my ocd self always gets the better of me. i obsess over small things like shadows. in Second Life i really loved Straylight trees and i wish i could buy some for OpenSim from Kris. i also loved Corn furniture. both creators are truly talented
made by Ikea Hax =p
both creators also include shadows with their products and i always thought that added a lot of realism. even a simple chair looks better with a shadow
naturally, when i started making trees (lol, one tree) and furniture i added shadows
but since real (native) shadows are possible and actually add very little overhead with Imprudence (now with spell checking!), i am revisiting my use of shadows. my video card is no beast by any means, it’s a two year old Nvidia 9600GT with a gig of onboard memory and it is slightly overclocked. the rest of my machine is three pluse years old . . .
turning on shadows in Imprudence adds so much realism, it almost messes with you (it’s really weird to build with shadows turned on). personally, i think making shadows mainstream would have a larger impact than mesh imports because everyone would see them right away (i think mesh imports should become a reality too even though i am very happy building with regular prims and think there are benefits to that)
i did a “time lapse” shadow post sometime back and a tree test two weeks back (prim versus sculptie trunk) and now have mashed the two together in my head to create something new to obsess about!
for trees, i *think* i have decided to go without shadows. most people don’t place shadows with their trees (they are a pain to place unless your ground is uber flat)
for furniture, well i suppose i will dump the shadows too . . . nothing else in-world has them and, eventually, shadows will be the norm in viewers . . . =)
what are your thoughts on shadows?
do you include them in your builds?
do you think shadows might become mainstream in a year?
Ener like yourself I been messing with shadows for some time. I agree they add lots to our 3D worlds. I have stopped all together adding prim shadows to furniture and other builds. Imprudence, Kirstens viewer s19 and s20 and of cause the dreaded V2 viewer all cast good shadows. When combined with projected light (texture) you can get some very realistic effects even inside a building and shadows cast from many different light sources. Shadows are way more important to me at this moment than mesh.
Per Eriksson
7 Sep 10 at 7:52 pm
thank you Per (i had a good Swedish friend irl named Per – yum gravad lax!) you have helped my decision – be gone fake shadows!
i did not realise that 2.0 did shadows, i will check that out
i like using textured cones for projected light but find that they can mess me (or others) up when moving my camera about
mesh will add much realism (and abuse) when introduced – the abuse will be rampant because people already don’t understand the impact of poor textures, glow, transparency, and bad building joints
thank you again, i can obsess less about this decision! =)
Ener Hax
7 Sep 10 at 10:28 pm
This is something that to be honest, I have put little thought into, but is a very good valid point. I think for the world that I will be designing I will not add shadows, but use a viewer, like Imprudence which has shadows with it.
My main problem is to do with computer specs. Although in the office the computer can easily handle it (Quad core, 8GB DDR3 RAM, ATI HD5700, very lucky for a charity) as part of the project I am working on we would be buying laptops for hospitals, for the teenage cancer patients to use for accessing the world. So of course the cheaper, lower spec laptops the better for us, but they still need to cope with being able to view the world nicely.
Jonathan
8 Sep 10 at 3:32 am
“what are your thoughts on shadows?”
Very important. Even at the dyed-in-the-wool functional end of the scale, end users imaginations will more likely be captured the closer something looks “real”. Science exhibits and interactive museum displays dont flippantly discount immersion. The committee doesnt meet and say “this interactive exhibit must be non-immersive. We prefer the kids prefer to go back to their iPhones”
“do you include them in your builds?”
Yes. Even with a viewer capable of shadows. Lighting is complex. IRL, the human brain expects light sources to come from various directions. Thus, one can include, baked texture shadows, prim shadows, and viewer shadows all at once. Even if SL/Opensim Viewer lighting/shadows became mainstream tomorrow, it would be standard direct illumination, not radiosity based, which would be 6 years away again. Hence, shadows – the more the merrier.
“do you think shadows might become mainstream in a year?”
No. There are too many laptops around. And a new one today lags a desktop’s graphics performance by 3-4 years. One of two things has to happen, either a radical paradigm shift for SL/OS viewer architecture, or an alternative render engine becomes mainstream. Unfortunately, the niche viewers and web-based viewers capable of shadows are being withheld to their respective worlds for competitive reasons.
Breen Whitman
8 Sep 10 at 3:51 am
hi Jonathan, well the good news is that millions of people have used Second Life without any shadows and don’t have issues. the social interactions outweigh technical minutia like this. keep in mind that i look at virtual worlds through a microscope and what is a non-issue to most (like my ping thing) becomes a post or two and seems paramount in itself. all of this needs to be placed in context and taken as a whole
most of the time i have a harder time getting my hair on than any of these issues, it’s just that after 800 blog posts in two years, i tend to go into detail on a few things =)
excellent Breen! thank you on your very acute and direct observations! shadows do add an immersive element, it was quite stunning to me the first time i saw my shadow (lol, like a groundhog!). although i tend not to leave shadows turned on
i am still in my paradigm of the last four years which is to not expect shadows (just like i don’t expect studio quality movies on YouTube)
gee, now i am conflicted again on shadows in my builds! you are more likely correct with your estimate of several years and having more lighting points in a scene. i know that in Blender, i will often use a “skydome” with 60 lights in it to create rich ambient lighting plus have a sun and whatever other lighting i need (as many as 120 lights in some things i have done)
thinking in those terms, gee, i’ll use prim shadows forever! =)
Ener Hax
8 Sep 10 at 7:27 am
uhhh hum prim shadows takes long to make and never really look right unless in a static scene. The Specs for a computer is not that high for shadows so I think it is now safe to bring them on if people want them, a video card around the $100.00 can show good shadow. So putting a prim shadow in to the picture will just confuse, since it will show its own shadow. Brenn you might be right it might take that long but I for one think we just about have it all right now it is all there if you take time to tweak it a bit :-)
Per Eriksson
8 Sep 10 at 8:21 am
hmm, dang, well here is my stream of thought. i think i will build without shadows because my purpose (virtual field trips) should hopefully be more about the subject at hand and not so much about the detail
of course i want rich detail (just see my 658 prim spaceship or 200 prim espresso machine)
i am actually quite torn on this issue =/
Ener Hax
8 Sep 10 at 11:27 pm