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Shadow over Shadows
Well, it seems that Hamlet Au really set the prim cat among the particle pigeons in this post about the shadow-draft branch of SL development. As he noted, dynamic shadows would be a nifty feature, but could result in a “balkanisation” of client experience.
I think I know partly what he means. My machine could — barely — cope with SL on my underpowered Radeon. This didn’t stop me enjoying myself; I just had to wait patiently and bumble around with a very low view distance. Even now I haven’t adjusted that too much.
Even the Lindens themselves have stepped into the discussion, and I have to agree with Simondo Nebestanka that as long as you can toggle it on or off like you can Windlight shaders, that’s fine.
However. Dynamic shadows may well raise the bar for building and texture designers. For instance, do you bake shadows into textures, or rely on J Random User having dynamic ones on? Also, dynamic shadows change over time. If you’re trying for a particular ambience, do you really want to trust in people arriving at just the right time of day?
I’ve upgraded since I joined SL, but that was in response to several components including the motherboard dying, and cost more than the US$200 tag flying around. And since then, I’ve found SL getting annoying again if I turn around too quickly.
Hamlet’s also posed another question, how 3D SL should be. He notes that the most populous multiuser environments are not as bleeding edge in terms of rendering as SL is, but personally I see that as comparing pipfruit and citrus.
SL’s main feature is that virtually all content and environs are created ex nihilo by the users themselves. Other MMOs are created by closed teams of professional developers, dictating what goes where, and what the theme is. Naturally this involves a steeper learning curve, and also creates the problem of not offering a clear entry direction for those asking “what’s it all for?”
I like the idea of shadows and want them — I’d happily throw over Windlight for shadows if I had to choose between pixel shaders. There are three reasons for this:
- Shadows offer better depth perception and stop annoying light bleedover from neighbouring builds.
- We don’t need Phong shading and multi-bounce crap. Just trace from source/s to surface and kill that virtual photon. Heck, I used that sort of lighting system in Quake for years and still got good results.
- I stand to make a killing from designer light fittings.
Posted in Second Life (News,Op-Ed) by R Cruickshank 18/06/08 12:24 AM Tags: good ideas gone bad, links, opinion, second life
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