Witcher 3 and NVidia Ansel

Since I don't really have any art stuff to share right now, let's start with gaming.

Throughout the years I've liked to take screenshots of games like The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and Oblivion and some others as well. I've used programs like FRAPS and recently I also tried MSI Afterburner. However the quality of the screenshots were always a bit lacking.

I searched around for a more higher resolution solution and stumbled upon NVidia Ansel. The first thing to note about this program is that it only works with selected NVidia video cards and only with a handful of newer games. I have an NVidia GeForce GTX 1060 3GB so I decided to take the program for a spin and try it on Witcher 3.

You enable the screenshot overlay by pressing Alt + F2 ingame. The overlay freezes the game and from there you can change all kinds of stuff like the camera angle and the type of screenshot. This is really important as the type you want is 'super resolution'. But obviously it's worth noting that the files taken with super resolution will be BIG. I always use the lowest setting for the resolution as I simply don't have the need for incredibly large images.

Also, if you are using the console and free camera mod for the game then the console might open as you press F2. This is kind of annoying but it doesn't have to be too big of an issue. Just re-try it a few times and you will get a console-free screenshot. The reason why I also keep the free camera mod is that Ansel does not work during cutscenes.

Now onward to some examples:

Because Ansel freezes the image when you enable it, it's great for capturing action shots in great detail.

Thanks to super resolution, the screenshots display a whopping amount of details.

When you freeze the image and enable Ansel, you are able to move around in the world freely and set up your camera for a perfect composition.

Ansel keeps rendering the game world as you move around so you don't have to shoot only the targets that are right next to Geralt. You also won't experience glitchy stuff that you get with the free camera mod.

Ansel is also great for shooting landscapes as the details are not lost and blurred out.

I find that some other screenshot programs don't really capture lighting accurately enough. Since Ansel works a bit differently, the lighting always shows as it should.

All levels of depth in a landscape are shown because Ansel keeps on rendering the environment as you move the camera. It does have it's limits though so feel free to experiment.

That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed the pretty screenshots. I have loads of screens in my folder and I will be uploading them as I journey on in the world of Witcher 3. I'm about to finish the main campaign on my current play-through and will be heading to the expansion areas soon. I can't wait to test out Ansel in Toussaint!