. one guy got smooth shadows with fShadowDistance 800 - Some get it set to High instead of Ultra.

well ive pretty much given up because im pretty sure its a rendering issue related to aliasing of shadows

i did notice this:
[media]http://youtu.be/HzD00Nnf_R0[/media]


seems the proximity to the light source effects severity

Final Verdict for now:
I have discovered this issue affects only and all light sources tied to iShadowMaskQuarter

iShadowMaskQuarter=0
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/1682/screenshot2es.jpg

iShadowMaskQuarter=4
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/8434/screenshot3ea.jpg

however this setting is required for certain light sources to work, so i do not recommend you disable it.
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=20 helps reduce the effect by bluring shadows

I get this as well, BOTH inside and outside. I've had it since launch, it's very annoying. It's known as "Shadow Acne (Fig.8)", which is all explained below. It's a very common problem during development, but is usually fixed BEFORE release. This also explains why the shadows (Fig.5) in the Skyrim look so bad too.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee416324(v=vs.85).aspx

ive got this same banding, and a heavily tweaked ini file. im not sure what my shadowmaskquarter value is, but i dont remember touching it, and im too lazy to look (its almost bedtime for me).

pretty sure its something to do with the 1.3 patch and some sort of tweak they applied somewhere else in the code, as i did not have this issue with 1.2 or 1.1 (unless i never noticed, but it did stick out like a sore thumb when i first saw it so i doubt i'd have missed it previously.

ive only noticed this inside breezehome (which ive heard has a lot of problems anyway compared to the other houses). ive never noticed this anywhere else with fireplaces.

Yes, I have it too... (Has been here since day 1.1)
No, there is no "User fix" for this "bad object".

Any attempts to fix it, will alter your exterior shadows. Apparently it is setup as an exterior shadow/light, and is surrounded by an improperly setup invisible collision wall. The wall is only invisible to the player, but partly visible to the light in the flame. (Stupid really, since flames don't seem to hurt you... why not just let us walk through them. Blocking us from non-danger is just an annoyance and waste of game resources. lol.)

yeah ur rit I get strange shadows if I stand directly in front of that cupboard .....

my ini is heavenly tweaked since day1 got all the info I needed from this forum .

The shadows basically look bad no matter what u do unless u change the resolution.Beth made the shadow setting they tried to make them look good and they know what they are doing.If u cant handle Ultra setting dont even bother trying to make the shadows look good.Ultra shadows look bad anything other then increasing the res will result in strange shadow behavior.

just give up I did weeks ago stopped playing the game got into LA.Noire and anno2070

beth made the mistake to not have different resolutions for close and far shadows far shadows should be at lower res then the shadows right in front of u

anyway they f′d up the shadows really bad Im a cg artist It is a real pain to watch those blocky shadows.I have also just recently finished crysis2 on ultra (well compared to skyrims ultra settings its more like "super mega alpha Z.....2") we are all spoiled and cant enjoy games running on engines from 2001 (source is kind of an exception to this ...) it is kinda sad and the reason why games are 5h long now a days cuz those details have to be put into those games and producing games got freaking expensive

Got the exact same issue

Yeah, I've had this issue since day one. I've been referring to it as "striated shadows." At first, I thought it was a result of the grille underneath the cooking pot, but there are "striated shadows" in the Radiant Raiment shop in Solitude, and a little band of them near the enchanting table inside Proudspire Manor.

yes , it's like that for me as well op.

iShadowMaskQuarter=1 does the trick for me.

[img]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/708/tesv2011120903165916.jpg/[/img]

Exterior shadows not messed up in the process, it's blurry and less than perfect but much better than those shadow lines everywhere, i prefer "soft" shadows anyway.

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=32
fInteriorShadowDistance=1500.0000
fShadowDistance=4000.0000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=2048
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048
iShadowMapResolution=2048
fShadowBiasScale=0.3000
iShadowMaskQuarter=1
iShadowFilter=4

edit.. typo

Changing 2048 to 4096+ did zero visual difference with these settings but -20fps.

Same issue that just started occurring for me today. After I read the NVIDIA tweak guide, I changed some settings in the Skyrim options only - didn't mess with any INI files - and started getting that effect. So, I put everything back the way it was using default High settings, and it's still happening.

Changing the iShadowMaskQuarter to 1 did "improve" the effect in that it no longer looks like rings, but it still looks like crap.

shadows in this game are pathetic

I agree. I definitely tend toward the really devoted fan side and am willing to give Bethesda the benefit of a doubt, and I really love the game, but I'm having a hard time understanding how something like shadows look like such crap even on ultra.

Edit: considering though that the shadows were working before and I'm using beta Nvidia drivers (the shadows were still working even then), and apparently shadows look less glitchy with ATI cards, maybe this isn't their fault. I don't know.

That is because the other light sources do not have cast shadow enabled. (BTW, That setting is used in the toolset not the game menu/ini file.) It seems that when two light sources cross each other's radius you get this anomaly, my guess is because of the archaic method on how the gamebryo engine struggles with shadow rendering.

My shadows are cool for like 30 seconds, then they spaz out all crazy and random, like a strobe light effect or something. I have mine set to "low" at all times though...

Awesome info, thanks. I did notice that it doesn't occur very often so, no big deal.

The lined shadows in the breezehome are caused by the roster thats on top of the fireplace. I'm kind of surprised no one has noticed this before. The jaggies are just poor programming.