RAW — Rendering Advancement Workshop

A D3D11 rendering platform for Skyrim SE — proxy-based pipeline ownership with mid-frame effect dispatch via SKSE plugin.

Copyright (c) 2026 Zain D. Harper (papacr0w). AGPL-3.0-or-later — see LICENSE; commercial licensing available.

A D3D11 rendering platform for Skyrim SE. Proxy-based pipeline ownership with mid-frame effect dispatch via SKSE plugin.

Status: Active development. Core effects functional, tuning in progress.

What this is becoming

RAW is the seed of a native, dependency-free rendering engine + algorithm simulator — a two-way surface where a model and a person see the same rendered frame and cross-examine it in real time: the verification target (is this right?) and the creative-improvement target (make this better) as one loop. It is meant to feed gallery tools and serve as a reusable resource library — a showcase that this work has value in any creative or technical workflow.

Honest scope: today RAW is a D3D11 proxy for Skyrim SE with the rendering effects below. The real-time two-way cross-examination and the dependency-free native renderer (no DirectX/driver) are the telos — stated as direction, not as shipped. Part of an AI-accountability toolkit (HarperZ9): the rendering eye (eye.raw_rendering) turns frames into witnessed, checkable observations.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Bethesda Softworks or ENBSeries. For use with a legally-owned copy of the base game. Provided as-is, without warranty.

Active Effects

Effect	Algorithm	Status
GTAO	Jimenez 2019 visibility bitmask	Functional, verified in-game
Contact Shadows	Screen-space directional ray march	Functional, needs tuning
Skylighting	Screen-space hemisphere visibility	Functional, noise reduction in progress
SSR	McGuire & Mara 2014 Hi-Z march	Visible artifacts, needs work
SSGI	Voxel cone tracing	Green tint issue, needs rework
Scene Compositor	Multi-effect blend with multi-bounce AO	Functional

Active Post-Processing

Stage	Status
Bloom (Karis + Jimenez 13-tap)	In build, untested
Color Pipeline (AgX, 7 tonemappers)	In build, untested
Tone Map Manager (auto-exposure)	In build, untested

Architecture

• RendererBase — shared base class for all renderers (state, init, enable)
• SharedRAW.hlsli — common HLSL utilities (#include enabled via D3D_COMPILE_STANDARD_FILE_INCLUDE)
• d3d11.dll proxy — wraps Device, Context, SwapChain
• Phase detection — DSV-unbind heuristic classifies 9 render phases
• Mid-frame dispatch — effects run at PostGeometry; PrePresent fallback for legacy mode
• HiZ pyramid — standard-to-reversed-Z depth with mip chain
• External HLSL only — no embedded shader strings; all shaders loaded from disk, F12 hot-reload
• Weather system — 9 categories, auto-modulates effect intensities

Disabled (source preserved, removed from build)

17 renderers removed from compilation pending individual polish: DoF, Lens, Underwater, Atmosphere, Volumetric Clouds, Volumetric Lighting, SSS, Frame Gen, TSR, Grass Lighting, Tree LOD, Water Blending, Dynamic Cubemap, SDSM, Indirect Specular, Screen-Space Decals, Particle Lighting.

Build

cmake -B build -S . -DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x64-windows-static
cmake --build build --config Release --target RAW --target d3d11_proxy

Deploy (MO2)

<mod>/SKSE/plugins/RAW.dll
<mod>/SKSE/plugins/RAW/Shaders/*.hlsl
<mod>/SKSE/plugins/RAW/Shaders/*.hlsli
<mod>/Root/d3d11.dll

In-Game

1. Press INSERT to open debug GUI
2. Click Recommended for safe defaults (GTAO + Contact Shadows + Skylighting + AgX)
3. Pipeline Status section shows proxy/depth/dispatch diagnostics

Shader Development Workflow (No Restarts)

F5  = Dump all effect textures to Data/SKSE/Plugins/RAW/Captures/
F7  = Toggle mid-frame dispatch
F12 = Hot-reload all HLSL shaders from disk
F11 = GPU profiler overlay (per-pass timing)
F10 = 600-frame performance capture to CSV

The loop: edit .hlsl in your text editor → F12 to reload → see result instantly. Use debug modes (SceneCompositor Debug View dropdown) to isolate each effect. F5 dumps BMP files you can inspect at full resolution in any image viewer.

Build

cmake -B build -S . -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=C:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake
cmake --build build --config Release --target RAW --parallel
cmake --build build --config Release --target d3d11_proxy --parallel

Requires: VS2022, CMake 3.24+, vcpkg (x64-windows-static), CommonLibSSE-NG.

Deploy (MO2)

[mod folder]/SKSE/plugins/RAW.dll
[mod folder]/SKSE/plugins/RAW/RAW.ini          (auto-generated)
[mod folder]/SKSE/plugins/RAW/Shaders/*.hlsl    (85 files)
[mod folder]/SKSE/plugins/RAW/ShaderCache/      (auto-generated)
[mod folder]/ROOT/d3d11.dll

Hotkeys

Key	Function
INSERT	Toggle debug GUI
F7	Toggle mid-frame dispatch
F8	Toggle compute passes
F9	Toggle render passes
F10	Frame capture (CSV)
F11	GPU profiler
F12	Hot-reload shaders

Documentation

• ARCHITECTURE.md — depth conventions, SRV slots, pipeline rules
• LICENSE.md — copyright and third-party licenses

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Zentropy Labs · order out of entropy. An independent lab building evidence-first tools that leave a re-checkable artifact behind. Built by Zain Dana Harper in Seattle. The full workbench is at Project Telos.