Strange Shadows
by James Dunmow · in · 11/14/2004 (6:38 am) · 4 replies
Just picked up the Lighting Pack...great work. I can easily see how this will save me tons and tons of time, but I've encountered some 'strangeness'. This might not be unexpected, however, since I've integrated this with 1.3 rather than 1.2.2.
Anyway, two odd things occur. The first is: when I bring in a DTS shape I've exported from Max it lights and shadows up wonderfully, but the shadow it leaves on the terrain is..well...the shadow of my bounding box. This may be a max2dts issue rather than a lighting pack issue. Anyone else had this problem and figured out a way to resolve it?
The other problem is: Once I've loaded up my object and gotten my boxy ground shadow if I load up a tree and put it in the mission, then refresh the lighting the tree shadow shows up just fine for the tree (it's not a shadow of the bounds) but the shadow that -was- being cast for original object vanishes. Tres bizzare.
I'm sure I've just done something retarded in my workflow or in my manual patching. But for all my fidding with it I've yet to figure out the cause. Any of you bright and seasoned lighting people have any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
Anyway, two odd things occur. The first is: when I bring in a DTS shape I've exported from Max it lights and shadows up wonderfully, but the shadow it leaves on the terrain is..well...the shadow of my bounding box. This may be a max2dts issue rather than a lighting pack issue. Anyone else had this problem and figured out a way to resolve it?
The other problem is: Once I've loaded up my object and gotten my boxy ground shadow if I load up a tree and put it in the mission, then refresh the lighting the tree shadow shows up just fine for the tree (it's not a shadow of the bounds) but the shadow that -was- being cast for original object vanishes. Tres bizzare.
I'm sure I've just done something retarded in my workflow or in my manual patching. But for all my fidding with it I've yet to figure out the cause. Any of you bright and seasoned lighting people have any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
#2
Is the object's collision box the same size/shape as its bounding box? The shadows are calculated based on the collision boxes this speeds up processing, also light map shadows generally only show vague outlines of the original object's shape (due to the light maps texture size), which can be accomplished with the collision boxes. Try changing the collision boxes to match the object more closely, but make sure that each collision box is convex.
I'm not sure I understand the second question. Are you trying to get the box to cast onto a tree or are the trees removing the original box's shadows? Oh and try the same mission using the demo exe to see if it works.
-John
11/14/2004 (8:43 am)
Hi James,Is the object's collision box the same size/shape as its bounding box? The shadows are calculated based on the collision boxes this speeds up processing, also light map shadows generally only show vague outlines of the original object's shape (due to the light maps texture size), which can be accomplished with the collision boxes. Try changing the collision boxes to match the object more closely, but make sure that each collision box is convex.
I'm not sure I understand the second question. Are you trying to get the box to cast onto a tree or are the trees removing the original box's shadows? Oh and try the same mission using the demo exe to see if it works.
-John
#3
This answers my second question as well, actually. Still odd it's giving me a boxy shadow on the DTS when I first toss it in and refresh the lighting, but when I put a DTS in the scene -with- collision boxes and relight...my bounds shadow is obviously disappearing because it's being corrected...it's NOT supposed to shadow at all.
Thanks guys.
11/14/2004 (10:01 am)
Collision boxes! Ah-ha! I figured it was something simple I'd missed. I'd whipped up a quick tripod to test the DTS shadows and promptly didn't include collision boxes. ;/This answers my second question as well, actually. Still odd it's giving me a boxy shadow on the DTS when I first toss it in and refresh the lighting, but when I put a DTS in the scene -with- collision boxes and relight...my bounds shadow is obviously disappearing because it's being corrected...it's NOT supposed to shadow at all.
Thanks guys.
#4
01/22/2008 (8:08 am)
Same problem, however I need collision box and the proper shadows both. Any ideas? 
Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark