Parallax effect for Sacred 2

[Pesmontis 166]

First reported in the Offizial German Forum, this is something new for which I'd like to have some independent testing results: Parallax effect for Sacred 2.
I've been working on this for a few weeks, and I think I produced something worth showing.

To start with, I'm showing a comparison of the Thylysium arena with and without the parallax effect.

image01: parallax_Arena-comparison-01.jpg

image02: parallax_Arena-comparison-02.jpg

The modified shader for this building is the "obj_d_s_b" shader, which is also used for NPCs, for instance the elven blacksmith:

image03: parallax_elven-blacksmith.jpg

Heroes use different shaders, for instance the "obj_skin" and the "obj_skin_cloth" shaders. Here you see the parallax effect with the HE default clothes:

image04: parallax_HE-default-belly-top.jpg

The bulk of the visual things in Sacred 2 is actually terrain, and it would be nice to have a parallax effect for all terrain patches, otherwise you would get something like this: a parallaxed bridge connected to a road patch without parallax:

image05: parallax_bridge-versus-road.jpg

To have a parallax effect for terrain, I modified the "base.shader". To illustrate this I made a few screenshots with a very strong parallax effect:

image06: parallx4x_Ancient-Chambers-02-web.jpg

image07: parallx4x_Temple-floor-02-web.jpg

In the files I uploaded, the parallax effect is 4x less strong than in these last two images.
Although I got some good results, the effect for terrain is still very 'patchy', and I don't know how to change this.


The files for this mod can be downloaded here:
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=C74367DE5EF781A2&id=C74367DE5EF781A2!303

One of these files is my actual 'shader.zip', which can be copied into the folder <Sacred 2>\pak (but first create a backup of your original 'shader.zip').

The names of the other files point to subdirectories of the 'pak' folder (for instance "mq.patches.standard.zip" and "mq.maps.architecture.hochelfen.arena.rar"), where they should be unpacked.

The file "mq.maps.architecture.hochelfen.arena.rar" contains the textures for the large Arena in Thylysium. This is one of the few buildings that I used to test the parallax effect.
If desired I can make new textures for other buildings as well. These textures carry the extension "_nhxi.dds", pointing to their uncommon content and format. To use these textures, I added the characters "hxi" to their respective entries in surface.txt. You might also rename them with the extension "_n.dds".

Background
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_mapping
The parallax effect in computer games is actually not very difficult to understand. For instance if you look at rough terrain at an angle, you rather see the protrusions than the dimples. But if you look straight down on the same terrain, you can also see into the dimples. The difference in the viewing angle creates a higher awareness of depth.

Alas the implemantation of a parallax effect into the various shaders also has a high toll on the refresh rate in Sacred 2 on my PC, and I can't even test my changes to the full, so any help is welcome.