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Re: Shadows

#31
Not quite what I meant, perhaps I should rephrase it. Could a billboarded object cast it's own shadow on something else, like a billboarded asteroid leaving a shadow (or dimming the light a tad to create a soft shadow created by thousands of asteroids far away) in a way that is easier to create than making shadows on a 3D model?
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Re: Shadows

#32
You just gave me another idea, one that works with billboards and without: using zone tech for (at least planetary) shadows.

Assume a cone as shadow of the planet, the base sits along the circumfence of the planet and its pointing away from the sun.

Now make a couple of raytrace passes from the tip of the cone for ever larger angles and check if you can see the sun.

from this one angle assume perfect circularity of the planet and create a conic zone based on this.

Every object in the zone is now shadowed by the planet and does not need any costly ratrace passes to determine this anymore.

Precomputed shadow based on zone tech :D

Edit:

Reference
http://www.classroomastronomer.com/meas ... wCones.pdf
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Re: Shadows

#33
That's pretty much how I figured it would work, yeah. :D I was assuming a cylinder rather than a cone, but cones make more sense. Implementing planet-only shadows would be easy, and the visual rewards would be huge.

Ships wouldn't be so easy. That'd take a little more computing.
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Re: Shadows

#36
Do not tempt the graphics :monkey: !

:D

Actually, this would be pretty sweet. There are few things in art that will suck your eyeballs out of your head like a Tex Avery wolf more effectively than great lighting, and computer games can do it dynamically.

I think personally I'd like to hear first that simulations confirm LT should run well in a huge universe with interesting AI.

But after that, if Content Josh wants a break, I'm all for unleashing Graphics Josh on some fancy new dynamic lighting (and shadowing) effects. Adding that to the beautiful nebulae he's already figured out how to generate... wow.
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Re: Shadows

#38
Flatfingers wrote:Actually, this would be pretty sweet. There are few things in art that will suck your eyeballs out of your head like a Tex Avery wolf more effectively than great lighting, and computer games can do it dynamically.
I strongly agree. Of course, it would be after Josh finishes everything else... but I really love those shadows.
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