Doom3world

After watching the latest (final) trailer and some custom ingame screens I realized immediately one thing ..... in several scenes the player is missing self shadowing. There is a weird thing going on .. I spotted several scenes where you can clearly see the player casting shadows on walls and floors but he doesn't cast shadows on him self..... but this is a vital quality issue ... First i thought ok .. the screens maybe were made with a low quality setting but then i watched the trailer and I faced the same behavior .....(I don't think they would use any else but high quality settings to record a trailer)

Maybe some guys who already own a copy of the game could help clearing this issue .......

thanx in advance

-Oneofthe8devilz

It wasn't in the alpha either. One thing it could be is that the shader for the 1st person weapons may be set for no self shadows.. i know you can do that.. I think the pinky in the bathroom in the E3 alpha had that on his shader..

in alpha everything doesn't have self-shadowing... for example weapons... and usually monsters himslef don't have self-shadowing, taht's because if you see the monster in movement you don't notice the lack of self-shadows, only if you look at the monster with more atention you notice it.. so if you're not gonna see the effect because of the quick movement why waste memory on it! in alpha there was a comand in the shader to enable or disable the effect so i guess it will be the same command in the final game!

in the alpha only fat zombie and imp have self-shadowing, if I remember correctly. edit: and the player of course

I would hate if id / jc decided to not include 'full' self-shadowing. and I couldnt understand it - after all that 'unified lighting' praising ?

sure, one reason against self-shadowing is that it looks bad because it's done with the low-poly model, while all the other light calculations were done with the high-poly .. so it doesnt look so good in screenshots, but thats not really noticeable in motion. and that is true for all shadows, so no reason not to include it.

I'm surprised that you can even turn off all the shadows in the menue (carmack said he wasnt sure if he would allow that), but I just cant believe that some models dont do self-shadowing. I hope you're wrong (have only seen the trailer once and didnt notice)

no, i don't think the big problem comes with the low poly modles, but from the shadow volumes, also i think i nsome cases self shadowing looks preety bad because of the contrast of the stencil shadow system...

you know when you're in shadows you are in pitch black shadows!

guys ... there is barely someone out there knowing more about shadows in the alpha than me .... but back to the topic ....... in the alpha every object is self-shadowing (for example when you go into third person view and move near a shadow-casting light source, you'll see that the player's model is definitely self-shadowing) I would post screens but you know the "no-alpha-content" story. It just doesn't look realistic in the trailer when the marine is moving through a narrow corridor and his face details get lit up by a light behind his backhead.... it took me a while to figure out that it was the missing selfshadowing......

I just put a little showcase together so that ppl get a better idea what i am talking about



The first 3 samples don't have self-shadows where you can see that parts on the model are lit that shouldn't be .. the forth shows how self-shadowing adds realism to the picture ..... it's strange that on certain models it is used and on others not ....since all the samples are from the trailer

-Oneofthe8devilz

This behavior only appears when there is only one light-source ... as soon as there is another light source you get semi bright shadows that get brighter the closer you get to the other light source.......

I think, its purely a quality issue. id may have decided against selfshadowing on all detailed monsters you can come close to. It can really look ugly to see the shadowing on triangles pop in and out. If you don´t like their decision, you can turn on selfshadowing by yourself. Just edit the character material files

Maybe it's not a flaw that certain models have self shadowing and some don't, it might be a technique to add drama to the scene. I.E. the screenshot you posted with our hero's face, looks more dramatic with his face in shadows and his chest lit up, also it appears that there is no self shadowing in the first three but they all appear to be part of a cutscene except the forth... dunno I'll find out in just a few days.

Did you check the screenshots that have been popping up reciently too?

that's not true. look at the fatty. you will se that fatty's face has self-shadowing but fatty's body don't. and the same goes to the Maint zombie!

i think the only monster that has the entire body self-shadowed in the alpha is the hellknight...

or look at the e3_3 bathroom sequence, the pinky hasn't self-shadowing at all!

On second thought it might be just a performance decision... if i had to guess i would say they just added another parameter to the lights (in the editor) maybe they just added a "selfshadow" option to the "castshadow" option .... in that case it would be a matter of seconds to re-add all the selfshadows ...... To make the selfshadowing model dependent sounds to me highly unlikely...... I really think it is an option you can switch on or off in the map-editor

like I wrote before, fatty and imp both have got 'full' self-shadowing, I just checked. maybe you were confusing the fatty with the maint guy, he only has his head casting shadows on himself.

Well, I don't think getting all worked up about the self shadows is cool. Maybe to delay the game 2 years so hardware can get better so you can have higher poly models so you can have better quality shadows is the right thing to do. I don't think so. Be happy Doom is out!!..

The self shadow thing I think is a choice made by the artist to either have it or not. Believe me when I say it makes a big difference in the use of normal maps for shading when your shdow is making the model look blocky. It might look weird when some models have self shadow and some don't but I bet you only really pick up on that when you study the video and screens because you can't wait to play the game.

asimov. ok i cheked it and you are right... i gues i was seing another one of the fattys! the normal fatty's have indeed self-shadowing.

Just to jump in quickly:

It's a shader parameter, nothing more nothing less.

Don't worry about the visual effects in Doom3, these are the very last thing to question

You'll be able to create so many different and definately unique effects you'll be simply amazed.