[H-Alien]

...Let's not go and ask him to shoot for the moon all of a sudden.

nice figure of speach here

ps. hi folks! recently rediscovered Freespace with all the fancy modifications. You people are doing some wonderfull stuff. And I'm off to the new people thread for a proper "you guys are so great, let me hang out with you" post

[Mongoose]

If I wasn't having misgivings about how kosher it would be, I'd throw this up in a news post right now.

[Dragon]

Smoke casts shadows just like clouds.

In case of clouds, they're scripted, so maybe scripting could be used to create their shadows.
As for smoke, in most cases, the effect is too subtle too notice in combat. It just wouldn't be worth the performance hit.

[The E]

No, Dragon, I am afraid that's impossible. For each light source, there is exactly one shadow map, and it's NOT practical to add particle effects (of any kind) into that pipeline. Adding the further complication of having to evaluate the particles' texture to determine how and where it casts shadows only makes it even more impractical.

So, I think this will not happen.

We will now return to more awesome discussions.

[Dragon]

I never said that cloud shadows should consist of shadows of particles themselves. I was thinking about a more hack-ish workaround (like a separately defined shadow map, or a model roughly the shape of the bottom of the cloud, casting shadow, but actually invisible). Clouds are non-standard feature for FS, so I'd expect a non-standard solution for giving them shadows.
Besides, this is indeed an empty discussion. We have neither real clouds nor shadows, though both seem close.

[Subspace Anomaly]

Remember that those particles are not volumes, having a light from other than observer's direction would result in wrong shadow appearance (the shadow visible on surface would have same shape as smoke you see, even though it would logically appear different for the observer at light source).

Besides, the only place where this kind of shadow would be notable is in nebula, where you can do this quite cheap using something else.

[Kolgena]

It's interesting that people would suggest that particles cast shadows. If I'm not mistaken, even the most technical games out there today don't render smoke shadows. Is there any particular reason that lots of people would like to see it implemented (aside from cloud shadows)?

[Rga_Noris]

I think most are just day dreaming of what could be possible.

[Herra Tohtori]

I think most are just day dreaming of what could be possible.

This. 

[sigtau]

Dunno about you guys, but I'm just interested in seeing shadows casted from one ship to another. 

[mjn.mixael]

Dunno about you guys, but I'm just interested in seeing self shadowing in a working build with other improvements added later. 

[Herra Tohtori]

Dunno about you guys, but I'm just interested in seeing self shadowing in a working build with other improvements added later. 

That would be perfectly acceptable to have as a public test build.

[pecenipicek]

Dunno about you guys, but I'm just interested in seeing self shadowing in a working build with other improvements added later. 

Especially since that brings FSO into parity with HW2's engine in that department at least

[Valathil]

Sry guys still no Testbuild today. Modelview matrices are still giving me problems and somehow i managed to sleep for 22 hours today so yeaaah.

[Aardwolf]

i managed to sleep for 22 hours today so yeaaah.

Huzzah! 

[Cobra]

i managed to sleep for 22 hours today so yeaaah.

Means yer workin' too hard.

[JCDNWarrior]

Wow, that's one heck of a great preview. I should definitely test this out.. In fact I shall! I really want to see what the results are like. And performance? No worries here. Great work as usual Valathil, things like this impresses me to no end.

EDIT: Whoops, i'm a noob once more. What do I do with the PATCH file? As I just tested it in the first FS2 mission, but the ships light up bright pink when shooting/firing past them.

[Cobra]

I literally shouted **** YES when I saw the video. Val, you're our hero.

[Iss Mneur]

Looking good Valathil, will have to try it later.

EDIT: Whoops, i'm a noob once more. What do I do with the PATCH file? As I just tested it in the first FS2 mission, but the ships light up bright pink when shooting/firing past them.

Ignore it.  Its for the other coders and those that know how to compile the engine.

[Honken]

I don't post very often, but this is definitely worth a big THANKS! This looks awesome!