Point light shadows?

[Zeckul]

In the PC Gamer demo, one of the first things I noticed around the campfire was the absence of shadows casted by the fire. Characters instead casted a small shadow all in the same direction.

 

Shadows casted from visible lights sources such as lamps, torches, fires, etc. (doesn't need to be dynamic sources necessarily, but that would be even nicer) would increase the impression of connection between the characters and the plane they're supposed to be on. Right now they still appear to float somewhere above it, although I eventually got used to the imperfect illusion and didn't notice it as much.

 

If it's too late to add this now, it could be considered for future expansions or games based on the engine, or via a patch.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Zeckul

[nipsen]

I'm pretty sure they're just limiting the light sources that cast shadows in real-time, or avoid using real-time shadowing completely, to not get into any huge slowdown problems whenever you get more than three mobs on the screen at the same time, and so on. I haven't looked that much at unity, but I'm imagining that mixing real-time and pre-computed lightmaps - and making it actually look good - would be difficult. Not impossible, but probably would take some serious voodoo and handcrafting per scenario to shave off the rough edges, and so on.

 

But yes.. I was wondering about this as well. If we didn't really care all that much about the Infinity Engine look, and the solid, 2d-like object surfaces that look fixed like on a table, and so on -- would it be possible to add a low-res "flicker" shadow from any "sharp" lightsources?

 

I mean, you can see it, right? You have a board with pieces lighted by a dim overhead ..bulb.. And there's a candle making the shadows on the models flicker back and forth over by the village that's burning down. *shrug*

 

Definitely something I hope they put on the Unicorns&Rainbow list of wishes for the game, at least.

[Lephys]

I agree that just the presence of some dynamic shadows would be significantly better than none. Super-accurate, hi-res shadows shaped exactly like they should be, is not really important.

[Falkon Swiftblade]

I don't know if it's the best option, but I wonder what's from keeping them from rendering out the shadows in 3d with the characters using alpha channels and transparency and turning them into an image sequence similar to how you would in after fx? The files are pretty small, and it would looks tons better. One of my pet peeves in the demo is the shadow is always facing the same way in the dungeon, no matter where in the room they walk even though it's clear the light source is not the same in each room or environment. Plus the shadow is darker at the top of the head area in the demo, when in fact, the shadow would be darker at the object its coming from. Basically, the feet area would be the darkest part and then fade lighter the further it is from the source. Just try putting your hand against a wall to see what I mean. I know some cheat ways to fake it in photoshop and using alpha channels, but I don't know how it would work in real time with 3d models and their pipeline. Here's the method I use in after effects, and I've used it for 3d models in 3ds max and after effects. This is not me in the video, but the method is the same I use.

 

Edited August 1, 2014 by Falkon Swiftblade

[Sensuki]

I uploaded this as a PNG so if someone is any good at photoshop, maybe they can enhance the image so the text is more readable, but if you take a look at the current (obviously unfinished) Graphics options in PE - there looks to be a point lighting entry

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I guess it shouldn't be a big problem to have character cast a dynamic shadow over light sources. After all, light sources ARE 3-dimensional objects according to the tech demo.