Depth Map Shadows in Source?
polycounter lvl 17
I'm curious. They never *were* in there, but in the recently released images from the 'Orange' and 'Black' editions, G-Man was looking more spry than usual. Prerenders or in-game? If it's in-game, it's at least a new effect. Either way, new toys to play with when the next Hammer SDK is released.
Self-Shadowing / Depth Map Shadows?
Full list of screens.
It's particularly noticeable in the G-Man screen, that under Alyx's collar, a depth pass failed on her collar, and there's an absence of shadow where the single face is. On the curve of the collar however, there's shadow.
Self-Shadowing / Depth Map Shadows?
Full list of screens.
It's particularly noticeable in the G-Man screen, that under Alyx's collar, a depth pass failed on her collar, and there's an absence of shadow where the single face is. On the curve of the collar however, there's shadow.
Replies
Cool that it looks to be implemented at last though. I never quite understood what all the fuss was about with Source. Its lighting model is pretty standard. Although the HDR update was cool as to be fair.
I note they're using the screen space stipple technique for tree alphas too, 'cos weve been contemplating using it at work. BF2142 uses it, and its a neat way of avoiding the usual problems that come with prolific use of alpha. It works much better in motion than stills.
TF is looking nice. I'd guess they're baking that AO into the models. Good stuff, thanks for sharing.
screen space stipple technique for tree alphas
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what's that when it's at home?
The downside is that at low resolutions it looks crap.
Self Shadowing can be clearly seen in all of those trailers Valve relased. AO is not baked afaik.
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He's right. I hadn't seen it yet. For anyone else who hasn't seen said trailer, here's a link. New Ep2 Trailer
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Self Shadowing can be clearly seen in all of those trailers Valve relased. AO is not baked afaik.
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He's right. I hadn't seen it yet. For anyone else who hasn't seen said trailer, here's a link. New Ep2 Trailer
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"He's right."
Um, he is? No. Look again more closely. There is no evidence of self shadowing character models in the trailers you just linked, EXCEPT the ONE scene with the Gman and Alyx surrounded by *nothing*. So I'll stick with the possibility that its only affordable in cut scenes, thanks.
Furthermore, if you look closely at the flashlight scenes linked, you'll note that there are no shadows in those either.
As for the Ambient Occlusion, I was talking specifically about Teamfortress, and I'd be curious to know how you know for sure that its dynamic. That would seem extremely computationally expensive, and not to mention unecessary, and groundbreaking. No game that I'm aware of has yet to implement realtime AO on character models.
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Self Shadowing can be clearly seen in all of those trailers Valve relased. AO is not baked afaik.
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He's right. I hadn't seen it yet. For anyone else who hasn't seen said trailer, here's a link. New Ep2 Trailer
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"He's right."
Um, he is? No. Look again more closely. There is no evidence of self shadowing character models in the trailers you just linked, EXCEPT the ONE scene with the Gman and Alyx surrounded by *nothing*. So I'll stick with the possibility that its only affordable in cut scenes, thanks.
Futhermore, if you look closely at the flashlight scenes linked, you'll note that there are no shadows in those either.
As for the Ambient Occlusion, I was talking specifically about Teamfortress, and I'd be curious to know how you know for sure that its dynamic. That would seem extremely computationally expensive, and not to mention unecessary, and groundbreaking. No game that I'm aware of has yet to implement realtime AO on character models.
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I wasn't being specific enough. All I meant was 'there is self shadowing in the latest trailer' which is, as you said, on that one scene. I'm not arguing that an engine that never supported this kind of effect could all of the sudden turn around and implement it on entire game worlds.
Maybe it's another test of their multicore threading method. They're focusing quite a lot on that (apparently), so self shadowing would probalby be a good way of showing it off.
The bottom line is, I simply don't see self shadowing in any of that media other than that one scene, and that to me is pretty telling.
I think it's pretty common to only employ certain graphical bells & whistles at times when the game can better handle it. Note that in Gears Of War for instance, character models don't self shadow, but they do in realtime cut scenes when the player doesn't have control over the camera.
Anyway, still looking forward to Episode 2 of course. I don't mean to put a downer on this stuff. Anything remotely approaching real world in game lighting just happens to be very interesting to me personally since a) our engineers are exploring that stuff at work right now and b) I think it's still the next big frontier for videogames. Most lighting (and by that I also mean shadowing) models even on pc and xbox 360 are still very primitive and far from dynamic. A baked lightmapped world with a seperate shadow solution for characters is still generally speaking par for the course. I tend to sit up and take note when an engine appears to attempt to go beyond that. I don't think a modified Source is an example of that, but I'm up for being proven wrong.
You can use the faster alpha testing, and it makes the alpha edges smooth as butter. Not everyone has a card that supports it though
The biggest thing for me is the lightwarptexture stuff..its soooo useful. You can do anything from an out-and-out toon shader with it, or just add some saturation to shadows (especially useful for flesh). Looking forward to seeing what they've done with the self-shadowing stuff too.
If its on the characters they could have either a.) faked it or b.) Done another update that allows it on the characters, but I doubt it.
Also they've updated the flashlights light to use a depth map I believe, but they've done so on a low-res scale AND only from the flash light. Don't get too excited.
And Source uses alphatest a lot due to the engines depth sorting issues, it can't handle 8-bit alphas very well.
A good rule of thumb to have, when thinking about the Source engine, is that nothing will ever be 'dynamic' in that engine. And if it is, due to the engines capabilities, it'll be hugely costly for the engine to render it.
The shadows are only generated by specific lights, and unless something's changed in the last few months they seem to be working fine.
up the self shadow max beyond the flashlight:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Env_projectedtexture
video of as much:
http://www.moddb.com/news/dynamic-lighting-in-source-blasphemy
dead shadows:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/exclusive_highresolution_left4dead_screenshots_and_gritty_source_engine_upgrade_details
17th century self shadowing soft shadows:
More Gamefest papers here.
necrophilia ftw