Strange smeary shadows on vessel

[quasitonality]

In this screencap the sun is directly behind the camera, so those shadows shouldn't even be there at all. Any ideas what could cause this sort of artifact? 

[Mahnarch]

Space ghosts?

 

Kinda interesting, though. Looks a little like scorch marks - if'n they don't move.

[Vanamonde]

Do you have any mods installed? I have never seen this in stock KSP. 

[Rocket Witch]

Looks like a byproduct of an SSAO-imitation effect from a post-process injection shader, ie. things like ReShade's MXAO.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Rocket Witch

[jimmymcgoochie]

Looks like the sort of thing I've seen before with TUFX, try disabling any post-processing effects (TUFX and KS3P) and see if it improves?

[Stamp20]

I've had this same issue and it's really been bothering me. The worst part is that the glitch is really inconsistent, it's a mod issue as it doesn't happen in my 100% stock install but in most of my old screenshots the glitch doesn't happen.

Stock vs modded install:

Spoiler

Stock graphics settings

Modded graphics settings. The only difference is the render quality and texture quality.

I didn't get a screenshot of the test vessel in stock but here it is in my modded save:

Mod list:

Spoiler

Some older screenshots showing how inconsistent it is:

Spoiler

2 separate rovers launched in the same save with mostly the same mods:

The top one is more recent, and looks a lot worse. Part of the issue might be that the top rover is on a Kerbol Origins planet, while the bottom one is on Dres.

Sometimes the shadows are really high quality, like in these images.

This screenshot from my Beyond Home save taken in 2020 is one of few screenshots I could find with the smeary shadows in it.

 

[Minmus Taster]

i think it's an issue with Kopernicus, I had the same problem using it.

Do you have that installed right now?

[Davi SDF]

It's the camera-man of course! I don't know, i've never saw anything like this.