Directional and Spot Light Shadows not working as expected

Question

PROBLEM

I am having problems with Directional and Spot light cast shadows.

With Directional lighting I am getting a strange over arching shadow that has no relation to the cube in my scene. Below is the first picture of this weird effect. Where is this huge circular shadow coming from?

alt text

And another screen shot. Here I have panned around in the Scene View to show that this shadow can not be generated by the cube.

alt text

Now with Spot Lights I am getting no shadows cast at all. I try with Hard and Soft (pictured) shadows turned on and nothing. Here is the screen shot to show this:

alt text

It seems that Point Lights are working fine.

alt text

Another thing, in Edit > Project Settings > Player > Other Settings > Rendering Path I have set the Rendering Path to Deferred. See below:

alt text

Also I want to mention that I am running Unity 3.4 Pro and my computer is a Toshiba Satellite p305 s8904 with an Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics card. I assume it is not one of the supported graphics cards mentioned in the Shadows in Unity page under Hardware support for shadows in the Unity 3D manual here http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/Shadows.html Specifically the page says

Intel GMA X3000 (965) and up.

QUESTIONS

Could my supposedly unsupported graphics card be causing this problem?

If so is there a work around?

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by Waz · Aug 26, 2011 at 12:51 PM

Workarounds are needed for players on low-end hardware anyway: try Lighmapping - it often looks more realistic than dynamic lighting (since it includes ambient occlusion), works on more cards and is cheaper to render. Blob shadows, or even just subtle SSAO shading also look good and cost little.

On my current project, I've spent the last month deliberately developing in VertexLit and my "Fastest" quality to ensure players on low-end hardware get the best experience, and it's been a worthwhile exercise, so don't assume you're losing out here: it's good to cater for the low end.

Add comment · Show 2 · Share

maxmyth · Aug 26, 2011 at 02:43 PM 0

Share

Yes I agree that low end hardware users need to be addressed Warwick. Lots to consider. Thanks for the suggestions. Interesting technique to develop in Vertex Lit rendering mode. I am most likely going to go the same route. Are you going to give the option for users/players of your app/game to improve the quality of the rendering (deferred lighting, forward rendering)?

Waz · Aug 26, 2011 at 09:44 PM 0

Share

I do deferred now (with FXAA filter), but it doesn't take much effort to keep that looking good.

Directional and Spot Light Shadows not working as expected

PROBLEM

QUESTIONS

1 Reply

Your answer

Follow this Question

Related Questions