okay.. this isn't exactly pissing me off really, but the shadows the track creates in LFS really show off a bad name; when it comes to rendering, lighting makes the difference between something real and totally fake looking; and shadows are yes.. you were right, product of absence of light

now, in LFS i cant really tell if its just an extremely low quality shadow texture, or if its ..just that bad, and im looking now, and im going to guess that its low quality texture, but that doesnt explain some of the weird slash marks, and we know that its not done realtime (since .. it doesnt move with trees that move) but that doesnt bother me, because that would take a TON of process power to do shadows realtime, so we know they are a static texture

.. its just.. they suck, and we know it lol, and it really kinda shoves lfs down the pipe since they could look way more realistic deffinetly helping the graphical side of the game
hm.. if i ever have time in next few days i will try to make a tiny section of a track and try to render it as close as possible to show difference in 'good' lighting, vs. lfs' lighting

So you are comparing a rendered scene in Max with LFS in game lighting?

no

thats why i said might, but that has nothing to do with it, lfs' track shadows are.. just.. bad

im not trying to compare anything.. if you want me to, go and look at just about any other racing games' shadows and see how they compare up to lfs'

I'm not really into comparing games with LFS and to be honest I don't pay much attention to the trackside shadows, I was just curious as to your angle on the rendering a section of track thing to show us what good lighting looks like. If the shadows you described are in fact static then lighting probably isn't affecting them too much. As you have already pointed out, resources would be stretched further by real time shadows which may be why it has been done the way it has, but I can't know that for sure.
So basically I was enquiring about your suggestion.

oh ya, i dont blame you, im just saying that we should deffinetly get a larger resolution shadow, because im not totally sure how it works if its preset texture or what (which.. if it was im sure someone would find it lol but i dont think that has happened)

as for the static shadows and lighting, well yes, thats a given, im just saying there are so many places that need/dont need shadows, and the places that do have them.. uh.. arent very pretty lol, after a while i think it gets on my nerves just seeing a beautiful track such as kyoto.. and then you see this .. shadow that doesnt look right .. at all, and it really sets it back some

more or less i guess im just curious as to how shadows work in lfs

The only odd shadows i've noticed are time where there is a break in a wall which is shadowed fine, but then on a course where a wall is placed across it is has no shadow.

Other than that everything seems fine to me

lfs uses vertex lighting, that means every vertex gets an "light-value".
its a technic that doenst need much power, because you dont really have any further calculations to be made.

really.. well, that explains it, but it doesnt explain how we get abnormal shadows that go.. up a wall lol