I was actually thinking of just pure black shadows actually, though I suppose that would be a bit ugly, so I'll give that some consideration, thanks for the tip.
I was concerned about the Nvidia shaders, as I've read that they're not too good on ATI cards, but I'll take another look.
I can probably afford to use a lot of texture memory for these actually. I'm currently planning to use vertex colors instead of lightmaps for everything, although I've not decided if this will be a static or dynamic lighting solution. Either way, since I'm not using lightmaps, I should be able to use high res rendertargets without worrying too much about VRam.
Thanks also for the info about packing and unpacking the depth in the PS. I'll see what other rendertarget formats I can use as well.
I was concerned about the Nvidia shaders, as I've read that they're not too good on ATI cards, but I'll take another look.
I can probably afford to use a lot of texture memory for these actually. I'm currently planning to use vertex colors instead of lightmaps for everything, although I've not decided if this will be a static or dynamic lighting solution. Either way, since I'm not using lightmaps, I should be able to use high res rendertargets without worrying too much about VRam.
Thanks also for the info about packing and unpacking the depth in the PS. I'll see what other rendertarget formats I can use as well.