Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Shader Injector Mod Released, Improving Lighting & Shadows

Earlier this week, I informed you about a mod that aimed to add screen-space ray-traced shadows to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Well, the good news is that the mod is now out. The bad news is that it does not add screen-space ray-traced shadows. Instead, it adds support for contact shadows.

Going into more detail, Shader Injector is a DirectX 12 (D3D12) mod that intercepts the game’s rendering calls. This allows it to replace the game’s original shaders with modified versions while the game is running. The mod includes two custom lighting shaders that improve lighting and shadow quality. Best of all, these visual upgrades have only a small impact on performance.

My guess is that in the initial video, the modder mentioned screen-space ray-traced shadows by mistake. He most likely meant contact shadows instead. Even so, contact shadows are a welcome addition. As you will see, they can greatly improve the game’s image quality.

Right now, Shader Injector comes with a modified Directional Light Pass shader and a Local Light Pass shader that add contact shadows, micro shadows, and an upgraded Diffuse BRDF.

You can go ahead and download the mod from this link. At the end of the article, you can also find an installation guide for it.

At this point, I should note that the mod is not compatible with the DX12 Async Compile Mod. That’s a shame, as that mod aimed to fix the game’s shader compilation stutters. So, let’s hope that a future version will work with it.

Speaking of FF7 Rebirth, I also suggest using this 4K Texture Pack. This pack overhauls over 3900 textures. And trust me, the game desperately needed a 4K Mod as a lot of the vanilla textures looked bad.

Then we have this amazing first-person mod. This is another must-have mod for FF7 Rebirth. This mod lets you explore the world of the game in first-person mode. During fights, it switches back to a third-person viewpoint. As such, it feels like an official first-person exploration mode. It’s really cool, so be sure to download it from here.

Have fun!

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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