halo 2...multiple shadows cast....(I'm probably late)

[Fafalada]

It's not quite a Doom 3 type renderer anymore.

I don't think it ever was, the volumes were limited mainly to dynamic objects/characters in older builds IIRC, it was never global across the whole scene.

That said, for outdoor games there's a lot of considerations whether to go global like that in the first place, I can tell you from experience
Particularly since most alternatives will work faster - you better be sure the benefits of volumes are worth it.

 

[Polarbear53]

What is the difference between all the different shadows. Is there a write up someone explaining and showing the difference between them, I did a search on google and no good examples came up, just a bunch of how-tos.

 

[AlNom]

here's another question... why do the character shadows look worse on the ground than in Halo 1?

 

[cybamerc]

here's another question... why do the character shadows look worse on the ground than in Halo 1?

Because they have to cover a larger area without seeing a similar increase in resolution.

 

[AlNom]

good point

what's the difference between shadow buffering and stencil shadows? I found websites that describe each technique (perhaps not well enough)...but I'm not seeing the difference

 

[London Geezer]

good point

what's the difference between shadow buffering and stencil shadows? I found websites that describe each technique (perhaps not well enough)...but I'm not seeing the difference

It depends on the resolution of shadow buffers. U'll see a difference when they're low res, which is in most of the cases. See Splinter Cell ultrablockyjaggy shadows? That's it.

Stencil shadows have the "doom3" look, they're very neat and "accurate" but unless they're soft shadows, can look a bit too... hard... And there aren't many platofrms out there that can do soft stencil shadows easily, apart from Ps2 as far as i know. But of course i'm wrong, so i'll leave it for the good guys..

The easiest way to remember for me is this: Shadow buffers are like sprites or textures, if they're low res they are going to be blocky and ugly (like low res sprites in 2D games), but they can easily be filtered and made blurry.
Stencils are like "2D polygonal models" in that the only aspect that can degrade their quality is the resolution of the mesh, which will make the shadow silhouette more or less rounded (just like polygon models).

^^Hows that for a wacky explanation...

 

[AlNom]

makes sense to me

thanks for the layman's explanation

 

[London Geezer]

makes sense to me

thanks for the layman's explanation

Welcome!

 

[Pepto-Bismol]

Here is a brief description of what it looks like visually ...

"We saw a gothic-style lantern with an elaborate cage floating down the hallway. The shadows generated by the frame were sharp and crisp when the walls were close, and fuzzy on the floor far away. This effect is calculated dynamically and in real-time by the new engine. This high-quality lighting effect was also used when an enemy paced back and forth in front of a wall. A stained glass orb was the light source, and as its colored panes moved around, the light’s appearance changed based on both distances of the walls and the enemy's position. Again, the colors and shapes were sharp on close objects, and the creature's shadow blurred as he moved farther away from the wall.

Another bit of technological wizardry that we've heard about briefly in the past, normal mapping (and its partner in crime, displacement mapping), was illustrated. The iron lantern mentioned earlier was brought very close to a wall of stones. Each rock had deep grooves and crannies and there were noticeable spaces in between. The demonstrator then showed us the wire-frame model of the wall – it was just one large polygon." - Game Informer, July 2004

And here's the spec of the next generation (console) engine doing all of the dirty work ...

Advanced Dynamic Shadowing

Unreal Engine 3 provides full support for three shadow techniques:

• Dynamic stencil buffered shadow volumes supporting fully dynamic, moving light sources casting accurate shadows on all objects in the scene.
  
• Dynamic characters casting dynamic soft, fuzzy shadows on the scene using 16X-oversampled shadow buffers.
  
• Ultra high quality and high performance pre-computed shadow masks allow offline processing of static light interactions, while retaining fully dynamic specular lighting and reflections.

Source: Unreal Technology

 

[pc999]

news screens

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=55926

 

[Polarbear53]

The screenshots that have been added on looks terrible, although they did say it was from an "ancient build" just realy looks bad. The only thing I can say that is good is that the renders do look really nice, maybe those are brand new compared to the screenshots.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

The screenshots that have been added on looks terrible, although they did say it was from an "ancient build" just realy looks bad. The only thing I can say that is good is that the renders do look really nice, maybe those are brand new compared to the screenshots.

If you just see at the difference between the alpha build before E3 and during E3, there's nothing to worry about.

 

[pc999]

A few more here

http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/830/Halo-2-Media-Blowout/p1

 

[AlNom]

aaaaarggh!!!!!

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/472/1088642657.jpg

 

[pc999]

aaaaarggh!!!!!

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/472/1088642657.jpg

This means that "he" is good or bad (scary or bad impression) ?

 

[AlNom]

I think he just woke up and wants his food nipple

(he's still bad, just doesn't have his methane breathing mask on for some reason)