RE: Shadow Module

[nige777]

Hi again,

I am in the process of populating my training sim with an avatar or two - and all is well with that. To ground them in the scene I am trying to implement shadows, which i have successfully done before in another scene (more by luck than judgement), however, than scene had a flat ground plane and was not as complex as this scene which is awash with physics.

The problem I am having is that the shadows don't always show up as the avatar walks across the scene, by that I mean that the shadow appears to disappear behind a poly as he walks down the incline and doesn't reappear! I have tried altering the SHADOW_POS variable - which seems to affect where and when it can be seen but never sort it.

My ground, while uneven (slopes down to road) is all one object and- as far as i can tell- is a 'water tight' mesh. Any ideas what is happening? Am i fundamentally misunderstanding the way that the shadow module works?

As always, all help gratefully received

[farshizzo]

The shadow projector can only cover a finite area. You could increase the size of the area, but this means your shadows won't be as smooth. Another option would be to have the shadow module follow the x,z position of the avatar. If your avatar is the only object that casts shadows then this is the best solution. Your shadows will always be sharp and your avatar will be able to walk all around your environment.

[nige777]

I had wondered if that would be the solution, but as there are multiple shadow casters in my scene I have ended up getting good results by upping the shadow size and the resolution.

Just out of interest is there a limit to the shadow casters one can assign, or is this governed more by the graphics card?

Thanks for the clarification,