Cheap shadows?

If you are a new Irrlicht Engine user, and have a newbie-question, this is the forum for you. You may also post general programming questions here.
Post Reply
dark chazz
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:20 pm

Cheap shadows?

Post by dark chazz »

Hi all.

I'm developing a mobile game with irrlicht and I'm wondering if it's possible to do cheap fast shadows in it.
Something like this for example:
Image
Just a simple texture rendered below the character.

Since stencil shadows are very taxing (at least on the irrlicht port I'm using). and realtime shadow maps are out of the question of course, because we're talking mobile here.

Thanks!
hendu
Posts: 2600
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 12:53 pm

Re: Cheap shadows?

Post by hendu »

Of course. Such fake blobs are very cheap and easy to do, and there are infinite ways to do so.

One way would be to render a black sphere at the character's feet, right before rendering the character. If your char can jump, you'll also need to raycast it to the terrain, otherwise just use the feet position. (The sphere would use inverted face culling & depth test)
dark chazz
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:20 pm

Re: Cheap shadows?

Post by dark chazz »

Thank you for the reply!

I'm not sure where to start though. Can you give more hints please?
Also what do you mean by depth test?
kklouzal
Posts: 343
Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2010 8:14 pm
Location: USA - Arizona

Re: Cheap shadows?

Post by kklouzal »

I think he means if the character jumps make the blob smaller.
Dream Big Or Go Home.
Help Me Help You.
hendu
Posts: 2600
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 12:53 pm

Re: Cheap shadows?

Post by hendu »

Start with making a sphere draw at your character's feet.
Post Reply