Interesting Shadows

[Jaeger]

threads like this one are the most amazing pieces in this forum. a good title could be "pros at work". i like following the process of ideas find their way to nice results. please keep up the transparent way of working on your solutions. i remember the "behind the public" work of other modding groups. this public way shown here is the most and effectful way to find and develop new ideas. very nice!

next step could be to think about our restricitve modding etiquette... less rights for the developer. like in a real open source licence... just my 50 cents... (if someone wants to discuss this, please dont disturbe this thread, open a new one...)

greetz, Jaeger

[tonschk]

Well done Racerboy , those Dynamic Shadows look Amazing

The Dynamyc Shadows increase the inmersion factor

[rascal101]

HI TO YOU AND ABSOLUTLY CORRECT - NOW IF YOU WOULD JUST BE SO KIND AS TO TELL US WHAT GAME THESE SCREENIES ARE FROM - CERTAINLY NONE THAT I'M AWARE OF THEY LOOK GREAT

RASCAL

Originally Posted by tonschk

Well done Racerboy , those Dynamic Shadows look Amazing

The Dynamyc Shadows increase the inmersion factor

[kenijaru]

Originally Posted by rascal101

HI TO YOU AND ABSOLUTLY CORRECT - NOW IF YOU WOULD JUST BE SO KIND AS TO TELL US WHAT GAME THESE SCREENIES ARE FROM - CERTAINLY NONE THAT I'M AWARE OF THEY LOOK GREAT

RASCAL

i think it's Tiger vs T-34 (or something like that) a tanksim released last year.
--------

these dynamic shadows turn SH3 into a whole new game (regarding graphics)

[tonschk]

T-34 vs. Tiger

[rascal101]

Hi Racerboy looking very good almost licked the problems I notice your still getting the flashing round hands and binoculars - do you think that can be fixed or is it something we're just going to have to live with - One thing check if your fiddling with shadows has knocked out smoke or particles.

OK Now I Have a Problem

Folowing my own experiments with Dynamic Shadows switched on I have now returned to normal until this mod is worked out, I simply dont have the technical experience to offer anything useful - Ok so I returned all the relevent files to where they should go but then I had a New Problem

White Smoke in Square Blocks - This never happened before

So I thought what the hell and did a complete uninstall and re-install - then I go back into the game and - still got my smoke issue Have a fairly good NVDIA card and dual core machine and plenty of RAM so I have plenty grunt so whats happened to my smoke

Here is a list of my activated mods via JSGME - perhaps I have something in there that's clashing or not installed in the correct place or order any advise-

American_Ore_Freighter_1.0
No Morse code
GWX 3 St Naz and Schluese and other units
GWX - Alternative Flotillas
GWX - Merged Campaign
GWX - Open Hatch Mod
GWX - No Medals on Crew
GWX - 16km Atmosphere
GWX - Integrated Orders
GWX - Enhanced Damage Effects
GWX - Late War Sensors Snorkel Antennas
MANOS ENVIRONMENT PRO
SRM02 - Option for GWX Enhanced Damage Effects
Rbs1_SH4_Effects_GWX_30_71
LifeBoats&Debris_v4
Optional
Waterstream+Exhaust KombiMod V1.0
Torpedo damage Final ver2.0
Start at Sea_V1.0
WideScreen_SH3_V1

Originally Posted by Racerboy

ok, got the problem figured out. No wonder why the devs took the dynamic shadows out. They are a pain to setup correctly

here shows the shadows in the interior of the Turm and the shadow cast on the hull of sub (it's not broken!)


and check out this beautiful Turm shadow with the railing and all showing


Now to add my flags and pennants to it and see if they are shadowed (by all accounts they should be). I just might have to start playing SH3 again....

[rascal101]

Jesus thats anoying - I missed that completely and now I suppose I will never be able to find a retail copy - I checked the website but there doesnt seem to be much info on where it might be available any ideas

Originally Posted by tonschk

T-34 vs. Tiger

[TheDarkWraith]

First the screenie:


The wavings flags are dynamically shadowed (the shadow moves like the flag does)! I added the rotating attenea and it's dynamically shadowed also You can see the pennants shadowed just above in the shadowing on the side of the sub. Wow.
Now I just have to fix the Turm water reflection (it's using an ugly low poly count model). I'm going to have it reflect the Turm AND the interior of the Turm in high detail. After that I should have another playable demo ready here in a couple of hours.
EDIT: almost forgot adding FlakMonkey's twisty periscope thingies also.

[tater]

Any FR impact with large numbers of units?

[Freiwillige]

Try looking under the full title "WWII battletanks T-34 vs Tiger" It was just released in 2008 so I doubt it should be hard to find.

I looked eagerly forward to this sim but found that reveiws were less than glorious.
Complaints of T-34's being able to knock out tigers from the front at amazing distances ETC. Alot of Tiger commanders were furious that the game designers made the t-34 as leathel as a tiger. It sounds like history was thrown out for play balance. But that might have been adressed with the European release. I will say that it does look phenominal

Another one you might want to look into is "Steel Fuhry 1942" That is another new Tank sim on the eastern front and it gets good reveiws. And it looks just as good but no Tigers or Panthers as there were non in 1942 so all you get as a German is the Panzer IV F1 I beleive.

[UberTorpedo]

This is fascinating. These screen shots stunning.

[kenijaru]

*starts bouncing up and down on chair* i need more dynamic shadows...
it would be really sweet if the shadows were also cast into the water, but even without that tiny detail... this is mind blowing.

[TheDarkWraith]

ok the newest playable demo is available. I've loaded this baby with many of my mods including one I just made. I want to know if there's any strange behavior or problems with all of these mods enabled at once. I couldn't find any problems but the more eyes on it the better.

Note: This is experimental in the sense that it uses the SH3 v1.0 SH3Controllers.ACT file

This has been done for the SH3 1.4b VIIb sub and Turm7b_1_hd only:
- shadows enabled (crew still has psychadelic colors and shadows aren't perfect yet but getting better every time - still looking for the fix for the crew)
- Flags and pennants (remember press 'x' to raise the pennants - these have reflections and shadows)
- sub exhaust
- periscope spray (go to periscope depth and then external cam out to see effect - try varying speeds also to see the effect change). There is one bug with this currently and you'll see it when you dive and surface with periscopes raised.
- Reflections added that were missing (in high detail)
- Reflections tweaked to look much better
- Reflections using low poly models have been changed out with high detail ones
- Turm reflection is high detail - it shows the turm AND the interior of the turm in the reflection
- FlakMonkey's twisty periscope thingies added
- Rotating antennea added (along with it's reflection and shadow)

there is no water reflection for the 88mm gun. I will add that tomorrow. Shadows for the flack guns have not been completed yet either. Not sure is water reflections are working for flack guns - I'll look into that tomorrow as well.

Enjoy and let me know what errors you find!

I've uploaded it to my filefront account so there is no download limit:
http://postdownload.filefront.com/13...5d821f368879f7

unzip to mods folder. Enable via JSGME. Run the single mission 'SHD_testing'.
Note: this is a fully playable sub and can be used in your game. I included all files needed to run it in any game, not just the demo.

Note2: you have to have your \MyDocuments\SH3\Cfg setup correctly. FlakMonkey explains how to do it here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...2&postcount=62. SH3Controllers v1.0 is included in my download already.

Now if you're curious as to how I got the shadows to behave and work so far it has to do with the way the shadows are laid out in the hierarchy of the object AND some new backface filled 3D models of existing objects. First, SHD_ nodes are NOT needed. They are used when you want to render a shadow of the object using a lower (or higher) poly count object. I was able to attach DynamicShadowCast controllers onto visible objects and set the UseObjectVisibility to 0x1 and have them cast shadows. This was done on the flags and pennants. The light source for the shadows is coming from the parent node of the Turm - in this case the VIIb sub. The Turm is using an SHD_ node because I had to make a new 3D model for it due to backface culling (filled the backfaces). The Turm interior is currently using an SHD_ node but I will try attaching a DynamicShadowCast controller directly to it and set the UseObjectVisibility to 0x1 tomorrow and see what the results are (it should work). For shadows not to interfere with each other they ALL must be 'cast' onto ONE object. A screenshot from Apollo will show what I mean:


Turm7b_1_High is the root node and it contains a child node, Turm7b_1_coning7b_High. There are many nodes attached to Turm7b_1_coning7b_High but specifically ALL the SHD_ nodes are attached to it. What you don't see is the objects that I connected DynamicShadowCast render controllers to. Those have a parent ID of Turm7b_1_coning7b_High so that their shadows are 'cast' to the same place everything else is. The reason the object is white in the screenshot is because I enabled viewing of all the SHD_ nodes used to verify they were in the correct place - the SHD_ nodes were overlaid onto their respective object. Apollo said everything was good to go and, well, you see it in action.

And before anyone complains about the flags, tough, get over it, I make things the way I want to make them. If you don't like it then learn how to do what I do.

[Reece]

I had to give it a try, all seems to go ok except for the crew!
My guys have just returned from a week spent at a gay nightclub:

Edit: Sorry RB, have only the act file installed with the shadows enabled, your doing a good job!!

[MH]

This is great stuff.
If you could just make caustc effect and reflections to work above water level.....