"Admittedly my shadows are going nuts at higher resolutions than 256, but that's probably something else to blame. :)"
Shadow resolution is limited by the vertical resolution of the video mode you are in. If you are running a 640x480 window, then you won't be able to render shadow textures that are 512 tall. That is a limitation of Blitz.
Also, keep in mind that higher res shadows can slow things down significantly, because copying the rendered images to a texture is slow. Each 512x512 texture is equivalent to four 256x256 textures.
On the other hand, you can improve the quality of the textures your characters by blurring the textures, and that, while costing four or eight times the fill rate, only equates to two 256x256 texture copies.
Also, make sure that the center of your mesh is the center of your model! If your characters in mesh space are standing on 0,0,0 onstead of centered on 0,0,0, then your shadow textures will appear to be half the resolution they would otherwise appear to be. Basically the character ends up being zoomed out more when the texture is rendered because the vertcies in the model tell the system the model is bigger than it really is.
Shadow resolution is limited by the vertical resolution of the video mode you are in. If you are running a 640x480 window, then you won't be able to render shadow textures that are 512 tall. That is a limitation of Blitz.
Also, keep in mind that higher res shadows can slow things down significantly, because copying the rendered images to a texture is slow. Each 512x512 texture is equivalent to four 256x256 textures.
On the other hand, you can improve the quality of the textures your characters by blurring the textures, and that, while costing four or eight times the fill rate, only equates to two 256x256 texture copies.
Also, make sure that the center of your mesh is the center of your model! If your characters in mesh space are standing on 0,0,0 onstead of centered on 0,0,0, then your shadow textures will appear to be half the resolution they would otherwise appear to be. Basically the character ends up being zoomed out more when the texture is rendered because the vertcies in the model tell the system the model is bigger than it really is.