Tutorial - Making Shadows

[Skaven 0]

I was asked to wright a tutorial about making shadows for Arma and so I took the opportunity to paste it here, I know this as been explained before, however, this is a dedicated thread and will be easier for future searches.

1 - Open a 10000 distance view LOD (note it's 10000 not 10.000)

2 - Make the model to use as a shadow inside the 10000 LOD ( for example a weapon should be like 200/300 polys tops, of course the less the better).

PS: Don't forget to delete the textures applied on the Shadows model (if you have any) since it's all black you don't need it mapped.

3 - Open a property inside your 10000 Lod and call it Lodnoshadow the value is 0

4 - Open the same property (Lodnoshadow) in all the other Lods but this time give it a value of 1.

5 - Inside the Shadow Lod (10000) with the entire model selected go to Structure/Topology/Find non-Closed and check if you have any opened point/faces (they get red if you do and below on your left O2 tells you the amount of them).

6 - If you do have any opened points/faces you must close them, you may try O2 to close them for you, for that go to Structure/Topology/Close, this should close the model for you, however, sometimes you need to do it by hand since this feature inside O2 as some limitations.

PS: Be sure that all points/faces are closed, the best way to know this is by doing the step I wrote you before Structure/Topology/Find non-Closed and see if it gives you 0/0 on the left part below, if you miss this than not only the shadows won't work as most of the times the game will crash while loading the model.

7 - Finnaly with all points/faces closed, select the entire model and go to Structure/Triangulate \ .

That's it, now try your shadow in game, good luck

MODERATORS: Please fix me the name of the thread

[Farles 0]

Good stuff.

Not sure about that LodNoShadow property thing, never had to deal with it and I got working ingame shadows. You know the specific use for it?

[Skaven 0]

Well I never tried it without it, and since OFP used it I use it also, I didn't knew it wasn't necessary

Thanks for the tip

[raedor 8]

Very cool, thanks. Would you mind adding it to the biki?

[Skaven 0]

Quote[/b] ]Very cool, thanks. Would you mind adding it to the biki?

Sure, it's being done, please fix my topic name I made a mistake and called it MakinK instead of making.

ty.

[VXR 9]

Very cool, thanks. Would you mind adding it to the biki?

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Category:ArmA:_Modelling

How can I add an aticle to the page? I looked on the Wiki but was not able to find the Create article button.

[raedor 8]

Very cool, thanks. Would you mind adding it to the biki?

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Category:ArmA:_Modelling

How can I add an aticle to the page? I looked on the Wiki but was not able to find the Create article button.

[OT on]

Just take http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ and add the name of the page you want to create.

To add it to the mentioned category, write this at the end of the page:

Quote[/b] ][[Category:ArmA: Modelling]]

I created an empty page with category for now:

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Creating_Shadow_LODs

[OT off]

[NZXSHADOWS 0]

NVM

[MehMan 0]

Also, do the shadow models have to be trianguliazed?

[NZXSHADOWS 0]

Quote[/b] ]7 - Finnaly with all points/faces closed, select the entire model and go to "Structure - " Triangulate \"

yeap, Do it after everthing is closed.  

An Lod 10000 is your shadow.

[raedor 8]

Moving to appropiate place.