Screwed-up shadows

[Lawnmower233]

What's up with the shadows?!

[Lawnmower233]

Had to disable shadows. I thought the Orange Box Engine was supposed to have proper lighting and shadowing now. Seems like the same old same old.

[benjy355]

I don't think it was the orange boxes fault, what kind of things did you create to get the plants?

[Short_Circuit]

Originally Posted by benjy355

I don't think it was the orange boxes fault, what kind of things did you create to get the plants?

Those appear to be standard static props.

Originally Posted by Lawnmower233

What's up with the shadows?!

See son, when light hits an object, it blocks the light that hits it, and so there's a dark spot behind the object, opposite the direction of the light's casting.

[PuddingWagon]

Source thinks that those objects (and all others) are opaque, so it casts a shadow perfectly correctly. It's the same on the rubbish models (the packs), they get shadows below them because that is what their collision model corresponds to.

So just turn off the shadows for those props, problem solved. Or make the material spawn those props, then they won't have shadows.

[Lawnmower233]

Originally Posted by Eaglebird

See son, when light hits an object, it blocks the light that hits it, and so there's a dark spot behind the object, opposite the direction of the light's casting.

No need to be so sardonic. If you were to show that photo to anyone they'd tell you the shadows were extremely disproportionate compared to the object that was casting them. So shush.

[Kev_Boy]

It's the prop's fault, it has no collision model I think so it just takes its bounding box (outer edges of the model) and casts a box shadow.

[Snipergen]

yeah its just some plains, and source is getting old. Valve better is working on a new engine after ep3!
Crysis just casts shadows with an alpha channel to create nice shadowed grass etc... ding ding

[Kalenzo53]

This is a good example of how you can't rely on the tech to do the work. You have to inspect every scene to make sure it looks right and make any adjustments or work arounds needed.

[AirWolf]

I don't know if this will help but try adding this to your vrad command line:

-staticproppolys -staticproplighting -textureshadows

If you are using the EP2 engine, this is suppose to create shadows based on the alpha textures. I haven't tried this myself but it may work for you.

[Lawnmower233]

Originally Posted by Kalenzo53

This is a good example of how you can't rely on the tech to do the work. You have to inspect every scene to make sure it looks right and make any adjustments or work arounds needed.

True true.

Originally Posted by AirWolf

I don't know if this will help but try adding this to your vrad command line:

-staticproppolys -staticproplighting -textureshadows

If you are using the EP2 engine, this is suppose to create shadows based on the alpha textures. I haven't tried this myself but it may work for you.

Nice. Seems like it's worth a try.

[AirWolf]

Originally Posted by Lawnmower233

Nice. Seems like it's worth a try.

Be sure to post a pic when you compile with those vrad options. I'd be interested in seeing how your shadows turn out. NOTE: You may need to change your lightmaps to 1 in order to get the shadows more defined.

[Lawnmower233]

Originally Posted by AirWolf

Be sure to post a pic when you compile with those vrad options. I'd be interested in seeing how your shadows turn out. NOTE: You may need to change your lightmaps to 1 in order to get the shadows more defined.

Ok. Sure. I'll do it at the weekend and report back.

[Kalenzo53]

I'm quivering with anticipation!

It would look cool if that works.