Unit still has daylight on him inside structure in FIRST PERSON only..?

[meshcarver 12]

Hi guys,

as it says really- I've just finished a structure and when in third person I go inside it the Unit goes darker as he should- but if I switch to first person he's all lit up as if he's outside in the sun..?

Is there something REALLY basic I've missed here please?

Cheers,

Marc

[kiory 405]

ShadowVolume - ViewPilot?

[meshcarver 12]

Hi- could you please elaborate?

[kiory 405]

As in, do you have a lod that has ShadowVolume - View Pilot?.

You can use the same geometry that's in your normal shadow volume.

[meshcarver 12]

I have a shadowLOD yes that is working- casting shadows fine.

What do you mean "view pilot"? Please could you spell it out for a kids brain here lol.?

[kiory 405]

This thing here, you need a new lod that has this, this is the first person view shadow volume.

Like I said you could just copy over what you have in the normal shadow lod you have.

[meshcarver 12]

AHHHHHhhh..! F*(& ME..!?!?!? I did not have the slightest idea what that was..!!! THANK YOU..!!!

So- for ALL structures/buildings etc, you HAVE to have that LOD if you want shadows cast on your unit in FIRST person correct?

[kiory 405]

That would seem to be the case ;)

If it's not, then I have no idea what would be causing that. :/

[meshcarver 12]

Crap- still not working..!

I have it as you said, exactly the same as ShadowLOD and done components and triangulated- basically everything I did for the main ShadowLOD?

I don't know what it could be..? :(

[kiory 405]

Hmm, yea it's beyond me man, I haven't had much experience with buildings, I made one as a test and I was getting all sorts of vertex shading errors when light hits the structure etc, I doubt I'll be much help here. :P

It could be possibly due to the way the multimat is set up, are you even using a multimat?

[meshcarver 12]

Damn... even the BIS Sample House doesn't have a ShadowVolume- View Pilot..!?

I have no idea... anyone... please? ...sniffle... :(

x2 Multimats yes- which I've been informed it is fine to use more than one Multimat on an object.

Thing is, going back through my old models that only use ONE Multimat they are showing the unit lit up inside the structures too now..! So it's probs not because of the x2 Multimats on this one...

[kiory 405]

Let me do some digging, I'm sure I can work this out.

---------- Post added at 15:55 ---------- Previous post was at 15:52 ----------

Alright, it could actually be related to your geometry lod, so make sure you have these in your properties dialogue:

class = house

map = house

damage = building

Prefershadowvolume = 0

sbsource = ShadowVolume

[da12thMonkey 1943]

IIRC shadows only cast on the player and their weapon in first person when you have shadows set to High or Very High in graphics options - you might just be experiencing that.

[kiory 405]

Considering he just checked that his other buildings aren't experiencing the same issue, I doubt it's related to that.

[meshcarver 12]

Kiory..? I love you and want your children... It worked..!!!

Thanks very much for taking the time out to help man, very much appreciated..! It MUST'VE been the Prefershadowvolume = 0 as I had mine to "1". I didn't know what they were even for- just that I got it from a sample properties somewhere...

I might even try without a VIEW PILOT LOD? See if it still works maybe?

Either way, thanks again man..!!! :)

FTR, all my settings are on ULTRA, so it wasn't that mate but thanks anyway.

[kiory 405]

No problem man, Arma works in mysterious ways, yea get rid of that View pilot shadow lod, that's more of a vehicle related thing, like deleting parts of the shadows that won't be seen in first person and so on.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Considering he just checked that his other buildings aren't experiencing the same issue, I doubt it's related to that.

Yea sorry, the part where MC mentioned that was posted before I hit 'submit'.

[meshcarver 12]

Ah shit- hang ten a sec lads...

Just noticed that the shadows look a lot worse with the Prefershadowvolume = 0.

The edges are very noticeably worse- I spotted it straight away. With it set to 1 they look great, really clean and sharp? Why is this..? :(

Damn, I hope this isn't a "one or the other" thing...

[kiory 405]

Nah not to worry mate, it's a class thing, you can fix this by omitting the class = house in the geometry lod, it could also be caused by sbsource = Shadowvolume. Also, removing Prefershadowvolume = 0 entirely could possibly fix the issue to begin with?

Coincidentally, if you actually WANT soft shadows on things, you can have a shadowvolume lod with a resolution of 1000 instead of 1.000.

Another thing I just noticed which can give you a little more control, is having a property in your first lod of the model, shadowvolumelod = 0 (the 0 value is the number of the shadowvolume resolution), also having lodnoshadow = 1 in this lod may fix some issues, as well as using it for the other model lods.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Kiory

[meshcarver 12]

Hey guys,

ok before I hit the sack, I tried a few of these class variations but it seems nothing will work with both those lovely sharp stencil shadows and making the unit dark inside.

Also, by dropping the shadow settings to LOW those stencil shadows appear everywhere on BIS models too but the unit doesn't go dark in THEIR structures either..! So it must be an engine limitation..?

Either way, looks like I'll have to get used to those jaggy shadow edges if I want my units to go dark inside structures...

Thanks very much for all the input lads.

:)