I have yet to purchase the pc version, as I am awaiting the next patch. But, I have heard along the way that there were no exterior shadows. This can't possibly be true. Or is it?

:huh:

consoles can't handle them, and them being enabled on PC would be "unfair" or something dumb like that i don't know. the engine supports them but there's no way to enable them.

what irks me more than the lack of dynamic lighting is the fact that there's not even BAKED SHADOWS for buildings and rocks and stuff. like they do fake volumetric lighting but they can't even make [censored] cast static shadows.

Fallout 3 doesn't have them either. They do add plenty of atmosphere in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for example, a thunderstorm at night in a old building with holes in it's roof... :drool:

Pretty much what I figured. Maybe a motivated modder can get them in.

I guess we pc users get the shaft again due to console limits. :facepalm:

I'm not an expert on these things, so maybe this is idiotic, but can you do baked shadows with moving light sources? The sun does move in the game, doesn't it?

You would need to cheat it and create 24 different shadow maps (or maybe 48) ahead of time for the static objects. Which would take a very long time.

Back in the CoD:UO days, after setting up a map in the world builder, I had to then compile the shadows - which took a while on the machines of the day. CoD:UO maps were about equivalent to a single game cell in Fallout (and FO3 has a few hundred game cells in outdoor areas). So, imagine touching a cell in world builder, then having to spend an hour or so calculating the static shadows for that cell.

With modern game machines, it's better to let the video card calculate them on the fly.

STALKER does it with static lighting, where there's a preset shadow for every static regardless of any illumination from the sun or from flashlights or whatever. NPC shadows are dictated by the sun, and i don't recall if movable objects have shadows. i think chairs might.

Red Dead Redemption does a similar thing but a lot better as far as lighting from the sun is concerned, and if i'm not mistaken has dynamic shadows from other lightsources (campfires, lamps etc.). actually the whole RAGE lighting system is really really nice for a console game.



this sounds so pointlessly complicated it's hilarious.

I know FO3 didn't have them. But the engine does support them, Figured it was a given that they would update, at least a little. But then again, consoles haven't progressed since FO3................... You do the math.

There are shadows in the game at least for me, I play on the 360.