question about shadows on characters.

[*KEEPER* 0]

in many of the latest in-game screen shots it appears that helmets on many of the characters (especially Russians) seem to not render a shadow over the eyes and faces anymore like they were able to do in ArmA 1. Is this a result of Low settings being used when the screens were taken or is it a performance trade-off that we will have to live with from now on?

[ohara 0]

Its because we have now new better method - cascade shadow buffers for higher detailed soft shadow, but its not finished now. So on some object that it used stencil shadows its not working yet, dont worry about that.

[Lou Montana 101]

BI's keeping an eye on you, designing the game and answering questions

Good luck with shadows, as it is a big part of immersion, huge load of work, and also a big calculation eater... !

[Praelium 0]

Its because we have now new better method - cascade shadow buffers for higher detailed soft shadow, but its not finished now. So on some object that it used stencil shadows its not working yet, dont worry about that.

Does that mean the lighting, (headlights, searchlights, ect), will be less "blocky"? Also, I would be amazed if the answer is yes, but will we have dynamic shadows for those lights?

[ohara 0]

This is different problem- dynamic lightmaps, we have that in VBSx done, but i dont know if there will be time to transfer this lighting method to ARMA2, but we talked about that.

[whisper 0]

I just hope it won't be the FPS eater that it is in ArmA.

I know it's not usefull at all, but what I'd love to see is something alike Far Cry 2 shadows rendering, which seems to have very, very minimal impact on FPS.

[Praelium 0]

This is different problem- dynamic lightmaps, we have that in VBSx done, but i dont know if there will be time to transfer this lighting method to ARMA2, but we talked about that.

If it makes a difference, I've personally found the lighting in the first Arma to be a big pet peeve. It really doesn't look too good, and it'd be a shame to have an old problem like that ruin the atmosphere in Arma II. Still, time and money is priority and I understand that.