Curse

Samurai-JM · Apr 25, 2007, 02:04 AM // 02:04

After about 6 months of playing, I just now realized that shadows do not follow nearby light sources. I'm observant aren't I?

I was standing right next to a window with a large amount of light coming straight at me, but my shadow was going in a completely different direction: Away from a brick wall with no light source. I think a great addition on the future would be shadows and other graphics that respond to and change with their surroundings.

If this is already in the game and my GFX card is just bas(all the graphics are set to high in game) then please inform me so I can get my money back for this laptop

Dubby · Apr 25, 2007, 02:21 AM // 02:21

not going to happen in gw1.

OhCrapLions · Apr 25, 2007, 02:32 AM // 02:32

MAYBE GW2, but not this year. In any case, this and many other graphical inconsistencies that I would like to change cant as not only would it raise the system req but is not possible without something clever like FF XII where they actually lowered the pixel count and made everything of really tiny pictures so the game looks better as you get closer to it.

/signed

Eldin · Apr 25, 2007, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Cannot be done in Guild Wars as far as I know, due to the engine. Basically, GW's engine is "static" and "physicsless". It cannot handle any type of physics (jumping, swimming, falling) and everything is static (things such as shadows, lighting, and weather are pre-set and cannot change variably).

Since GW2 will be adding physics, it is likely it, too, will add dynamic shadows, as well as possibly weather and day/night.

legion_rat · Apr 25, 2007, 03:41 AM // 03:41

yep a gw2 thing but not for us now. there are other oddities in gw1 that make me smile. go to pre and barradin estate. the tree clips into the building.

~the rat~

Antheus · Apr 25, 2007, 06:06 AM // 06:06

It cannot be done.

Ground shadows are precalculated and static.
Character shadows are projection of character silhuette, that is then simply plastered over the floor.

It's also currently not viable. In combat, due to particle effects, you have hundreds of light sources, and there simply isn't a rig powerful enough to compute true shadows.

As it happens, GW was one of the first "affordable" engines that did this type of shadowing. While others still used various simple techniques, GW's aproach was of surprisingly high quality, given the large population and graphic detail.

Numa Pompilius · Apr 25, 2007, 10:14 AM // 10:14

GW's approach is considerably more complex than e.g. WoW's, which has no shadows at all.
I'd love to see dynamic lighting - it'd rock to have spell effects cast light, but it would unfortunately also make the hardware demands of the game much, much higher.
We'd be looking at Oblivion-level hardware requirements, and I doubt most (if any!) GW gamers would have machines capable of running that at decent framerates.

That said, I suppose Dynamic Lighting could be added as a setting in Graphics Quality, with "off" as default.

Puliver · Apr 25, 2007, 12:12 PM // 12:12

I hope that in gw2 will be good light implementation so at night battle you can see flashes of fireball explosions