about shadows

[dark santaclaus]

there is alot info about the shadows and all that stuff, but nobody has mentioned somethig about the main characters shadow, i mean, will we be able to se our own shadow in the game?, i dont remember any game whit that caracteristic.

That would be very usefull for example in multiplayer, imagine, you are hiding behind a corner, and somebody is looking for you, the shadows are gonna be something important in multiplayer, but if you are not able to see your own shadow, how it supous you are gonna really hide of your oponent?, you may be behind a wall and not show your body, but, how to know if your shadow is being seen?

[Darkstalker]

At the end of the illegal E3 movie when the player jumps down you can see his shadow on the wall just before he gets killed by the hellknight.

[Lectrix]

Yeah, i think in one of the previews someone said they ran round a corner and shot at their own shadow, because he though it was the enemy. So i can pretty much say, yes u have one of your own in doom 3.

[Skeletor]

yes you will see char's shadow because the code implmentation for the lighting applies to everything. it's not scripted, and it's not a special effect.

[Coopersville]

Yes.

[Linguica]

I dunno if you can actually see your shadow all the time during the game. During cutscenes, yes. During special circumstances, yes. During deathmatch, probably yes. During the actuall single player game, I would bet no.

[the lone crouton]

You could see your own shadow in Serious Sam over three years ago, so I don't see why not.

[Lord FlatHead]

I believe the player shadow is disabled by default and enabled in deathmatch and non-interactive cutscenes. Having an entire scene go dark when a player accidentally steps on a light source would only be "scary" and "immersive" so many times before it got annoying.

[Tetzlaff]

Lord FlatHead said:

Having an entire scene go dark when a player accidentally steps on a light source would only be "scary" and "immersive" so many times before it got annoying.

I don´t think so, because there probably won´t be many rooms with only one single light source.

[Fredrik]

Tetzlaff said:

I don´t think so, because there probably won´t be many rooms with only one single light source.

Exactly.

And in the odd case, it could be used for some cool effects.

[dsm]

Fredrik said:

Exactly.

And in the odd case, it could be used for some cool effects.

Like the scene in the E3 2002 demo where the player jumps down into a room, casting his shadow on a wall and then the Hell Knight shows up behind him, dwarfing his shadow.
I know that was more or less the Alpha and the final game should not be judged from an alpha, but it would be silly to have the player's shadow shut off when situations like the one described above really add to the game.

I doubt *one* meagre shadow extra would clog up the hardware.

[Shaviro]

In the alpha you could turn on the player shadow with some command.

[TH-555]

e3 2002 video? is there any place to download it? I thought there wasnt.

[Fredrik]

doomworld.com/doom3/movies/

[TH-555]

speaking of shadows, didnt the shadows in the Radeon 9700 demonstration look funky? as opposed to the better ones in the new screenies.

[Arioch]

The alpha's shadows do look correctly irrespective of whether or not you run ati or nvidia.

As for what they will look like in the final game, time will tell.

[Lord FlatHead]

dsm said:

I doubt *one* meagre shadow extra would clog up the hardware.

The shadows don't slow things down, the lights do.

[AndrewB]

If the player doesn't have a shadow, or if you're still able to look down and see yourself floating in mid-air without any contact with the floor whatsoever, then that would be incredibly stupid.

[Fredrik]

But as we know, graphics don't matter.

[Linguica]

dsm said:

Like the scene in the E3 2002 demo where the player jumps down into a room, casting his shadow on a wall and then the Hell Knight shows up behind him, dwarfing his shadow.

That is what I mean by special circumstances. That is the only light source in the whole alpha that the player casts a shadow from.

[BNA!]

Lord FlatHead said:

The shadows don't slow things down, the lights do.

Actually it's not the lights but the resulting shadow calculations :)

The more lights the more different shadows the lower the performance.

[Shaviro]

BNA! said:

Actually it's not the lights but the resulting shadow calculations :)

The more lights the more different shadows the lower the performance.

It's not as much the amount of lights as it's the amont of overlapping lights! ;)

[BNA!]

Shaviro said:

It's not as much the amount of lights as it's the amont of overlapping lights! ;)

... because if they don't overlap they can't cast different shadows ;)

[Sephiroth]

forget shaodws i want to know if you look down and see your own feet/legs/body

[Fredrik]

Sephiroth said:

forget shaodws i want to know if you look down and see your own feet/legs/body

It would be a bit funny if you could see your own shadow but not the body that causes it :P

[Tetzlaff]

Some of the newer games, Gore and Iron Storm for example, had the view of the players own feet implemented and it´s definitely a nice touch that helps the immersion quite a bit. I hope Doom3 will have it as well.

[dsm]

I couldn't care less whether you can see your own feet - it's not like it adds to the gameplay itself other than a slight bit of possible immersion.

I think the immersion of the environment's atmosphere is way more important to work on.

That's of course all imho.

[Dark-tenshi]

It will be If the monster can grap your feet,and you can look down ,see your feet and shoot at monster`s arm

[Tetzlaff]

dsm said:

I think the immersion of the environment's atmosphere I way more important to work on.

Yeah that´s why I said it would be "a nice touch". Nothing important but a cool detail that would add to the experience. And it isn´t that hard to implement.

[Lectrix]

LOL, It amuses me to read these reply's, no offence, they all sound like nice idea's but im sure ID arn't going to concentrate on such difficult and compelling area's (Monsters grab your feet :) would be funny but i don't see it happening) compared to the simple style of shoot and run that doom has to live up to.

Plus i wanna see it out sometime this year, rather than them add gimmicks. But i would wait if it meant more levels/monsters to battle, coz i don't want Doom 3 to be a short game, like all these new generation games. :(