charonos 0 Posted July 24, 2008 Hi there, has anyone found a workaround for the shadow bug that occurs with big models? I am working on a high rise building (120 m high). I have tried to break the shadow lod into 3 polygons each smaller than 50x50x50, as this solved geometry lod issue with the guys that are modelling carriers. And i have followed all Biki advice on how to triangulate and sharpen the edges plus name the properties. However no luck, it seems that when the player has a certain viewing angle (mostly when the actual shadowcasting model is behind the player) then one face of the model will not be recognized as shadow casting and lets the sunlight through unoccluded. Anyone an idea? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
[aps]gnat 28 Posted July 24, 2008 ... the guys that are modelling carriers. Worse still is that large Resolution LODs loose whole visible sections when veiwed at different angles / locations. OFP actually did a better job. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
charonos 0 Posted July 24, 2008 @[APS]Gnat: I agree, OFP handled it better. And certainly something that BIS should look into for future patches. The thing is that i am modelling a whole downtown scenario, and it is really annoying when you run around under high rise buildings and constantly have disappearing shadows, it kills the whole illusion. I will try to add more polygons to the shadow LOD, like double walls kind of thing, see if that helps. Shadow correctly rendered Shadow breaking up Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
[aps]gnat 28 Posted July 25, 2008 Yes, I can see how the shadows are important for that sort of scape. How you found any difference with a) change in the in-game settings for shadows and b) the numbers of Shadow LODs ? Have you looked at BIS own Hotel and its shadow LOD and config setup? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
charonos 0 Posted July 25, 2008 It happens in bulldozer too, so i'm not sure if it could be down to the ingame settings. I have tried to use many small components in the shadow LOD, but still the same bug. I have only used Shadow LOD 0.000 and adapted the settings from the BIS hotel. (Very weird model by the way, some resolution LODs are totally empty ?! sbsource = shadowvolume prefershadowvolume = 0 Seems that if the hull of all components inside the shadow LOD exceeds certain dimensions then the bug occurs. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
[aps]gnat 28 Posted July 25, 2008 (Very weird model by the way, some resolution LODs are totally empty ?! Suggest you >Select-All< and >UnHide< Are those smaller section connected? Maybe try several smaller "boxes" that overlap slightly to make the whole structure. i.e not actually joined. Or second, like the BIS hotel I think, make several DIFFERENT addons, that when all placed in the same location make up the full shadow lod. i.e. 3 extra addons that have no resolution lod. 1st one only contains the bottom 1/3 the shadow lod, 2nd has middle section of shadow lod and so so ...... maybe Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
charonos 0 Posted July 25, 2008 The small boxes are unconnected but they don't overlap, i can try that. What is an elegant way to use the different addons that you talk about, but for usage in visitor. Would i have to put let's say these 4 .p3ds on top of each other in the exact same position? I wanted to make it easier for map makers, this would be quite odd, but worth a try. Maybe it is possible to add the shadow p3ds as proxies to the main model? The thing is i experimented with how high can the shadow LOD objects be until the error occurs and it is only 20 meters. So i would need like 6 shadow p3ds. As the Telek1.p3d is 30 meters high, it must be all due to the dimensions of the individual components used. That would very fast get me above the 1000 triangle limitation for the shadow LOD. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
[aps]gnat 28 Posted July 26, 2008 Hmmm ... tried my own basic skyscraper - 3 different models, placed in the same location. - first model had Resolution, GEO LOD and shadow lod from 0 to 30meters in height - 2nd model; no Resolution or GEO LOD, but shadow lod from 30 to 60m - 3rd model; no Resolution or GEO LOD, but shadow lod from 60 to 90m Disappointing - The 0-30m shadow was all the time - The 30-60m and 60-90m shadows cut in out, particularly when under the shadow and face away from the building. Seems to be a limit on "radius from player to object/shadow" EDIT ... found the solution. Make all missions at Noon ! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
charonos 0 Posted July 26, 2008 @[APS]Gnat: Thanks for taking your precious time to confirm that bug. Last thing i tried was stacking up little cube components of very small proportions (3m x 3 m x 3m) in the shadow LOD to see if maybe the large faces would cause the problem, but same bug again. Like you said it's a limit, most likely in the matrix transformations for ray intersection checks when calculating the shadows. AT NOON ! Man what an easy solution! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
