Meshes with faces that don't want to shadow cast

scumble on 19/3/2005 at 11:43

I found that some of the railing meshes don't cast shadows in the way you'd expect:

Inline Image:

http://scumble.net/thief/rail_shadow.png

Inline Image:

http://scumble.net/thief/rail_shadow1.png

Mandrake on 19/3/2005 at 11:46

Quote Posted by scumble

I found that some of the railing meshes don't cast shadows in the way you'd expect:

(http://scumble.net/thief/rail_shadow.png)

(http://scumble.net/thief/rail_shadow1.png)

It's not clear what the problem with the shadow casting is from those pictures.... do you mean they don't cast shadows at all, or strange shadows ?

Also it would help if you mention what specific meshes they are so others can try it...

scumble on 19/3/2005 at 11:54

Sorry, I'm assuming it's obvious - there's no shadow for the top of the railing. However:

Inline Image:

http://scumble.net/thief/rail_shadow2.png

I'm sure there's a good reason for this, I just can't put my finger on it.

Oh yes, and the meshes are CIVRails and CHRiRails - CIVrailA4x10 for example.

OrbWeaver on 19/3/2005 at 11:58

What is the Lighting -> LightShape -> Inner Radius property on those lights? Try changing it (e.g. set it to 0 if it is not already).

Also, try moving the lights further away from the mesh, and see if the shadows appear. You might also want to make sure that your Shadow Detail game slider is set to maximum.

Dark Arrow on 19/3/2005 at 12:24

I think the cemetary door (CemMetaldoor) has a similar problem. The door has a small window hole in it. The door doesn't cast a shadow, but the hole does. :p

Gestalt on 19/3/2005 at 15:08

<img src="http://img122.exs.cx/img122/4636/railing1pv.jpg">

Does it have something to do with which direction the light hits it from?

OrbWeaver on 19/3/2005 at 16:00

It is the Light Radius setting.

Inline Image:

http://img190.exs.cx/img190/2369/18tp1.png

Inline Image:

http://img190.exs.cx/img190/4863/26qn.png

Inline Image:

http://img190.exs.cx/img190/8715/35cz.png

In your original examples, the shadow for the missing meshes would have been at such a distance it would fall outside the Light Radius for the light. Increasing this radius should make the shadow appear.

scumble on 19/3/2005 at 20:59

Still, I've noticed that the shadows get chopped off abruptly before they hit the edge of the light's influence.

Krypt on 19/3/2005 at 21:16

Sometimes the shadow extrusion range isn't the same as the visible light range. You can change shadow extrusion by adding the ShadowExtrusionDistance property to the light, and tweak it up a bit. Be careful with this though... you don't want the opposite problem: shadows being cast outside the light's visible range, because it will reduce performance for no visual improvement.

OrbWeaver on 20/3/2005 at 11:10

Quote Posted by scumble

Still, I've noticed that the shadows get chopped off abruptly before they hit the edge of the light's influence.

You can see that in the middle picture. It looks like the mesh shadow will not be rendered at all if any part of it would fall outside the radius.

Krypt's suggestion looks interesting though.