Wrong lighting in Half Life 2??

[MazeWing]

There's something wrong with the shadows in half life 2.

The character shadow is different than the shadow from the buildings. Because the characters shadows go to the left and the shadows of the buildings go to the right........

There's something fishy going on here......... :|

ps. i posted this at the games forum, but i think this forum is a better place for it so.... please close the thread in the games forum.

 

[Kristof]

Probabaly know as a "feature" ... might simply be static versus dynamic shadows with someone screwing up or possibly static is precalculated and they did not match pre-calc with dynamic settings. Not a big issue just an oopsie IMHO 8)

 

[MazeWing]

It just looks like they use static shadows for the environment and dynamic for the characters and vehicles. But why the hell would they do that. if the shadows got messed up??? strange.......

 

[robert_H]

i've watched the E3 videos, and the shadows are correct on those...i think this is an older picture, and this little mess is just a bug that was corrected since then...

 

[Himself]

Looks like the sun is both behind the character and in front of it simutaneously. The face is lit, the underside the left arm is lit, yet the shadows falls in front. Quite amusing.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Looks like the sun is both behind the character and in front of it simutaneously. The face is lit, the underside the left arm is lit, yet the shadows falls in front. Quite amusing.

LMFAO!!! I'll second that.
First thing I noticed is how the shadow is cast. I was confused for a few seconds to how that is possible when you campare it to the building shadows.

 

[gkar1]

The shadow in front of the fat guy does not appear to be his. It is of the shed which you can only see the roof of at the left. The other guy with his face lit probably has a light source(probably from inside the shed) iluminating his face.

 

[Xmas]

The shadow in front of the fat guy does not appear to be his. It is of the shed which you can only see the roof of at the left. The other guy with his face lit probably has a light source(probably from inside the shed) iluminating his face.

To me, it does appear to be his. And look at the other shadows, those of the two guys and the car down on the street.

 

[Himself]

Actually, looking at it in more detail, I don't think it's of the planet earth. There are obviously multiple suns. The truck has one from behind it at 1:00, the background building has possibly one behind it at 12:00, there is one at 10:00 for the posts, one at either 2:00 for for formost character or he has no shadow and it is at 7:00 for some item in the forground, one char are lit by one at 8:00, the other at 7:00. So, that's around a half dozen suns, cool.

 

[Unit01]

That should give you a tan wherever you go

 

[Basic]

himself :
I wouldn't agree with that. The shadows of the man in front, the man at the zebra crossing, the man beside the army truck, and the army truck itself are perfectly consistent.

The shadows from static objects doesn't come from the same sun. But the pillars, the cylindrical thingy between them, and the fence are perfectly consistent. It's hard to say if they're consistent with the house in the background (with the grand entrance), but there's at least no parts that say that they aren't. (The shadow of the fence around the entrance hints that it's consistent with the pillars, but it's diffuse.)

So I'd say two suns. (Still one too much. )

 

[indio]

That should give you a tan wherever you go

and it will be pretty much even.

 

[MazeWing]

If there are more suns than 1. there would also be more shadows so......

 

[martrox]

Well....as long as there is no sunlight "where the sun don't shine", I'm happy......

 

[Bambers]

Hmm these are obviously fake photos like the moon landings

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Hmm these are obviously fake photos like the moon landings

Those weren't fake. They were conspiratory.
-joke

 

[V3]

That don't look so bad, the one in VF4 is worst IMO. The shadows are opposite in this shot.

 

[AndrewM]

The reason this sort of stuff happens is that you might only be calculating shadows from the most significant light (or the one closest to the object), even tho it looks weird.

Half-Life2's global lighting is static (hence the static shadows). Characters and such cast shadows dynamically.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Well having a look at the HL2 trailer I got I didn't see any problems like that... what I did see that was not right is when someone is in the shadow of an object, that person would still have a shadow. Have a look. When people are standing next to a building the buildings shadow is there, but so is the people(s) shadows which is wrong since no shadow should show as the building is covering the sun.

US

 

[Xmas]

Well having a look at the HL2 trailer I got I didn't see any problems like that... what I did see that was not right is when someone is in the shadow of an object, that person would still have a shadow. Have a look. When people are standing next to a building the buildings shadow is there, but so is the people(s) shadows which is wrong since no shadow should show as the building is covering the sun.

US

True. Looking at that truck again, it seems like it is the only object having two shadows. And the shadow of the guy in front of the truck is really darkening the truck's shadow.