That's what I thought you meant :)
Firstly, what happens if the car is rotating in an axis other than yaw? The shadow beneath would not match what is actually happening and would look terrible.
4/5 linepicks wouldn't cut it in certain scenarios - e.g. the track curb. Up close that would look awful and it IS dog slow cos I have tried it. Evey vertex in the mesh would have to be linepicked to ensure it hugs the landscape and even then it wouldn't look good.
If you extrude the shadow mesh by the picked normals then the wheels will be slightly underneath the shadow - again looking terrible.
My shadows are rendered to two big textures, one for high shadows and the other for low so that I can have shadows done correctly for under and over bridges etc... They also appear under water and do not require any kind of offset. For ensuring only nearby shadows are rendered I simply copyrect a square section around the players car, same for a second player if there is one and repeat for both low & high shadows. It automatically builds the static shadows too.
While the textures are only 1024 x 1024 I can render 50 dynamic objects in under 5ms. I'd prefer to have ok shadows which serve their purpose than have a system which brings the gameplay to it's knees - I'm aiming for low spec here. Don't get me wrong - shadows were never an afterthought and I put alot of work into what I have but to me gameplay and a consistent style are more important.
I'd love to be able to have perfect crisp shadows but Blitz just isn't up to the job it's that simple. If someone wrote a nice fast and versatile stencil system I'd be using that without a shadow of a doubt ;)
That said, I appreciate your time and input.
Stevie
Firstly, what happens if the car is rotating in an axis other than yaw? The shadow beneath would not match what is actually happening and would look terrible.
4/5 linepicks wouldn't cut it in certain scenarios - e.g. the track curb. Up close that would look awful and it IS dog slow cos I have tried it. Evey vertex in the mesh would have to be linepicked to ensure it hugs the landscape and even then it wouldn't look good.
If you extrude the shadow mesh by the picked normals then the wheels will be slightly underneath the shadow - again looking terrible.
My shadows are rendered to two big textures, one for high shadows and the other for low so that I can have shadows done correctly for under and over bridges etc... They also appear under water and do not require any kind of offset. For ensuring only nearby shadows are rendered I simply copyrect a square section around the players car, same for a second player if there is one and repeat for both low & high shadows. It automatically builds the static shadows too.
While the textures are only 1024 x 1024 I can render 50 dynamic objects in under 5ms. I'd prefer to have ok shadows which serve their purpose than have a system which brings the gameplay to it's knees - I'm aiming for low spec here. Don't get me wrong - shadows were never an afterthought and I put alot of work into what I have but to me gameplay and a consistent style are more important.
I'd love to be able to have perfect crisp shadows but Blitz just isn't up to the job it's that simple. If someone wrote a nice fast and versatile stencil system I'd be using that without a shadow of a doubt ;)
That said, I appreciate your time and input.
Stevie