I am trying to decide on an engine for a new project and I really like Irrlicht so far. My only concern though is about shadows. All the screenshots I've seen and tests I ran showed very ugly shadows (stencil). The rest of the rendering looks good but the dynamic shadows are way behind.
Can someone prove me wrong and show me some screenshots showing the shadow capabilities of Irrlicht?
What method did you use to get that type of shadowing?
Thanks a lot
PS: Really hoping to be able to stick to Irrlicht
Concern with shadows capabilities
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FriendlyWarlord
- Posts: 58
- Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:54 pm
Hi, sorry for reviving this old thread...
I'm also planning on using Irrlicht for a project, and shadows happen to play a semi-important role. I'm not too concerned about how good or "realistic" the shadows look, but fast rendering is pretty much a must. Basically they need to semi-normally light up a room (for example, if there's a single light in an otherwise pitch-black house, the light does not shine through walls). And stencil shadows are pretty much out of the question =p
So, I'm thinking the best solution would be to use something like the per-poly shadow techique in this thread:
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... p?t=17045& (view the image)
The problem with it is the hard blocky edges (they would look bad for characters' shadows). Here's an idea I have to improve it (warning, I don't know any technical terms!):
Instead of each poly having either a shadow (black) or no shadow (white), there is some number of shades of gray. Say, if you take a "does the light shine here" sample from 8 different places in a poly, instead of just one, then lets say some poly has light hitting 5 of those 8 points. So there'd be a 5/8 shadow for that poly, and it would appear 5/8 as dark as a poly completely in shadow. Sorry I'm so bad at explaining this, but has anything like this been implemented in Irrlicht? If not, where can I get the simple shadow method used in the above linked thread?
Another alternative would be mapping a texture (very low-res is ok) onto each lit surface. Again, this texture would need shades of grey (not just pure black and white). Is there anything like this available?
Hope someone can help - I'm not in a rush for an answer though =]
I'm also planning on using Irrlicht for a project, and shadows happen to play a semi-important role. I'm not too concerned about how good or "realistic" the shadows look, but fast rendering is pretty much a must. Basically they need to semi-normally light up a room (for example, if there's a single light in an otherwise pitch-black house, the light does not shine through walls). And stencil shadows are pretty much out of the question =p
So, I'm thinking the best solution would be to use something like the per-poly shadow techique in this thread:
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... p?t=17045& (view the image)
The problem with it is the hard blocky edges (they would look bad for characters' shadows). Here's an idea I have to improve it (warning, I don't know any technical terms!):
Instead of each poly having either a shadow (black) or no shadow (white), there is some number of shades of gray. Say, if you take a "does the light shine here" sample from 8 different places in a poly, instead of just one, then lets say some poly has light hitting 5 of those 8 points. So there'd be a 5/8 shadow for that poly, and it would appear 5/8 as dark as a poly completely in shadow. Sorry I'm so bad at explaining this, but has anything like this been implemented in Irrlicht? If not, where can I get the simple shadow method used in the above linked thread?
Another alternative would be mapping a texture (very low-res is ok) onto each lit surface. Again, this texture would need shades of grey (not just pure black and white). Is there anything like this available?
Hope someone can help - I'm not in a rush for an answer though =]
=D