Vávra shows how DLSS 5 changes Katherine in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Daniel Vávra answered the DLSS 5 argument again with four frames of Katherine from Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. The character was built from Czech actress Kristýna Leichtová. The strip shows a photograph of the actress, Katherine in the unmodified game, the DLSS 5 settings he considers the good ones, and the maximum settings, which he himself calls a mess.

He prefers the third frame: nose, eyes, hair, fine shadows, and the neck sit closer to the actress. Those traits, he says, are already in the model and the textures. The engine's ordinary light just does not reveal them, and DLSS 5 reads the normal maps among other data. A studio can turn the effect up or down. Had the tool existed earlier, his example is that Katherine's model could have been made younger and still lit this way — the face stays a developer choice.

He also names the downside. The image can fall into the uncanny valley, the way motion smoothing on a television turns a film into a soap opera. He treats the technology as early. For now he counts the restrained preset as a step toward the lighting he wanted for the sequel.

Vávra posted the comparison on X.