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Author Topic: Are Volumes and Raytraced Shadows Mistitled? Also, a request about volumes  (Read 7445 times)

THoS

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Yeah, I've been wondering, now, if this is the case. Volumes will not show up in scanline renderer mode, yet raytraced shadows will, while volumes and raytraced shadows both show up in the ART raytracer renderer mode. This also means that the soft shadow option doesn't even work, as it only activates on clicking ray traced shadows, which means you cannot use them. It's never become soft, in any mode I've tried, too.

Further proof is the fact you can turn off self-shadowing, via clicking off "Recieve". However, in the ART raytracer mode, self-shadowing will always be enabled, proving its using rays to determine lighting and shadowing. If this is so, can this be fixed, in an update, along with adding proper lighting fade off distances, during OpenGL mode? After all, it would be then possible to draw scenes much faster. In fact, volumes, if they showed up here, too, you'd be able to skip using the slower modes, if the scene is meant to be simple! I know someone else asked about this, earlier, but it is possible, just by using OpenGL's most basic extensions for real time volumetric shadowing.
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Steve

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Re: Are Volumes and Raytraced Shadows Mistitled? Also, a request about volumes
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2021, 08:19:45 am »

The ART ray tracer is more phisically correct so things like eliminating self-shadowing don't apply.

The scanline renderer has this option because it was written when CPUs were much less powerful than today. Techniques like volume shadows are more limited but can require sigificantly less computer power. I added the ray-traced shadow option to the scanline renderer for more flexibility in renderes. With todays CPUs you're better off just using theART ray tracer.

As for your question about volume shadows being mislabeled, that name refers to the technique of modeling shadows as 3D polygons as a tool to determine if something is in a shadow or not. It not the same as Volumetric Lighting.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2021, 08:24:39 am by Steve »
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