Distant shadows

[tower120]

I'm looking for a way to display distant shadows in Unigine. From static and, if possible dynamic objects. I need them to be visible at approx 1km distance. Also I need common shadows at close distance (first person camera near the ground).

 

UE 4.25 have Distance Field Shadows (based on sdf volumetric textures I guess) which actually kinda work well for distant objects. And they blend well with common cascade shadows.

Unigine on the other hand have Screen Space Shadows, which works at infinite distance, and have near fixed cost. The problem, is that they does not match real shadows exactly. Even if make them appear only at far (>400meters), transition between cascade shadows and Screen Space Shadows may be very noticable (you can see this in "Oil refinary" Unigine's demo map).

The other technique, Unigine suggest, is baking the important part of the map into huge texture and set shadow visibility to high distance. Well, for some cases this could work. But you can have only one "LightWorld", and so - only one baked area. Even more - there will no way to have dynamic shadows near camera aside from LightWorld mixed cube. There is even some inconsistency - LightWord static/mixed provide shadows only in it's cube range, but lights everything. [I must say, that UE4's direct light static shadows somehow just works for all level...]

 

Edited February 13, 2021 by tower120

[cryunreal]

Hi
Later we will add cluster of multiple static shadows for a single world light and these shadows will blend with dynamic shadow cascade near the camera. Right now Screen Space Shadows are the best way for a long distance.

[tower120]

I see. Thanks.