Shadow Distance - tricks for far visibility distances?

[ShadowZelda]

Hello,

Are there any tricks to get far distant shadows (500meters) and the possibility to use lights which cast shadows for dynamic objects without increasing the Shadow Distance via the rendering settings?
My problem is the following:
I have a long tunnel with long sights, so...

• Shadow Distance at 100 looks awkward, but 500 would cost performance
• The tunnel includes lights which cast shadows to dynamic objects
• The LightVoxelProbe can´t "cover" the shadow distance, it is still visible
• I can´t see any possibility to create a collider inside the editor to switch between two rendering settings (outside & inside the tunnel) without some coding

Is there any "Trick17" in such cases?
Haven´t found anything aside from the shadow distance.

In advance thanks for suggestions and tipps!

Kind regards

[bmyagkov]

Hello!

@ShadowZeldaCould you please provide any screenshots on this? Just anything in terms to have some representation on the actual issue.

You may send it via private messages if you don't want to share them publicity for some reason.

Thanks!

 

[ShadowZelda]

Hi !

@bmyagkov Sure, since there is actually not a lot going on in the scene, I can share it in the forum.

Please keep in mind that the lights on the ceillings are not implmented yet, but they need to cast shadows to dynamic objects.
I know that the Haze is still enabled and intensifies the effect, but I think you can get the idea. The huge contrast espacially with baked LightVoxelProbes is the main "problem".

[bmyagkov]

@ShadowZelda Thank you a lot for shared screenshots. We will take a closer look into it next week (first thing on Monday) together with our technical artists.

Thanks!

[Ben_93]

Hi @ShadowZelda

 

I had a similar problem in my project, what I did was to set the sun shadows to 'mixed', so your tunnel walls can be set to static shadows, and you can set your dynamic objects to dynamic shadows. If the walls of the tunnel are static, in the sun shadows settings you can increase the distance of the shadows independently of the global shadow setting (Shown below).

 

Hope this helps!

 

Many thanks, 

 

Ben

[bmyagkov]

Hello!

@ShadowZelda We have this discussed and looks like it's much common issue for most of real-time graphics. You've probably noticed at so many games out there that when you approach a some cave - it seems to be completely black from a far distance, but as soon as you get closer to it - the inner space begins to change.

Subject issue it's the reason why most of game designers have to go to all sorts of tricks with that :)

Basically, solution suggested by @Ben_93 may works, but it will also be affected by "Shadow Distance" limits. So, actually the only way to wisely solve it's implement some type of logic which will be enable or disable some mesh on far distance or switch between render presets.

But truth be told, if you can trade of a bit performance in exchange for better visual look this is might be absolute worth it. Since 500 it's pretty regular value for "Shadow Distance", even 1000 are OK for most of cases, 2000 it's where you are need to start to worry about.

We guess that you can easily compensate this performance drop be decreasing shadow resolution a bit within mixing static\dynamic modes for lights objects.

Thanks!

[ShadowZelda]

Hi,

@Ben_93 , @bmyagkov Thanks for the suggestions! I had a look into both.
I think I will stick with the Shadow Distance at 500 and look how it is going inside and outside the tunnel. If it is necessary I will ask our programmer if they can do some magic - logic- for the rendering presets. I think this is the most suitable solution for the moment :)

Thanks!

[gr7.76]

@ShadowZelda Hi colleague from two rooms away! :)
This may be dumb, but is it possible to split the tunnel in 3 parts? The two entrances (keep between 20m to 40m maybe) and the long part in between. The two entrances cast dynamic shadows, this should help keeping the shadows realistic when the sun direction changes, and the long part in between has static shadows. Unfortunately the tunnel looks like our procedurally generated tunnels, so this may not be possible right now.