Shadows

[Anastomosis]

I would love to see shadows from clouds moving across the land. This could be used to warn the player of incoming storms, and would create a nice dynamic effect in general. Also, the passing of time could be made more apparent if shadows moved around with the time of day. 

 

Didn't find these suggestions in the search, so hopefully they're something worth considering in a future update.

[ErickfederigeBR]

good ideia XD

[RorekSR]

Shadows are typically very expensive in video games, and that's why many games go for very simple shadows or have the ability to turn them off entirely. It's also why dynamic shadows and lighting are rarely used; more often than not, they simply don't serve a purpose than being a little bit prettier for those who have high-end PCs.

Seeing shadows of clouds moving across the landscape wouldn't be telling at all, actually, because there can be just as many clouds on a rainless day as there is on a stormy one. You'd need an ability to look up into the sky to see what type of clouds they are. And if you want dynamic shadows to go with the flow of time, then there'd need to be a dynamic lightsource that circles around the map. Then you'd need it dynamically casting shadows from all of the assorted houses/buildings/trees/bushes/people/whatever, or at the very least someone would have to hand make these shadows and their angles so that they can be called to show the proper time of day. These shadows would be resource intensive and very time consuming to make.

Nearly all games bake their shadows in. (Put geometry into your scene > Add a light source into the scene so the geometry casts shadows > Render out the maps > Shadows from said geometry are now baked into the surface they covered) because it's much less resource intensive than having the shadows cast dynamically. The issue with baked maps is that the shadows don't move on them. So if you took the geometry and moved it elsewhere or otherwise altered it, the exact same shadow will still be present on the exact same spot until bake the lightmaps again.

What you're asking for strikes me as not only unimportant to the game, but very expensive to it as well as detrimental to the experiences of many players who don't have up-to-date hardware.

[Guest]

They do not need to be full fledged shadows RorekSR.

 

Something less subtle and less expensive would work as well as long as it fulfills the purpose.

 

And I have a feeling as time goes on we might see shadows someday

 

The feels man.

[RorekSR]

He's asking specifically for dynamic shadows that move with time (which would involve a persistent light source circling around and casting them), and even dynamic shadows on clouds.

I never said shadows were out of the question at any point, but that if implemented I don't think they'd be dynamic or achieve the desired effect the OP wants them to have. 

What is a "full-fledged shadow" anyway? I wasn't aware that shadows had certifications that awarded them the honor of being a real shadow, instead of one of those shadow poseurs. A shadow is a shadow, be it pre-baked, dynamic, subtle, or blatant. What I get from your post is that shadows might make an appearance, and that they'd be simpler and less expensive. In other words, they wouldn't be dynamic or realistic. Which means they wouldn't achieve the OPs desired effect, as it would be too much for the game.

And that's exactly what I was getting at. Dynamic shadows don't exist in most games because they're too expensive for little to no payoff. That's also why I explained how baking lighting into a scene works. That's an obvious method of less-expensive shadows, but it clearly doesn't come near achieving what the OP desires.

[Guest]

Full-fledged shadow would be something along the lines of life like shadows meaning they take the perfect shape of the object/person. 

 

A not so dynamic shadow would be like an ugly ink-blot only for purpose and not visuals but would still move with time, which if implemented well could be fantastic and hopefully not as expensive.

 

Wish I could give you an example of some old video-games implementing them with an option for dynamic shadows or the simpler shadows that I stated but I just cannot right now.

 

Also, I agree with your last para, all the way for less-expensive shadows

[Anastomosis]

What you're asking for strikes me as not only unimportant to the game, but very expensive to it as well as detrimental to the experiences of many players who don't have up-to-date hardware.

 

I would argue that dynamic shadows are very important to the game, and could be fully adjustable for those players with extremely old PCs.

 

PZ is all about a real-world scenario, albeit highly unlikely, in which the player is required to eat, and drink, and sleep, and manage just about every other real-life malady. Dynamic shadows would add so much more to that realism. I would also be very surprised if most players' PCs couldn't handle at least a "low" setting for these shadows. Even still, there can be an option to turn them off if their PC is more than 4-5 years old. That's the great thing about the PC Master Race, we can adjust settings to our liking.

[Kajin]

I'd suggest tabling this under "Wait and See". On one hand, it's programming time that the devs could be using for other things. On the other hand, it'd be pretty awesome if I could snap a glow stick and toss it around the corner to see if there's anything moving just out of sight or to act as an early warning if enemy survivors are about to try and charge my position.

[RorekSR]

 

What you're asking for strikes me as not only unimportant to the game, but very expensive to it as well as detrimental to the experiences of many players who don't have up-to-date hardware.

 

I would argue that dynamic shadows are very important to the game, and could be fully adjustable for those players with extremely old PCs.

 

PZ is all about a real-world scenario, albeit highly unlikely, in which the player is required to eat, and drink, and sleep, and manage just about every other real-life malady. Dynamic shadows would add so much more to that realism. I would also be very surprised if most players' PCs couldn't handle at least a "low" setting for these shadows. Even still, there can be an option to turn them off if their PC is more than 4-5 years old. That's the great thing about the PC Master Race, we can adjust settings to our liking.

 

 

I can understand that viewpoint entirely, but I feel they wouldn't mesh well with the isometric view and the importance of light over darkness. It would make things too visually confusing or noisy, particularly in busy areas. This is just me speculating and surmising my own opinion, of course. I understand the desire for realism, but the strive for realism in some cases can potentially add detrimental effects to a video game, especially one wherein there are already quite a few game-y compromises.

I don't think realistic visuals are something that PZ should ever strive for. I'm not opposed to shadows, but I don't think using dynamic shadows would be the best direction to take it. Maybe they are and the devs will cook something fantastic up that'll make me eat my words.

[Rathlord]

Here's the issue: even if try could use a few different sets of baked shadows for different scenarios and swap between them (which would be a pain on the first place) you're still left with every dynamic object in the game: characters and zombies, moveable items, and player constructs CANT be baked.

This means either you're left with high cost dynamic shadows that some people can't use, or a really noticeable lack of shadows on dynamic objects. Both of these draw te player's attention away from the game and break immersion.

[doomblood66]

I would love to see shadows from clouds moving across the land. This could be used to warn the player of incoming storms, and would create a nice dynamic effect in general. Also, the passing of time could be made more apparent if shadows moved around with the time of day. 

 

Didn't find these suggestions in the search, so hopefully they're something worth considering in a future update.

Nahh, what Rath said

[Rathlord]

I forgot to mention (was in a bit of a hurry when I wrote the above) that pretty much everything in PZ is dynamic due to the ability to not only build, but also destroy everything except the terrain (fire/sledgehammer/axes). So you either have to update the baked lighting constantly (not sure if possible, and would make it almost as costly as dynamic lighting anyways), or have completely messed up shadows, or only have cloud patterns on terrain and nothing else.

[Footmuffin]

This isn't do-able in that fancy new lighting system TIS is working on?

[Anastomosis]

This isn't do-able in that fancy new lighting system TIS is working on?

 

After reading this, http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/1844-iso-revolution/, it looks like dynamic shadows will be do-able. In particular the part where lemmy101 mentions Proper Lighting.

 

PZ, when completely finished, will be one hell of a game!