"Shadows aren't really that important"

[Reverend]

Okay, that is a quote from a developer I know.

He's mostly talking from the console perspective. He basically said that given the currently available consoles and what he knows (NDA'd) of next-gen consoles, he feels that spending additional time and resources on better shadows on console games are not worth it given the budgets he has to work with. He also said he assumes such budgetary constraints he faces is generally the case for all console game developers.

On the other hand, he thinks that while he realizes the importance of shadows in the "general scheme of things", by virtue of the high number of researches done on this aspect of 3D, he feels that the PC platform is where shadows will likely succeed as a major factor in graphics/gameplay considerations, given how quickly the PC progresses relative to the consoles.

The above is summarized and paraphrased by me, since our correspondence on this subject consists of quite a number of back-and-forth emails.

This leads me to the reason for this thread : While it is acknowledged that the play with light and darkness can have a profound effect on games in general (consoles, PC), how important is it really in the general scheme of the games-making industry? Developers tend to use known (usually not patented ) shadowing techniques instead of spending time/resources on coming up with innovative shadowing tech. (probably with the exception of Carmack, with his z-fail which should be a result of extensive/continuous R&D by him, notwithstanding the Creative issue). What are your thoughts on this developers opinion about shadowing on both platforms (PC and consoles)?

PS. I'm not sure if this belongs in this forum. I'm also not sure if it belongs in the Games forum. This is like a "what the hell" kinda decision of where to post this!

 

[pcchen]

I think it's sort of like a "used-to" situation, such as FSAA. That is, when people get used to shadows (or FSAA), they'll notice the absence of shadows (or FSAA).

Fake shadows are already everywhere, even in console games (back to SNES times). The question is really not about shadows, but about "accurate shadows." Basically, how much would you want to pay to get an accurate shadow, or how accurate?

How will shadow affect gameplay is another issue. I don't know any game other than FPS could possibly be affected by accurate shadows (in most games shadow is just a cosmetic feature). The shadows in Doom 3 are largely also cosmetic, IMHO.

Anyway, I think shadow is a competition issue. If many games have accurate shadows, you'll want your next game have it.

Just my two cents, of course

 

[DSN2K]

use of shadows depends on the game, for example Splinter Cell would need impressive shadows above all else.

 

[DemoCoder]

Shadows are part of lighting. You could equally argue that shaders aren't that important to game play. But gamers are demanding better looking and more realistic titles, not neccessarily games designed with shadows *as a gimmick* (part of gameplay, like SC) , but shadows as part of the general global lighting system.

 

[bloodbob]

When lights go through walls it kind of looks gay :/ Look at Quake 1,2,3 where the glows went through the walls.

 

[Inane_Dork]

Shadows are part of lighting. You could equally argue that shaders aren't that important to game play. But gamers are demanding better looking and more realistic titles, not neccessarily games designed with shadows *as a gimmick* (part of gameplay, like SC) , but shadows as part of the general global lighting system.

Along with that, I see shadowing as becoming a part of the vague "production quality." Sure, you could get away with circle drop shadows on an Xbox title, but good luck trying to do so with a high profile Xbox title. The lack of decent shadows makes the game look cheap (which may or may not be accurate).

 

[Barnabas]

When i first played the leaked Alpha of Doom 3 my machine couldn't really handle the graphics so i started to experiment with the settings. I ended up disabling stencil shadows which had a rather minor visual impact compared to disabling normal mapping or specular highlights.

 

[V3]

given the budgets he has to work with

What budgets ? Money & time ? Or performance & memory budget related to fix platform that consoles are ?

I reckon developers should just put shadows, where obvious and look good. Most gamers just play games, they don't inspect games' shadows in detail like some people do on this board.

 

[KimB]

When i first played the leaked Alpha of Doom 3 my machine couldn't really handle the graphics so i started to experiment with the settings. I ended up disabling stencil shadows which had a rather minor visual impact compared to disabling normal mapping or specular highlights.

Which in turn ruins some very cool scenes in the game. One of my favorite sequences was during a section of the game where there were no opponents to fight (which I thought was quite cool, as you spend quite some time wondering just when they'll come....), and an imp crawled across a skylight. I saw the shadow on the ground first, and almost shot at it.

Global shadows really do add a measure of depth to the game, and I think it's something that we should be able to demand of nearly all new games in the next couple of years. Beyond that, we should expect soft shadows and such. Yes, they're computationally expensive, but they add so much...

 

[Quitch]

I've always found everything to look too bright and took flat without a shadow to balance it out. It's something you can live without until you've grown used to it, as someone said above. Problem is, they do tend to be quite a hit and are often the first thing to go, so he's probably right to scrap them if the budget is tight.

 

[Ylandro]

Its a matter of were to spend your limited processing power.

All dynamic shadows techniques take enormous effort from your system.
You might well ask, wether that can't the spend more effictively in other areas.

Doom3 is the perfect example. Most shadows were still static, and actually looked worse than the conventional techniques... Only few locations actually looked better because of the dynamic shadow system. And in most cases, it was invicible anyway, because its so darn dark...

You might well argue that the less demanding conventional static shadows system, could have done the job just as easily.
Using that extra rendering power for a higher poly count for characters, higher textures details, etc, etc, you might well get a better total experience.

Ofcourse shadows are important, but you can wonder wether people are getting a little carried away with them...

 

[Bjorn]

You might well argue that the less demanding conventional static shadows system, could have done the job just as easily.

Static shadows = lifeless looking scenes imo.

 

[Diplo]

The question is really not about shadows, but about "accurate shadows."

I'd have said it's about dynamic, real-time shadows (as opposed to pre-computed 'radiosity' type ones).

How important these are really depends on the type of game being made. For instance, for the 'Zelda' or 'Mario' series then they would be of little importance, since these games have a stylised look. However, for games going for gritty realism then dynamic lighting becomes really important if you want to create the impression of a living, breathing scene. As textures and polygon counts become ever-higher it becomes more and more noticeable that 'something is missing' from a scene when all shadows are pre-computed. In other words, the more realistic a scene looks the more obvious it becomes that it 'looks wrong' without proper shadowing.

 

[pcchen]

The question is really not about shadows, but about "accurate shadows."

I'd have said it's about dynamic, real-time shadows (as opposed to pre-computed 'radiosity' type ones).

Yes, in my post I talked about only dynamic shadows. Thanks for pointing it out.
Static shadows are even much widely used than simple fake shadows. Think of some 2D games where buildings cast "shadows" on the ground. It's pretty common in SNES games.

By the way, I remembered some occasions in Doom 3 where shadow did improve the atmosphere a lot. One example is in a tunnel (near the end of the game), some lights on the wall. I ran away from some big monsters (big spiders IIRC), and turned around to wait for them. Then I saw their shadows casted on the wall... it showed their movements and, helped me to decide when to launch my rockets

 

[Farid]

Sorry, if that's a little OT with regards to the topic's question, but some points puzzle me.

He's mostly talking from the console perspective. He basically said that given the currently available consoles and what he knows (NDA'd) of next-gen consoles, he feels that spending additional time and resources on better shadows on console games are not worth it given the budgets he has to work with.

If he meant that the console is powerfull enough for complex shadowing techs, but he doesn't have time to code them. Then why thoses budget problems apply for shadows only, if he doesn't have the budget to scale thoses tech with the hardware, then he won't have the budget to scale the rest of the graphics either, why, specifically, only the shadows will suffer from thoses cuts on next-gen consoles?

Did he mean that coding complex shadowing techniques is useless work, because most people can't tell the difference?
If so then he has a point, but i still don't understand the fact that he almost generalize his POV to all the console developers out there, especially if he thinks that PC developers would pursue the "race" to have the better shadows.

Also, he seems to imply that future PC hardware (beyond next-gen consoles) will allow better shadowing techs, but he still say that he doesn't have enough budget for spending a lot of time on complex code, for the shadows, for a next-gen console game.
But, consoles games have nowadays bigger budgets than theirs PC counterpart, and seeing how's PC games sales doing lately, the situation is not about the change.
Therefore, the developer's claims are quite contradictory, if you ask me.

 

[PeterAce]

Soft shadows are held out as a grand new feature, but for the most part when you walk through Doom, toggling between soft shadows and the regular harsh shadows in Doom, there's very few places where it makes much of a difference. If you're just toggling between them, somebody a little ways away from the monitor won't even notice it unless there are items that are set in as "no self shadow" that wind up getting shadows on them, that's the only thing you really notice when you're just flipping between it. There are a couple scenes where you look a lot closer it's really nice to see a good soft shadow on everything there, but for the most part it doesn't make a huge difference

 

[Leto]

I don't like when characters cast noticable shadows on the environment but none on themselves.

 

[PeterAce]

On a console you are sitting far from the TV screen - Will the majority be able to tell the difference between hard and soft shadow types? (ignoring the self shadow issue).

 

[Scali]

Either he knows something I don't know about next-gen consoles, or I don't understand his reasoning.

There are already consoles available that are capable of various types of (dynamic) shadows, and there are already games using them. And at least the next-gen XBox will have a more powerful GPU than the ones we currently use for our shadow-heavy games like Thief, FarCry, Doom3, Half-Life2, etc.

The pioneering is already done on the PC, so I think adapting it to consoles should be relatively easy. It may mean that consoles will get "last year's shadow tech", but that should not be too big of a problem (if that's what he means by not being able to go for "better shadows", then I agree, PC games probably have a bigger R&D budget, and more powerful target hardware).

He speaks of budgets and resources... But as far as I know, console games often use 'disposable' engines. Meaning that they are pretty much written from scratch, custom-made for a particular game, or series of games. If you are making a new engine anyway, designing it with shadows in mind should not be too big a deal (assuming ofcourse that the game is a suitable candidate for shadowing, and would receive shadows if it were developed for PC).

 

[Leto]

On a console you are sitting far from the TV screen - Will the majority be able to tell the difference between hard and soft shadow types? (ignoring the self shadow issue).

Nextgen consoles will be widely used on nextgen tv's (HDTV).