questions about stencil shadows

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I've only played around with the stencil shadows (carmacks reverse) a little and that was ages ago, so I' not very experianced or knolidged to how it works... but a few days ago some ideas popped into my head.

If you create a sphere, then use this as a stenciled object (invisible) then it creates a circle on the objects that it touches.... is this object actually a mesh? can it be edited? can it be textured? and if so could u use it as a light to subtract away from light maps? is it possible to subtract away from light maps in *.b3d files created in maplet or gile[s]? How?

and I've also been working on a simple shadow engine, reminicent of the swift shadow system (but not as fast and I guess not as cool) anywho... if the stencil shadow is actually a mesh, then it (sorta) just copies a chunk of the level... like Swift's shadow engine does (to put the shadow on)... could you do this faster with the stencil shadows? would it work? I mean... since the stencil shadows can't handle animated models... y not use camera\texture (soft) shadows and shove them on the "stencil shadow"... lol... then agin... I don't even know if it's a mesh... I'm so simple...

Well... if anyone could help me out... I'd be very thankful :)