Soft shadows?

[Ekt0F0rm]

How do I get soft shadows from a dynamic light rather than the hard shadows that I see now?

[_freespace_]

I'd also be interested to know how to increase shadow quality from large area lights, like a sunlight in a large outdoor map. Because after building the lighting, the shadows are quite lowres and having them crisper would make the level look tons better.

[Ekt0F0rm]

Just to clarify, the shadows I am dealing with are dynamic and not related to any light maps.

[CreepyD]

not sure about being dynamic, but changing the shadow colour to light grey made it much softer for me.

[Ekt0F0rm]

Here is what I am talking about... the dynamic shadows:

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee105/Ekt0F0rm/hard_shadow.jpg

[_freespace_]

They look like this in the editor, but once you build them, they look like crap. I'm talking about all shadow types, even static ones.

[Ekt0F0rm]

Well this is what the dynamic light's shadows look like (regardless of building lighting or not, since they are not using light maps) I am just wondering if there is any way to apply soft shadows so the edge does not look so bad.

[_freespace_]

This is similar to Raytraced shadows in 3dsmax, and you couldn't really soften them up there. Only thing you could do in 3dsmax was either go for Shadow Maps ( which don't look too good in large scenes, and aren't as precise ), or go for advanced illumination from area lights, which took minutes to hours to render per frame, so it's definetely not the case for a game.

In the cinematics of UT3, I'd say they've had Shadow Maps on the characters and such ( you can see the shadow pixels ). Same goes for the shadow on your weapons, in-game.

Now, do you know how to make light map shadows crispier?

[Hellcat]

Now, do you know how to make light map shadows crispier?
Go to "Surface properties" of the surface you want crispier shadows on, there on "Lighting" => "Lightmap Resolution" => the lower the value, the sharper the shadow - and the longer it takes building them, so don't just do a CTRL-A for it ;)

[SKYFURNACE]

in addition shadows don't have to be "black" try lighting the shade of color in hte properties of the light source.

[Caravaggio]

Go back to 2005...?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m7T5ay_8DI&feature=related

(sorry for all the non-answers :p )

[jansoft88]

I was gonna say the "surface Properties" Lightmap res but it's already been said. It's usually a good idea to select very few prominent surfaces to case crispier shadows on and leave the other surfaces to a lower res shadows. Just a reminder that contrary to what you might think, a smaller Lightmap Res means more "crispy" shadows.

And hey SKYFURNACE, I updated my BSP issue thread with a link to the problematic file, Can you please check it out?

[Ekt0F0rm]

Caravaggio, I hear them mention area lights and light functions, but I am already using a light function for one of the lights and still no soft shadow effect like I see in that video. Is there some hidden setting somewhere or do I need to do something to my material?

[SafeFire]

I used to pull some old time hax and throw up 7 lights per light, each a few unit to plus/minus on XZY of the original light, and divide brightness with 7. Gave some softer edges on the old engine, but I haven't had a go at on the new engine.

[DS3]

check bCastCompositeShadows and bCastDynamicShadows

[Ekt0F0rm]

Ok so I have bCastDynamicShadows already set. I set bCastCompositeShadows and did not notice any change. The shadows still have a hard edge.

[R_Diaz]

Ok so I have bCastDynamicShadows already set. I set bCastCompositeShadows and did not notice any change. The shadows still have a hard edge.


Rebuild your lighting.

[Nawrot]

Sorry to inform you, but soft shadows are reserved only for static lighting and light maps.

Dynamic shadows are stencil ones and can not produce soft edges.

All you can do with dynamic light is semi transparent shadow (not totally black). Maybe trick with 2 lights and different shadow strengths can produse a bit fuzzy shadow, but i did not play with it yet so i am not sure.

[Ekt0F0rm]

So basicly your saying that this "100% fully dynamic real-time fuzzy soft shadows for all environments" as stated here: http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Unreal_Engine_Versions/3

and the effects seen in the video that Caravaggio posted a link to (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m7T5ay_8DI&feature=related) cannot be used or are hindered?

I noticed this tab which seems to contain nothing:
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee105/Ekt0F0rm/dynamic_shadow_stats_window.png

If the real time shadows I have right now are not real time shadows then what are?

[Caravaggio]

It might have just been removed. In each iteration of the engine there's been more than a few things that it was capable of, but were deactivated because either A. current hardware couldn't handle it (see old area 51 shots, they removed a lot of dynamic lights for the final game) or B. they didn't want to put out too much technology now so that it'll make the next generation of the engine seem that much more impressive. Most likely A though. For example, we could've had bump maps in ut2004, there was some code for it, but it wasn't enough/wasn't active so modders were never able to use it.

[Knazzer]

Would like to know to. I watched the old Unreal Engine 3 Tech demo and would like to achieve some of those nifty lighting effects...

[Ekt0F0rm]

Would like to know to. I watched the old Unreal Engine 3 Tech demo and would like to achieve some of those nifty lighting effects...

Indeed... I sure hope they did not strip down the engine for UT3 too much... The amazing environments I saw in screens and videos of UE3 is one of the reasons for my two SLIed 8800 GTX Cards and a Quad Core... I sure hope I can use them to their maximum potential.

[cHeal]

Well I haven't seen any ability to soften dynamic shadows, but if you use them in conjunction with very specific mild static lighting, it does look very nice.

Basically the dynamic lighting doesn't account for light bounce and thus provices generally less atmosphere that Static lighting. Apart from softening the shadows, anyone know any way of making dynamic lights translucent? This would help to some extent, in the mean time, using well placed static light creates a rather nice effect.

[Sabo]

eh cHeal? static lighting doesn't 'account for light bounce' either. It does do softshadows though.
I too would like to know how to make dynamic lights/softshadows, It's a real shame if they've removed it. I really wanna play around with it tbh :(

Oh and btw Ekt0F0rm in that video they said they had 2 lightmaps, one sharp, and another blurred, and that it differentiated between the two depending on the range.

[Knazzer]

In the unreal Engine demo i'm sure they showed dynamic shadows with softness & faded when light emitted further etc..

[Ekt0F0rm]

In any case it looks like I will have to use light maps for almost everything anyway. I remember making a map for UT2004 a couple years back that was 243 MB in size. Reason for being so large: Light maps! This is an extreme case but there were huge areas that looks like crap without setting the light maps to the highest detail level (those large areas were split into square blocks of bsp to make sure that the shadows were not to big an jagged). Lighting and light direction were a large part of the map's theme but as you can imagine I did not bother to finish it because who wants to download a 243 MB map?! Nobody does! :)

Oh well:)

[cHeal]

eh cHeal? static lighting doesn't 'account for light bounce' either. It does do softshadows though.
I too would like to know how to make dynamic lights/softshadows, It's a real shame if they've removed it. I really wanna play around with it tbh :(


Oh yeah I know, I was just kinda making the point in regards to dynamic lighting as really without light bounce dynamic lighting will never really look all that. I'll probably stick with static lighting for the most part at the moment, with dynamic in very specific area's.

Done a quick test yesterday, after seeing threads here on the subject, made a large cube cut out with a dynamic light, a single static light and a Dark walker. Looked really really good but the dynamic shadows kept disappearing once I got so far from the light, which was a little odd. So I might have a look to see if there is a setting for that.

[jjensson]

So basicly your saying that this "100% fully dynamic real-time fuzzy soft shadows for all environments" as stated here: http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Unreal_Engine_Versions/3

and the effects seen in the video that Caravaggio posted a link to (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m7T5ay_8DI&feature=related) cannot be used or are hindered?


1) All characters cast dynamic soft shadows in GOW, so it's definitely still in the engine. EDIT: Now i'm not shure anymore if the shadows are dynamic (= caused by different lights affecting the players), but they are soft and are cast on all surfaces. In UT3 the shadows seem to be cast always from above.

2) All the dynamic soft shadows in that video are light functions, as far as i understand it. Check out Hourences' tutorial about light functions and do some tests for yourself. Note: Hourences focuses more on lightfunctions as a projector effect, but it should work for other things too.

I've not done that stuff myself yet, and therefore i'm not 100% sure, but i will try it out in the next weeks.
jj

[Nawrot]

1) All characters cast dynamic soft shadows in GOW (for UT3 i'm not sure, but it should work there too), so it's definitely still in the engine.

2) All the dynamic soft shadows in that video are light functions, as far as i understand it. Check out Hourences' tutorial about light functions and do some tests for yourself. Note: Hourences focuses more on lightfunctions as a projector effect, but it should work for other things too.

I've not done that stuff myself yet, and therefore i'm not 100% sure, but i will try it out in the next weeks.
jj

I hope that those effects are possible to create in ut3.

But i am sure that for now dynamic shadows are broken, thet cull distance of 5 feet kills whole purpose.

[Ekt0F0rm]

I hope that those effects are possible to create in ut3.

But i am sure that for now dynamic shadows are broken, thet cull distance of 5 feet kills whole purpose.

Yep!:) Now if there was some way of changing the cull distance upon loading the map maybe with a custom object. That is, permitting that the cull distance can be changed via script or commands.

[jjensson]

Never mind. I have to investigate...
jj

[Ekt0F0rm]

In another issue regarding dynamic lighting... I suppose I have to use dynamic lights for a lot of things since a lot of surfaces just don't look right without it.

Here is what dynamic lighting looks like with some spot lights:
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee105/Ekt0F0rm/dynamic_lighting.jpg



Here is what the same lights look like as static (there is a loss of direction as to where the lights actually are with specularity as well well as the lighting seems to be coming from the wrong direction):
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee105/Ekt0F0rm/static_lighting.jpg

I am wondering in terms of performance is there a limit as to how many dynamic lights can intersect each other like I have seen in some other engines? For example, I have seen engines that use hundreds of dynamic lights all in the same scene but never have more than 4 dynamic lights intersecting because performance starts to drop.

[cHeal]

Yep!:) Now if there was some way of changing the cull distance upon loading the map maybe with a custom object. That is, permitting that the cull distance can be changed via script or commands.

I doubt very much the Cull distance can be changed for vanilla UT3 for performance reasons, levels should all run at around about the same speeds. I just hope it's possible to change it for mods and stuff.

[Stardog]

For example, I have seen engines that use hundreds of dynamic lights all in the same scene
I doubt that, but I think the think about lights interesecting each other is true of the Doom 3 and Thief 3 engines anyway.

[Ekt0F0rm]

I doubt that, but I think the think about lights interesecting each other is true of the Doom 3 and Thief 3 engines anyway.

The scenes may have hundreds of dynamic lights, but at certain distances their dynamic effects become a lot less and the quality also goes way down.

[Decency]

I hope I don't get banned for this, but it really seems like the dynamic lights are broken right now. The shadows seem to be fickle about appearing, and this whole culling thing makes them completely useless. I was hoping to have a moving platform with lights on it fly around and light a scene with soft shadows, but it looks like I am going to have to settle for work arounds...

[Ekt0F0rm]

I hope I don't get banned for this, but it really seems like the dynamic lights are broken right now.

Why would you think you would get banned? It is a legitimate topic to bring up in the forum appropriately titled "Level Editing, Modeling & Skinning." Those things are why the forum is here.:D

[ffejnosliw]

Dynamic soft shadows are only used when a dynamic object casts a shadow from a static (meaning non-moving) light.

Dynamic lights are certainly not broken and neither are dynamic shadows. The culling of dynamic shadows at distances appears to be controlled by settings, specifically ShadowVolumePrimitiveScreenSpacePercentageThreshol d, in the UTEngine.ini file.

[Ekt0F0rm]

I just noticed something else... it seems that the dynamic shadows of say KActors are only cast onto BSP if the light itself is using a light function or the light is set to force dynamic.

[WrATH]

Pretty sure it's not, UE3 is just a slightly better version of UE2 and UT2004. I've seen nothing so far in the editor that matches the UE3 demo about 2 years ago.

[N3m3s1s360]

I agree with you guys, the soft dynamic shadows I was dissapointed that they didn't appear in the final game in maps. It kindof just looks like higher poly maps with higher lightmap resolution and some post-processing.

If you look at the crysis editor its got a excellent lighting system for shadows and such. The unreal 3 engine is well-optimized imho and I think adding dynamic shadows to maps ( maybe even just to the sunlight ) would be waaay better and maybe not tooo demanding.You could even just have an option for quality levels in graphics options ( which brings me to express my view on the lame advanced graphics settings, I mean come-on its only got two options).

Well anyways at least i see you guys have the smae dilema. I am not alllllooooooonnnneee