Object design - shadow or not shadow, how to choose?

  • Dear IPACS team,

    How can we select by design if an object is casting a shadow or not in AFS2?

    I tried modelling 3D grass on my AD, but the fact that each textured face casts a shadow ruins the visual effect by underlining the trick. Is there a definition somewhere to set my grass polygons in 3DSMax so that they don't cast shadows in AFS2?

    There's a shadow level slider in AFS2 and obviously there are different categories of objects that cast shadows or not depending on that setting.

    Orbx obviously placed grass in LOWI using the very same techniques, and their grass doesn't seem to cast shadows...

    [Blocked Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/55jslF2bCD4/maxresdefault.jpg]

    Thanks in advance to anybody who can help

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • It would look better with some 3D grass...

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Let's bring back to the front my question before it disappears : how do we set grass polygons that don't cast shadows?

    Thanks in advance

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Hi Antoine

    Only thing I can suggest is to try a transparent PNG. There should be no alpha, simple do your painting on a layer and delete the background, thereby making it transparent.

    Keen to see how you get on as it would be nice to include something like this in Leeds Bradford, though planting all those polys would be tedious.

    Wondering if there is any way this could be done using cultivation

    Steve

  • I can't say anything about the 3D grass issue, but I have seen low reso orthos around an airport runway addressed successfully by adding bump maps or maybe a repeating overlay or decal.....

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  • Only thing I can suggest is to try a transparent PNG. There should be no alpha, simple do your painting on a layer and delete the background, thereby making it transparent.

    Thanks Steve for the hint, will give it a try.

    Has anybody at IPACS an answer to my question above?

    Below are just a few patches of 3D grass for testing, the shadows are obvious, even for polygons that are invisible from this direction. Of course, even without shadows it's far from perfect, it is just a test to setup the technique before to add too much coverage...

    The same when setting shadows to the lowest level.

    Looking at LOWI from Orbx, grass doesn't cast shadows. Moreover taxiing on 3D grass doesn't issue a collision.

    So, how can we prevent grass from casting shadows and causing collisions with the aircraft's wheels ?

    Thanks in advance

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Wow, thank you so much !

    I'll give it a try

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Thanks for the tips, but seriously guys this sort of information should be widely published. i have 300+ objects that should now be re-named in my Leeds Bradford scenery. It's obvious Mr Orbx were informed of this some time ago

    Anymore we should know about ???????

    Steve

  • Sorry for the late reply. We have two 'hacks' for this. If you name the objects with the following words in it

    "__nocollision"
    "__noshadow"

    The objects will not cast shadows and will not be used for collision detection. This is probably what you want for gras stuff.

    Dear IPACS team,

    It works fine, thank you! I assume the double underscore is compulsory too, isn't it?

    Is there also a hack to prevent grass surfaces from shining/reflecting light? Or do we have to play with specular textures (heavy)? The idea is to get rather uniformly light grass surface whatever their orientation (diffuse lightning).

    Thanks in advance

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.