Night shadows

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by trollray, Jul 13, 2016.

  1. trollray

    trollray Registered

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    Hi, i just ask if there is a possibility to put a shadow under cars during night races.
    I think now it look like floating ufos sometimes. ;)
    Also some cars lost their reflexions on body, don't know why.
    Thanks ;)


    View attachment 20410
     
  2. Coutie

    Coutie Moderator Staff Member

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    Undershadows aren't working at night, I think the reason is they check if the suns out or something like that(don't remember the exact reason). Reflections don't really work great at night either, the most you'll get is the lights around the track reflecting, if the track maker set that up. Check matsusaka out, you'll see the lights there.
     
  3. stonec

    stonec Registered

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    Yep night looks very static with all missing features. Shadows in rF2 work dynamically by checking if the object blocks the sun, so that approach doesn't work in night. But to have only car undershadows would already be a great improvement, cars floating on the surface doesn't make it convincing enough to broadcast night races.
     
  4. ECAR_Tracks

    ECAR_Tracks Registered

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    Car makers could create a plan as static undershadow and set it to visgroups = 1024 to remove it from day time. Not the ideal but a band-aid.
     
  5. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    That's an interesting idea... how would you choose to align it? Set it forward, as if lit from behind by a car's headlights (endurance) or centered like it's directly under stadium lights (stockcars)?
     
  6. trollray

    trollray Registered

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    Yeah, the intersesting thnig is the point of view from ISI also.
    We are talking about missing features but would they put them in the future?
    And what cost in fps ;)

    But yes, it's not great like this and broke a little the immersion from my point of view ;)
     
  7. ECAR_Tracks

    ECAR_Tracks Registered

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    I think you might try a shadow box instead a plane (create a simple box under the car's chassis and set it as object shadow), honestly I've never been into cars modelling stuff so that would be a try and error thing...
     
  8. blakboks

    blakboks Registered

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    It's not a matter of the car body not casting shadows, it's a matter of Spotlights (headlights) and Omni lights (track lighting) (which is what makes up the nighttime lighting) not actually projecting any shadows whatsoever. Shadow Maps are not drawn for these lights at all. IMO, it 'does' break the immersion of night racing immensely, and I do not drive at night in this game because of it.

    I think they do not render shadows for these lights because of the sheer number of lights and shadows that would need to be drawn (look at a NASCAR night race, and notice how many shadows each car casts onto the track at any given moment). That being said, there are techniques that have been developed in order to get around this limitation (e.g. clustered rendering).
     
  9. Gijs van Elderen

    Gijs van Elderen Registered

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    Don't know if all the shadows are possible without a big preformance drop.

    But the undertray shadow... I think that should be possible.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 14, 2016
  10. blakboks

    blakboks Registered

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    Actually...even worse is the 24 Hrs of Daytona, because you have the track lights AND car headlights! :)
     
  11. blakboks

    blakboks Registered

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    I'm not sure how car modding works, but if there's any way of projecting a texture onto the road as a decal, then yes, in theory, it could work. However, just putting a flat plane underneath will have some visual artifacts due to the plane clipping into the ground as the car's attitude changes (pitch and roll)--even if the plane isn't affected by pitch and roll, you could potentially see clipping as the terrain undulates underneath the vehicle. It's worth a try for some modder (if not ISI themselves), though; but I'm guessing it's already been tested.
     
  12. ECAR_Tracks

    ECAR_Tracks Registered

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    This is the why I suggested to inserted a fake shadow underneath the car to work-around the "UFO effect", I'm aware it won't fix the real shadow issue. The shadow object would be turned off in daylight (visgroups=1024)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 15, 2016
  13. klaasvh

    klaasvh Registered

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    I don't know if it's the same for all cars but the Spark and Eve already have a static undershadow thats also visible during the daytime.
     
  14. dylbie

    dylbie Registered

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    You can add an 'undershadow' very easily, and it works very well. You'll know when looking at a car I real life, the shadow under the car is always darker than a shadow cast at the side of it by the sun. There is always a darker area under the car, even when the sun isn't out.

    Easy fix, but it's for the car modders to implement, not the track modders, or the game devs. Unless you want multiple light source shadows, but I'm sure that'll be saved for rF3 :)

    The thing that bothers me most about night driving is the headlights of the car behind shining into the cockpit. But that's a story for another thread...
     
  15. stonec

    stonec Registered

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    Yeah I think most ISI cars have a static undershadow, you can see how it looks in daytime by using "Low" shadow detail, which replaces dynamic car shadow caster with static one. This static undershadow should be rendered in night as well I guess.
     
  16. Gijs van Elderen

    Gijs van Elderen Registered

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    It doesn't at the moment or it isn't visible at night. :(
     
  17. dylbie

    dylbie Registered

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    You're right I've just checked this too. Is it a game code thing, or can it be written somewhere in the GEN file to show at night?
     
  18. PATR10T

    PATR10T Registered

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    thats normally every original or mod should have this... just with the obj shadow it is too bright under the car and looks unreal... thats why there normally a undershadow.dds, ambientshadow.dds etc should be used... to support the object shadow for a more real look...

    and for sure it would be great if theres a way to use the same file at night... i dont think creating an object where you add this texture will work as i think it can look very strange in some cases... for example is the track not plain it can sink into the ground O_O
     
  19. 88mphTim

    88mphTim racesimcentral.net

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    Interesting suggestion. It is a band-aid, but one that should perhaps be an option.

    AFAIK the lighting at night is some sort of DX limitation.
     
  20. Tuttle

    Tuttle Technical Art Director - Env Lead

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    Hello everyeone..

    Light posts and stuff like that are just using omni lights. These kind of lights, as spotlight, are not casting any shadows (limitation) as it's not really suggested to introduce sort of infinite amount of direct lights, which every source casting its own shadow. Probably impracticable.

    What we have since day 1, and we still have, it's ambient shadow, which is working all the time. Doesn't matter if it night or day as both sun and moon are producing the ambient shadow. You can see shadows at night, especially when you also see the moon on the sky.

    Said that we know there is some bug preventing car to produce ambient shadows in certain situations in night conditions. We've to find the issue and find a fix.
     

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