Doom 3 shadows questionable...

[Sedako]

Well, this was discovered by thehunter1320, so I checked it out. The shadows cast by static objects in Doom 3 when using the flashlight are not dynamic. Try casting the shadow from a railing onto a room. The shadow doesn't bend around the room like it should. Instead, the image's shadow is projected into the "air" only a few feet away from the object, but it has the illusion of dynamic shadows. This is probably one of the reasons why the game performs so well on lower end hardware. I'd post some pics, but I don't want to be banned.

 

[Shuzer]

Why would posting pics of D3 get you banned? It's not like the HL2 stolen build.. it's out, and you have it.

Anyhow, that sounds interesting. I can see why they might do that, as it looks dynamic, and it'd save alot on performance. Does it REALLY matter?

 

[DarkStar]

I'd post some pics, but I don't want to be banned.

Why would you get banned?

 

[craig]

It's probably programmed to behave various ways on different hardware.. i.e. if it was truly fully dynamic and running on the min spec of 1500+ how laggy would it be :/

 

[Sedako]

Synth: "Anyone caught posting links to a leak or unauthorized screenshots will be banned. You people can wait until release."

 

[thehunter1320]

It's probably programmed to behave various ways on different hardware.. i.e. if it was truly fully dynamic and running on the min spec of 1500+ how laggy would it be :/

we should still be able to pick what settings we want, regardless of our PCs! i know my PC is capable of running dynamic shadows! at least they could project the shadows on the walls FFS!!! that game thinks my PC should be running 640x480 on medium... i run it at 800x600 on high flawlessly

it's still a great game, IMO... this isn't really about the game, it's about id lying to us... or not letting us access features that or supposedly in there

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Synth: "Anyone caught posting links to a leak or unauthorized screenshots will be banned. You people can wait until release."

Again...the game is released..they can't ban you for anything. Post the pics.

 

[Shuzer]

Righto. Post away!

Anyhow, the hardware detection thing does it simply based on your card's amount of RAM. That's why it's not super accurate..

Mine said 800x600 on Medium, yet I run 1024x768 on High just fine. Go figure.

 

[Sedako]

Alright fine, here's some pics...

 

[DarkStar]

Yeah, the mods can sorta be nazis sometimes but they're not THAT bad.....

 

[Shuzer]

Interesting indeed. My only question, why is your FPS capped at 30?

 

[DarkStar]

Allright, I have no idea what you're talking about. Those look fine to me...

 

[Sedako]

As you can see, the shadows don't move around as they should when I move the flashlight.

Interesting indeed. My only question, why is your FPS capped at 30?

It's not capped at 30, I get 40-60 a lot more often then 20-30

 

[Shuzer]

Look carefully, DarkStar. The shadows the flashlight projects are casting into the air. They're not casting onto walls.. it's harder to tell in screenshots, easier to tell in motion.

Although, you're going about it all wrong, Shane.
They DO change direction, but only if YOU change direction, simply changing your mouselook view doesn't move it.. try it with a real flashlight IRL. Until you actually move the physical location of the light, shining the beam in slightly different directions wields similar results until the actual lantern is moved (I hope this made sense, as it's poorly worded)

 

[blahblahblah]

Even though they are not casting on walls, they do appear to be dynamic. Could be driver glitch in the graphics card.

 

[Sedako]

Even though they are not casting on walls, they do appear to be dynamic.

i'll make a video for you guys.

 

[blahblahblah]

From the second set of screenshots, the shadow of the railing does appear to move.

I've noticed as games get more realistic (physics, lighting and shadows) that something maybe rendered correctly (according to the game engine) but may not appear correct to us. It just something that I've started to notice more and more in games. I don't know if this pertains to Doom 3 or not.

 

[Javert]

I see the problem. Interesting indeed, though I'm not surprised. The devs had to use every trick in the book to get that thing runnable.
Note also the darkness is a trick to not render everything on the screen at the same time. Can you imagine the frame lag if everything was lighted and seen?

 

[thehunter1320]

here are 2 videos i made to show you what me and sedako are talking about

Video 1
Video 2

they are in .WMV format

 

[thehunter1320]

I see the problem. Interesting indeed, though I'm not surprised. The devs had to use every trick in the book to get that thing runnable.

but id promised us dynamic shadows! that is what tweaks me the most! id lied to us, unless this is just with the flashlight, which is still very, very lame

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I see the problem. Interesting indeed, though I'm not surprised. The devs had to use every trick in the book to get that thing runnable.
Note also the darkness is a trick to not render everything on the screen at the same time. Can you imagine the frame lag if everything was lighted and seen?

Untrue. Dark faces are still rendered.

 

[blahblahblah]

I think they are being properly projected, however this is a bug because of the nature of the shadows. They are stencil shadows which are rendered pitch black and are solid (they are not soft shadows). Because it the shadow is perfectly black, you loose the depth perception that the shadow has. You can't find depth to something you can't see.

 

[Shuzer]

here are 2 videos i made to show you what me and sedako are talking about

Video 1
Video 2

they are in .WMV format

The second video proves what I was saying. If you change the position of the light source (ie. the player), the shadow moves properly. If, however, you keep the same base position, and simply move the direction of which the light is shining, the shadow does not appear to move.

Try this in real life with a flashlight. You'll see the shadows stays almost still until you move the actual position, as opposed to the orientation of the beam

 

[Sedako]

The second video proves what I was saying. If you change the position of the light source (ie. the player), the shadow moves properly. If, however, you keep the same base position, and simply move the direction of which the light is shining, the shadow does not appear to move.

Try this in real life with a flashlight. You'll see the shadows stays almost still until you move the actual position, as opposed to the orientation of the beam

Yeah, but it's hard to capture what we're talking about. Sometimes you can see it well, other times it looks natural. id did takes shortcuts, but they pulled it off nicely.

 

[thefiznut]

Hm.. Very clever trick id did. However, does this still occur even on ultra settings?

 

[Sedako]

My vid:

http://members.cox.net/thehunter1320/doom3_sedako.wmv

 

[Shuzer]

Hm.. Very clever trick id did. However, does this still occur even on ultra settings?

The only difference ultra settings have over high are the textures are uncompressed. They're in their full glory, looking as sharp as possible.

 

[Pablo]

What`s the difference between uncompressed and compressed textures? Is it the obvious? (that the textures is compressed to a smaller file size) Just want to be sure, thats all.. Sorry if post is of topic..

 

[Shuzer]

What`s the difference between uncompressed and compressed textures? Is it the obvious? (that the textures is compressed to a smaller file size) Just want to be sure, thats all.. Sorry if post is of topic..

They're compressed to save on performance.
The visual difference between high and ultra is really hard to spot.

 

[Pablo]

Is the performance difference significant? Is it worth to sacrifise some fps for that extra sharpness?

 

[-JeZ-]

/me wants to play the game NOW but will have to wait 'till Friday 13th

Bugger

 

[Raziaar]

Ick. that doesn't look good. And here I was being convinced by everyone it had fully dynamic shadows, that all wrapped around polygons realistically and stuff =(

 

[Sparta]

Seriously? cause i'm in Australia and i got the game a day early (which is today) on the 3rd.

 

[-JeZ-]

Sparta, did you order it from a US webby? If not I might have a surprise when I get home tonight! w00t!

 

[Moto]

Okay...there are well over 50 Doom 3 threads right now. Please stop and use existing threads. The whole front page is filled with threads that have "Doom 3" in them. It's ridiculous.

 

[Asuka]

Synth: "Anyone caught posting links to a leak or unauthorized screenshots will be banned. You people can wait until release."

The game has been out since the 30th. Some gamestops ebs bestbuys sold it early.

 

[Alec_85]

Dunno if anyone mentioned this but I've heard that the flashlight circle (you know the circle the flashlight casts on walls) is NOT projected on objects really but in mid-air so it only looks like it's on a wall. This might be a "on low settings" only feature. Still looks a tad strange when you see it clearly like 2 meters ahead of you when it should be blurry & hard to see over 20+ meters from you

 

[lans]

They're compressed to save on performance.
The visual difference between high and ultra is really hard to spot.

Low is slightly inferior - but medium and high: on both these settings my friend showed me the game and it looked 10x better than ANY level in Far Cry. I mean even at medium...wow!

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Ick. that doesn't look good. And here I was being convinced by everyone it had fully dynamic shadows, that all wrapped around polygons realistically and stuff =(

There are lights that hang/dangle from the roof. When you shoot them they spin around and the shadows move accordingly. So those clearly use dynamic shadowing. Not sure what's up with the flashlight though.

 

[Axyon]

The only difference ultra settings have over high are the textures are uncompressed. They're in their full glory, looking as sharp as possible.

Nope, it's only specular and diffuse lighting maps that are compressed, all other textures are the same as Ultra.