Shadow maps cross hatch pattern aliased

[DPF]

Hi, GameCore is looking good! Thanks!!

When the Beta get ironed out, this will be awesome.

Shadows  - Using shadow maps we're told will boost frame rate, but they look too ragged to be useful at the moment, and are not even close to the old stencil shadows in appearance at least.

Will there be a stencil shadow, or do we just need to tweek the shadow maps?

The new launcher is very nice!  I see shadow map resolution options, vERY cool!  and Shadow map filter? what will that do?

Thanks again and CONGRATULATIONS on launching Gamecore. /)_

[Bensta]

You just need to tweak you shadows, out the box they are quite poor and jaggy.... http://www2.gamecore.ca/docs/lighting-and-shadows/configuring-shadow-maps read that and make sure you apply to editor aswell as game...  http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7633/77651327br2.jpg

[Ransom]

My shadow maps have an ugly outline (see pic).  At higher shadow resolutions, its not quite as noticeable, but the effect is still there.

Anyone else seeing this?

[pixel_legolas]

Shadows are acting mighty strange and i have tried tweaking all of the setting in the .cfg but still i get mosaic over my whole lvl. I will look at this more later on.

[gekido]

The shadows maps work fine for spotlights, but I think everyone is using them with directional lights from the sounds of it.

In this case, you will want to enable the 'split shadow map', which will improve the quality of the shadowmaps for larger outdoor environments.  Check this page for info on what this means:

http://appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~fzhang/pssm_project/

StencilShadows are not a viable technique for shadows.  The current shadow mapping that we have implemented isn't perfect, but is the way that we'll be doing shadows going forward.  It's exactly how Unreal 3, Crysis and pretty much every AAA engine is doing them, however there are obviously some optimizations and enhancements that we need to do to improve the results so far (particularly with large terrains).

Some things to point out regarding shadow maps.  The shadow map texture is dynamically sized so that all shadow-casting objects that are on-screen fit within the texture.  This is why you may notice shadows 'derezzing' sometimes, while looking sharp at other times.  If you have two objects casting shadows but 1000 meters apart, the single texture is stretched over that 1000 m area so that the shadows can be cast into them.  Using more than one shadow map can improve this, however at the tradeoff of higher video memory usage.

It is not a good idea to use shadow maps for everything in a world - ie terrains, buildings, etc.  This is what lightmaps are for.  Figuring out the balance between realtime and 'baked' lighting / shadows is always a bit of a juggling act.

With that said, we definitely realize there is some work that still needs to be done to the shadow maps still.

[DPF]

That's a very good link, thanks!

http://appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~fzhang/pssm_project/

[hikmayan]

It make no sense to try shadow map everything in the scene ...buildings and what not and then expect the end results to be excellent. When you read on that page for example:
1)

2)

3)

GC have a distance to go as far as the perfections some of us "Users" are looking for.In due time,it will all happen.

[Squat]

No matter what I do, I can't get good shadows, even on one single object. They look like they're cast from a 64x64 map even when I put a spotlight up close to something. When I back a spotlight far away from things, it's like 8 pixels for the whole shadow volume. I have gone in and set the number of maps to 16. I have set it to split and the size to 1024, 2048 and 4096. But that doesn't matter because I literally get zero change in what I'm seeing no matter what I change those settings to. I don't know if it's a bug on my end only or if others see it differently.

I've been watching my roommate play battlefield bad company and that appears to be using shadowmaps aswell. I'm pretty sure it's not stencil. The main thing I noticed is that it's working on all geometry and it's increasing the resolution of the map for each individual object as you get closer and dropping resolution on the faraway shadows. At a max distance, I believe they're off. Anyway, the far ones look terrible and the up-close ones don't really look all that great either, but the whole scheme as a whole is relatively convincing. Enough to not have you question shadows.

I was wondering how our maps are calculated. They appear to be utilizing one map per light and not one map per object, correct? This isn't working for me. If I put another shadow casting spotlight across the map, I literally get no shadow pixels at all, or there's one or two faint fuzzy blocks. Clearly both lights are on the same map.

I know it's been discussed and it's been decided, but in my opinion stencil > map, even with its internal volume bugs and they solved that riddle anyway, just it costs a bit..but doesn't shadowmaps? I know when I turn it on my FPS goes in the can, even being stuck on the lowest possible settings.

Since I still can't get any results from the lightmapping buttons, I'm a bit worried here that I'll have bad or no shadows across the board. I'm hoping the next beta release works better for me.

[Ransom]

There are options you can add to your config file to improve shadows...

ShadowMapCount [max 16]
ShadowMapSize [up to 2048]
SplitShadowMap [0 or 1]
PercentageCloserFiltering [0 or 1]

If you're running your game from the editor, you must change the editor's config file as well in order to see the results.

Be warned that these options can cause a loss in frame rate.

[pixel_legolas]

Code:

No matter what I do, I can't get good shadows, even on one single object. They look like they're cast from a 64x64 map even when I put a spotlight up close to something. When I back a spotlight far away from things, it's like 8 pixels for the whole shadow volume. I have gone in and set the number of maps to 16. I have set it to split and the size to 1024, 2048 and 4096. But that doesn't matter because I literally get zero change in what I'm seeing no matter what I change those settings to. I don't know if it's a bug on my end only or if others see it differently.

I think he did that

[Ransom]

and in the editor's config as well?

[Squat]

No, I hadn't done the editor's config yet but it still doesn't work.

I set it to 16 4096 textures and to split and the first thing that happened is DX9 ran out of texture memory in-game, but it still looked the same.

I am absolutely making sure that both the editor and my project's configs are the same. I've tried also resolutions 512, 1024, 2048, 4096. The editor's config was set to 256...it still appears to be even though I changed it.

I close and restart the editor every time.

[Ransom]

What type of light are you using?  How many object's are casting shadows as a result of the light?  Shadow maps take a single image to cast shadows for every object under the light's influence, so the more objects casting shadows, the worse they look.  Directional lights are particularly crappy since they influence the entire scene.

As a test, try disabling all lights except a single spot light and see how your shadows look then.

[Squat]

Yeah, I wish I could say I haven't tried all that, but I have. One single object casting a shadow, one single shadow-casting spotlight. Directional lights are hideous.

I've noticed that the only thing that increases the quality of the shadow is the distance from the light to the object. If I move a light closer, it gets crisper.

But still, not matter what, it's always the same resolution regardless of my settings.

[Ransom]

Man, I don't know what else to tell you, except I'm sure there is a solution out there... somewhere.  I swear I had the exact same issue, changing all the parameters but nothing seems to make a difference, and then I figured out to change the editor and 'bam', that was it.  I know its frustrating, but don't give up.  If you want, you could post a scene and I'll look at it and see if I get the same shadow issues on my machine.