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meshcarver

Fussy SHADOW LOD question, pics inside...

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Hey up,

Because some of my resLODS are crooked/dented etc, when it comes to the shadowLODS, then I have to make them considerably smaller so they don't cause shadows on the overlap with the resLOD.

I've tried making them bigger than the entire resLOD, with the now obvious effect of making the resLOD ALL in shadow..!

Apart from creating a few components for the shadowLODS, is there a clever way around this so the shadowLOD is almost exactly the same size as the resLOD, as you can see from the picture it's not flush with the edge of the resLOD:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86890612@N02/8454231621/in/photostream

Fussy I know, but it'd be nice to get these things accurate were possible- if not, no problem, it's make do I suppose.

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I'm not sure which software your using, but in my very little experience in 3d modeling I've used Oxygen 2 and a little bit of 3ds Max but it's very intimidating to me. But any how when I use Oxygen 2 to create the shadow lod I had to copy my model, place it in the shadow lod, make the object closed, triangulate the faces and then reverse the faces. I hope this helps or gives you a better idea of how one way BI creates a shadow lod for objects.

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as allready suggested by reaper, copy model in a new lod, define this as shadow lod. delete all materials and textures from the model, check if your model is closed, if no close it (either with the automated function or manually). when the model is closed triangulate the faces. when that is done, do a select all and then press u, that gives the model the needed sharp edges for shadow lod(pressing u is important, prolly ur problem).

maybe write a lodnoshadow=1 in your normal lod´s, check that shadows are enabled in buldozer and see how it looks.

reaper allready mentioned that you can reverse the faces, thats pressing w after all the above is done. be aware that reversing faces is not needed if u have a proper model in the shadow lod. hope that helps

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what is wrong with this shadow ?

it is okay for gaming, i see no problem with shadow you shown on screen

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The very fussy thing i mention is because the shadow lod is smaller thsn the reslod, so i was hoping for a way to make it same size without causing shadowing in strange areas.

Interesting suggestion to reverse faces too... Ill try that one at least, thanks for suggesting..!

Thanks to you all for your comments here, i know this is very nit picky but thought it best to see if theres some tried and tested ways out there..!

Edited by meanmachine1

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The shadow works by extruding the lit faces of the shadow model in the direction the light is headed. It darkens areas on other polygons that intersect that extrusion. As it says on the biki (I believe), you make have the shadow LOD inside your res lods so that no faces are intersected by the shadowLOD, or you may make closed portions of the shadowLOD inside out. If you think about this, this will cause the program to extrude the inside surface rather than the outside. This causes weird shadows for large volumes but is okay for smaller subobjects.

You may also want to tweak the shadow LOD on a vertex by vertex basis, but the shadowLOD usually must have less volume than the resLOD, it's just how it is.

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