Tomb Raider shadowing

[PC-Engine]

Take a look at these pics. I think they have really nice soft shadowing for the environments and IMO are even better than the ones in Eternal Darkness.

I have a question for the all the resident programmers here like ERP, Qroach, Archie40z, Fresh, Falalada, etc. How are these effects done and does it take up a lot of the processing power like fillrate etc?

Also can GC or Xbox do these same effects with the same or better quality than these PS2 pics?

Thanks in advance 8)

 

[iscariot]

little better size 8)

 

[cybamerc]

They are just using some fancy looking shadow maps. It does look good but it's nothing Cube or Xbox can't do.

 

[PC-Engine]

The background geometry and texturing looks really good too. Better than even DMC.

 

[Ozymandis]

Lara's model is 5,000 polygons. Not too shabby

 

[aaaaa00]

How are these effects done and does it take up a lot of the processing power like fillrate etc?

The shadows are prerendered into textures when the game is made using a non-realtime tool that is run on the level geometry. All it takes at runtime is an extra texture (if your hardware has multitexture support), or an extra rendering pass to blend the textures containing the shadows with the base texture.

This technique has been around in games since Quake 1 (and maybe even before), and is a simple and common way to add realistic static lighting to level geometry -- it's nothing special, especially since from those screenshots it doesn't look like they're doing anything fancy like projected textures to cast the shadows maps onto the characters.

Also can GC or Xbox do these same effects with the same or better quality than these PS2 pics?

They can all do this pretty much at the same quality. xbox supports it in a single cycle, GC can do it in a single pass, PS2 can do it in 2 passes, all three would have more than enough fillrate.

 

[PC-Engine]

So if this is shadow maps then it's the opposite of light maps? or are they the same?

 

[Ozymandis]

So if this is shadow maps then it's the opposite of light maps? or are they the same?

As it is being used here, it's the same thing.

BTW, you can calculate your lightmaps with higher or lower precision, leading to more accurate images. Affects preprocessing time though.

 

[aaaaa00]

So if this is shadow maps then it's the opposite of light maps? or are they the same?

Same thing.

Here's a good article that explains it.

http://www.bigpanda.com/trinity/article1.html
http://www.bigpanda.com/trinity/article3.html

 

[PC-Engine]

So basically this technique allows fake bumpmapping for free since static lighting is used? So in essence the texture is prebumpped during preprocessing? For example in the first two pics, there seems to be evidence of fake bumpmapping on the walls where the lightmap overlaps the base texture.

 

[aaaaa00]

So basically this technique allows fake bumpmapping for free since static lighting is used? So in essence the texture is prebumpped during preprocessing? For example in the first two pics, there seems to be evidence of fake bumpmapping on the walls where the lightmap overlaps the base texture.

Sure, you could pre-render bumps into your textures, as long as all your lights are static, it would work.

But as soon as you add any dynamic lights in the illusion would fall apart.

 

[PC-Engine]

Cool, this really drives home the importance of art direction when it comes how good a game looks. Just look at those pics they look great on an artistic level yet on the technical side, it's basically relatively simple with regards to hardware requirements. 8)

Can this level of graphics be pulled off on DC? or is the poly usage too high? The textures look really good btw. Imagine if Eternal Darkness looked this good.

 

[Teasy]

Those shadows look nice in pics, but wouldn't they looks a little poor in motion?, because their totally static. Surely the shadows in ED move and distort as the character moves?

 

[PC-Engine]

Those shadows look nice in pics, but wouldn't they looks a little poor in motion?, because their totally static. Surely the shadows in ED move and distort as the character moves?

No Teasy they'll still look really good in motion because the lights are not moving so the shadows are not supposed to move either. For example the moonlit walls will still look very real because the moon is not moving relative to the architecture no matter where the camera is. ED uses this same technique, but the quality isn't as good as this. For example when you start the game in ED there are shadows everywhere on the level with the stairs. If you look at the edges of the shadows they're jagged but blurred to give it a soft look, however you can still see the jaggedness. In these pics the edges of shadows are very smooth. This game looks less flat than ED too. The environments just seems to be more solid. Somehow the art in this game just looks better than ED. I hope more games on GC start looking more like this game now that I know the GC has more than enough power to do these effects. I guess it all comes down to art direction

I hope Enclave on GC looks as good as this too

 

[Tagrineth]

WHILE we're on the subject of SHADOWS...

Look under the characters.

There *aren't* any shadows. :\

PC-Engine: Eternal Darkness's shadows are jagged because they're done real-time

 

[PC-Engine]

WHILE we're on the subject of SHADOWS...

Look under the characters.

There *aren't* any shadows. :\

PC-Engine: Eternal Darkness's shadows are jagged because they're done real-time

No, I'm talking about the shadow maps on the environment from static environmental lights like the moon light onto the static archictecture not the characters.

BTW there are shadows for both skeletons in the first pic

After seeing these pics, I feel kinda let down by the visuals in ED. SK could've done these easily on GC yet they didn't

 

[Tagrineth]

WHILE we're on the subject of SHADOWS...

Look under the characters.

There *aren't* any shadows. :\

PC-Engine: Eternal Darkness's shadows are jagged because they're done real-time

No, I'm talking about the shadow maps on the environment from static environmental lights like the moon light onto the static archictecture not the characters.

BTW there are shadows for both skeletons in the first pic

After seeing these pics, I feel kinda let down by the visuals in ED. SK could've done these easily on GC yet they didn't

whoops, you're right. Lara has a shadow too; look at the back wall behind her. But oddly enough, her shadow is extremely elongated, yet the zombies' shadows are almost directly below them. Baaaad.

They also don't seem to match up with the pre-mapped light on the floor, but I don't know where that light is coming from so...

I dunno, I think Eternal Darkness's lighting is fantastic even without these shadow maps... it's like one of my friends once said, "ED should have MULTIPLAYER" to which I of course replied "Why?".

It just isn't needed.

ADDENDUM: I've been studying that first pic. It seems that they screwed up the light sourcing.

If you look carefully at the light map being cast on the wall, it has to be coming from diagonally back and to the left from the camera; notice that on the wall DIRECTLY behind and slightly left of Lara, the lines on the window are distorted - hitting that surface at an angle - while on the side walls to the right, and farther back, the lines aren't distorted at all. BUT Lara's shadow is being cast toward the left, implying a light source back and right from the camera.

OOPS Bit careless IMO.

And going back to Eternal Darkness, I just showed how pre-mapped shadows don't usually combine well with real-time shadows... it's all about tradeoffs...

 

[PC-Engine]

I think Lara's shadow is mostly coming from the muzzle flash. What I think is important is that when you play the game, shadow direction is not really noticable because it requires you to look for the light souce(s). However when shadow maps are jagged like in ED, they clearly stick out.

 

[Tagrineth]

I think Lara's shadow is mostly coming from the muzzle flash. What I think is important is that when you play the game, shadow direction is not really noticable because it requires you to look for the light souce(s). However when shadow maps are jagged like in ED, they clearly stick out.

If Lara's shadow came from the muzzle flashes (PLURAL) A. she'd have a fuzzier shadow (two sources) and B. her shadow would be aligned more to the left. Oh, and C. if her muzzle flashes are powerful enough to create a shadow like that, why are they not piercing the shadows on the floor and walls? That's the biggest problem with static shadow maps.

I noticed the error in Lara's shadow before looking for any sources; I analysed where the sources were to *prove* the error.

I notice shadow alignment very easily in games.

EDIT: By the way, those are PS2 shots we're looking at. The JPEG compression must be pretty high, cos those are some of the cleanest PS2 screens I've ever seen - i.e. very very few jagged edges. A lot of the smoothness in those caps is likely a result of JPEG... except of course the pre-mapped shadows But I can almost guarantee the real-time shadows aren't very smooth

 

[PC-Engine]

Yes but you're looking at still shots instead of playing the game

When I'm playing a game, I'm not looking for which shadows align with which light source. I'm just aware the shadows are there which makes for a more realistic experience

The images don't seem to be using very high compression because there's no blockiness in the image. There's no jaggies because these are probably higher resolution devkit screens.