Terrain Shadows

[SpiderPig]

Here's something I've never mastered.  How to get my large voxel terrain to cast shadows onto itself?  At the very least I want nearby mountains to cast shadows.  Is this a separate pass done in a specific shader?  Or some highly advanced custom code I need to write?

[Josh]

Shouldn't it just work automatically?

[SpiderPig]

That's what I originally thought but it never has... not for a custom mesh at least.  Unless there's something extra I need to setup.  Material or entity settings perhaps?

[SpiderPig]

So this is it currently, not even shadows from the player.  I'll double check my light setup first.

[SpiderPig]

Well if I actually created a light it might help, eh?

void Atmosphere::CreateSun()
{
	//light_sun = CreateDirectionalLight(world);
	//light_sun->SetRotation(45, 35, 0, true);
}

My dark patch friends are back with the light but no shadows.  Shadows would need valid UV coords yeah?

[Josh]

14 minutes ago, SpiderPig said:

Shadows would need valid UV coords yeah?

No

[Josh]

Call world::SetIblIntensity(0) to get rid of the PBR lighting so you can see what's going on better.

[SpiderPig]

This is with IBL intensity set to 0.  I'm sure I posted this issue before and I thought I solved it..  it might be my shader...

[SpiderPig]

Not my shader.  This is the default shader....

[SpiderPig]

Posted the issue here:

https://www.ultraengine.com/community/topic/62056-shadow-problems/

[Josh]

You can also save your model as a GLTF and view it in another program to make sure there's nothing strange going on.

[SpiderPig]

Ah okay.  I'll try that too.

[SpiderPig]

Shadows are being cast properly now.    However the player and terrain don't have shadows... I think it might be due to both have pivots as a parent somewhere down the line... I will test this.

pivot->SetShadows(true)

[SpiderPig]

The terrain does have shadows now but what I really want to do is have terrain shadows far into the distance.  Ideally the whole terrain casts shadows at least onto itself at a low resolution if required.  Is this something that can be done with shaders and an extra camera?

[Josh]

I suppose you could create a second camera and another directional light, but the performance will probably not be good. Maybe use a single box light instead.

A baked lightmap for distance terrain shadows is something I have thought about.

[SpiderPig]

That actually gives me an idea.  I suppose I could create a series of low resolution shadow maps and use a shader to blend between them depending on the light direction.  Or even a compute shader to calculate the shadow map on the fly.  🤔

[miladenaa]

 I'll try that too.  teatv

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