Dynamic Lighting and Shadows???

[chris89]

I've heard that the source engine has dynamic lights and shadows. What i haven't seen is Dynamic shadows cast by buildings and objects. There are no shadows on buildings , or objects or they may be a really Cheezy looking static shadow that looks totally unrealilistic. I just wanna know how to get nice looking dynamic shadows on buildings and objects etc. Not only on players. I noticed it first in Rainbows six Vegas where buildings and objects casted the same type of shadow that source did and i said "that's not right" so i looked around, And found a console command that enable Dynamic Shadows. It made quite a difference in overall realism. Is there a command for the Source engine that will enable Dynamic Shadows? Also could someone Demonstrate What dynamic lighting looks like compared to Static lighting? possibly with screenshots? Same with the dynamic shadows?

 

[Apples [S|R]]

Yes and no. Yes the engine supports dynamic lighting and shadow mapping, but no you cannot use it for many of the games.
It's available for HL2:EP2 for sure, but in a limited scope. I don't remember the others if any.

You can see it easily in EP2 if you shine your flashlight on someone. Their shadow appears on the wall behind them and moves as you move to a different angle.

I think that there is a small section on this in the source engine wiki arcticle.. HERE it is.



ALSO! Please USE SENTENCES! Your post was quite taxing to read because it's a rather long run-on halted by random commas and dot-dot-dot's.

 

[chris89]

ok that really sucks. Why is it that they don't keep the same standards in graphic quality for all the games?

 

[Apples [S|R]]

Because HL2 was developed before the technology for that sort of dynamic shadow mapping was developed?