Shadow bugs...

[Gunrunner]

Ok, while continuing to get as much WoI features to WoE (using WoI engine) I was working with shadows, unfortunately, the new shadow system doesn't seem to solve what I call the Peter Pan shadow bug.

 

It is a bug that affects some 3rd party planes, as well as a handful of TW models, aircrafts and ground objects, creating long shadows out of parts of the model incredibly long, linking to the ground shadow for plane models.

 

Here are 3 exemples, ground object, 3rd party plane and stock plane :

For ground objects affected it appears whatever the angle you see the object from.

For some aircrafts they appear whatever the attitude and view angle are (ie. the F-105D), for others, only when the plane is in a given position and viewed from certain angles (ie. the F-15D, when in reverse), the shadow linking where the gound shadow would be appears, whatever altitude you're at.

 

So far I didn't find a way to solve them and have no sure theory on what happens (probably some specifity of some parts of the LOD that the engine doesn't interpret properly when processing shadows).

It seems to appear on every graphic settings as long as shadows are here, and was already there with the old engine (WoE).

 

Am I the only one with this bug, if not, is it or is it nor GPU dependent (ie. happening on some video cards but not others), has anyone solved it ?

[+NeverEnough]

With a Nvidia 8800 GT video card, I had these appear when I installed the 169.47 quadro drivers for XP32 bit. The shadow lines went away when I installed the 169.21, 169.44 and 175.16 Nvidia drivers. I'm currently using the 175.16 beta Nvidia drivers, and they are working great.

[Guest Sony Tuckson]

Pour ce que j'en sais, le bug d'ombre est lié à chacun des modèles 3d

 

Donc, pas de soluce directe

 

As far as I know, this bug is linked to the individual 3d models..

 

So no quick solution

 

 

 

I didn't see neverenough reply when posting

 

I will check that aspect too

 

I observed it during test while I went to a newer video card, it didn't show on older card, but well on newer DX 10 card, but a 3d modification solved that

Edited May 12, 2008 by Sony Tuckson

[Gunrunner]

Thanks for the quick answer guys.

 

So far no luck with drivers change on a 7900GTX (using 169.21, 169.44 or 175.16) and I can't test on a 9800GTX yet, that was a good suggestion though, didn't think to check with different driver versions.

 

Well, I've lived without shadows so far, I might go back to that if there's no other way.

[+76.IAP-Blackbird]

It hast nothing to do with drivers, change the rig and this is a prob of the engine.. so would say you will have no luck with changing the drivers...

[+NeverEnough]

Gunrunner, with a 7950 GT video card I had great results with the 163.75 whgl drivers. The 169 and later drivers seem to be optimized for the 8000 and 9000 series Nvidia video cards. I was running the 7950 GT until upgrading to a 8800 GT about a month ago. The 93.71 whql drivers also work very well with my 7950 GT.

[Gunrunner]

The trouble is that some older drivers don't play nice with some other games and gaining shadows in SF but losing Trainz (well, using OpenGL might save the day though) is a trade-off I might not make, thanks for the tip anyway, I'll wait until I can get the new rig operationnal to try drivers.

[+russouk2004]

some user 3d made models leak shadows thru edges open on a mesh...my Fmk6 Lightning had some...I have fixed most of it...(underway)...as to TW models then I guess thats a gfx prob...

[Gunrunner]

Thanks for the technical explanation Russo.

 

So we might "fix" some planes by building "patches" and positionning them inside the plane thus fixing the "leak"(or is that a dumb idea ?), but that wouldn't work for the ground objects, but since most of those afflicted are dead simple, I guess it's not completely out of my reach.

[+russouk2004]

The 3d model needs fixing in 3ds max...