ForceShadows skins for AI?

[nbohr1more]

On thinking about common mapper optimizations, the good ole "noshadows" lights are always a contraversial

option but sometimes indispensable for outdoor areas (etc).

 

One thing that I haven't seen discussed much is the opposite arguement "ForceShadows".

 

It was obviously created for a purpose and it become far more obvious when you think of the two options

together. You set a light to noshadows then you set forceshadows on only objects that you think will need

them such as AI, movables, or large occluders.

 

So should we make a few "forceShadows" skins for AI (or rather their shadow mesh)?

[Obsttorte]

For such a purpose you normally leave the shadow-casting enabled on the light and set noshadows one the opbjects around that you don't want to cast shadows. In addition the noshadows option is also used on ambient lights. If such a light would suddenly cause a shadowcast with an ai for example this would look really odd.

[nbohr1more]

Good point. I wonder if the engine treats ambient lights differently in this regard? Though you're probably right, ambient lighting was broken in Doom 3 therefore one shouldn't expect it to work in this case. Still, the idea is to reduce some mapper work with regard to these scenarios. The downside would be entity folder clutter though.

Edited October 7, 2014 by nbohr1more

[nbohr1more]

Hmm... doesn't look like it would be too hard to fix ambients:

 

Material.h

 

bool	LightCastsShadows() const { return TestMaterialFlag( MF_FORCESHADOWS ) ||
( !fogLight && !ambientLight && !blendLight && !TestMaterialFlag( MF_NOSHADOWS ) ); }

// fog lights, blend lights, ambient lights, etc will all have to have interaction
// triangles generated for sides facing away from the light as well as those
// facing towards the light. It is debatable if noshadow lights should effect back
// sides, making everything "noSelfShadow", but that would make noshadow lights
// potentially slower than normal lights, which detracts from their optimization
// ability, so they currently do not.

 

whoops... maybe not...

 

   // forceShadows allows nodraw surfaces to cast shadows
else if ( !token.Icmp( "forceShadows" ) ) {
SetMaterialFlag( MF_FORCESHADOWS );
continue;

Edited October 7, 2014 by nbohr1more