This is a fairly intriguing discussion.
And as a 3d illustrator it's very interesting to me.
I've been trying to mod the lighting in SH4, but it has eluded me...need to figure out what does what.
But, I think I can help with some of the theory behind lighting, mainly the self shadowing of the turms.
What I think the problem is, is the ambient lighting. It's too bright and it's blowing out the self shadowing.
I've been doing some testing in Cinema4D and have gotten similar results to what you have there.
I'm not one to know how to code much of anything, I just try to make things look good
If there's a way to change the ambient lighting throughout the day, that might fix the muted self shadows. Have the ambient light strong during noon and gradually decrease it throughout the day.
But, that's for way way in the future.
Just me throwing out ideas.
Keep up the good work
Edit:
Just reinstalled SH3, stock 1.0, enabled shadows. In awe.
And I think I figured out what the problem is with the multicolored crew.
It's the UV mapping, or some part of it, on the crew that is conflicting with the shadows. That's why it didn't show up on the modded crewmen. (a few pages back) However it did show up on the binoculars, which I think are a seperate .obj. If the crew were "fixed" by applying an exterior texture mod, can't the same be done with the binoculars?
And if Shadows can be implimented in SH3, it can be done in SH4.
Don't say it's impossible. Just look at Freespace 2 and what has been done with the Source Code Project. If one thing can be done in SH3. Since SH4 is a modified SH3 engine, it should be possible.