T3D Beta 1 Bug: Shadowsmap flickering
by Marc Dreamora Schaerer · in Torque 3D Professional · 05/04/2009 (10:53 am) · 6 replies
In Beta 1, the shadows generated from objects, especially visible on trees (for example in the Warrior Camp) change when the camera turns around the vertical axis.
As the light source is near static, this definitely should not happen unless there is a heavy bug in the math that generates the data for the shaders.
As the light source is near static, this definitely should not happen unless there is a heavy bug in the math that generates the data for the shaders.
About the author
#2
It was caused by how we were encoding the depth into the prepass... it was causing unsmooth depth info on surfaces. This should fix alot of little artifacts all over... shadows, fog, water clarity, ssao, DoF, etc... anything that sampled depth.
07/30/2009 (2:56 pm)
Pat fixed this sucker today.... woot!It was caused by how we were encoding the depth into the prepass... it was causing unsmooth depth info on surfaces. This should fix alot of little artifacts all over... shadows, fog, water clarity, ssao, DoF, etc... anything that sampled depth.
#3
07/30/2009 (3:12 pm)
ooh, lovely, was waiting on this. 
#4
07/30/2009 (3:23 pm)
I remember another problem was that the PSSM split projections would change sizes when rotating the camera around the Z axis. This caused the shadows to wobble a little, since the effective shadowmap resolution was actually changing slightly as the camera moved. Is that still happening? I was the first thing I noticed when I got T3D, and I figured it should be easy to fix since many games using PSSM have the shadows remain stable for static geometry.
#5
The PSSM is very stable now.
One interesting note... look closely at the GTA4 shadows. They're really pretty damn bad... they jitter like crazy. It was really apparent during the game ending cinematic flybys of the city. They also do use the same rotated tap filtering as we are.
07/30/2009 (6:19 pm)
@Manoel - Pretty sure its been corrected... Brian is the PSSM expert and did just about everything to stablize them. Of course the problem ended up having nothing to do with the shadow and the sampling itself.The PSSM is very stable now.
One interesting note... look closely at the GTA4 shadows. They're really pretty damn bad... they jitter like crazy. It was really apparent during the game ending cinematic flybys of the city. They also do use the same rotated tap filtering as we are.
#6
hehe yeah GTA4 ... if they hadn't the rest of the tech the game wouldn't be able to win anything, but luckily they have their performant streaming world setup and new pointless story all 2 years
07/30/2009 (6:22 pm)
glad to hear its solved :)hehe yeah GTA4 ... if they hadn't the rest of the tech the game wouldn't be able to win anything, but luckily they have their performant streaming world setup and new pointless story all 2 years
Torque 3D Owner Kenneth Holst
Default Studio Name