At the moment LFS vehicle shadow is not generated by lod1, we have to add less poly mesh into lod2 to use it as shadow. In LFS Editor shadows are much better, because they are generated by lod1, I guess after the big graphics update the shadows will use lod1 or am I wrong?
I'm not happy how the shadows look at the moment... even thought I put lod1 quality mesh in lod2, the shadow is still not good.

Quote from Evolution_R :

At the moment LFS vehicle shadow is not generated by lod1, we have to add less poly mesh into lod2 to use it as shadow. In LFS Editor shadows are much better, because they are generated by lod1, I guess after the big graphics update the shadows will use lod1 or am I wrong?
I'm not happy how the shadows look at the moment... even thought I put lod1 quality mesh in lod2, the shadow is still not good.

I was thinking about the same thing today. I think after the big update shadows will be generated from LOD 1, because of the dynamic shadows update. If they leave it like it is now, then the view from inside the car will be dark, because of the boxy LOD 2 shadow with no cutouts for windows

btw watching LFS videos with new graphics update it does not look like it uses a "dynamic" or even more quality shadow from the inside view, so now I am confused. Hoping to see shadows inside cars from car elements in the future

I think they do... from outside, look at these screenshots:
https://www.lfs.net/static/screenshots/dec2019/-35996845%2034493326%20494099%205879%20-65%200.0%2060.0.jpg
https://www.lfs.net/static/screenshots/ror201809/sept_cones_2.jpg
To me it looks like the shadows in LFS Editor.

The shadows in the LFS editor are purely fake and absolutely sharp, polygons from the object you are looking at, projected flat onto the ground plane. They do not cast onto the object itself.

The shadows in the new graphics system are of two types.

1) The main sun shadow created by cascaded shadow maps. They use the LOD of the visible object.

2) The ambient shadows (the soft shadow under a car, projected downwards, that you can see even if it is in the shade of a building) still use the same system from the current public LFS and use the lower LOD as it would be pointless and wasteful to use a high res mesh for that.

Note that LOD2 is *not* only for shadow. It is used to draw the car in the middle distance. They are called levels of detail for a reason.

If 3 LOD are supplied (the proper amount for a developed mod)

LOD1: Detailed mesh, for close up views
LOD2: Middle detail mesh, for middle distance - also used for soft shadow
LOD3: Low detail mesh, for distant views - also used for collision box

If 2 LOD are supplied (unfinished mod, still in development)

LOD1: Detailed mesh, for close up views
LOD2: Middle distance, shadow mesh and collision box

You should really create a lower quality LOD2 mesh for middle distance and the soft shadow. It doesn't have to be a great deal of work but it should be a reasonable approximation of the shape of the vehicle.

Thanks, it's clear now.

I do have a question about windows/transparent objects shadow - since in real life they doesn't cast shadows, but in the public LFS version (LOD2) transparent objects does generate shadows.

Is this going to change with the new graphics system?

I know nobody would notice such thing, but it's a little nice detail.

Does this answer your question?

Quote from Scawen :

Does this answer your question?

Looks delicious! hah

This makes me wonder about other thing. I assume that, there still be an option in the settings, if we want to see not that much of detailed Shadow, right? ( Don't get me wrong, the shadow looks more than fantastic but, I am bothered about FPS, how will it affect 4 core 2.56ghz cpu ( really specific huh? )

Sorry, if this has already been answered, I might have missed it & actually seen but forgotten.

Thanks

Quote from Scawen :

Does this answer your question?

Thanks. "A picture is worth a thousand words."

So, I'm on my way to optimize (reduce tris) of the LOD2s of my mods.

Quote from superlame :

I assume that, there still be an option in the settings, if we want to see not that much of detailed Shadow, right? ( Don't get me wrong, the shadow looks more than fantastic but, I am bothered about FPS, how will it affect 4 core 2.56ghz cpu ( really specific huh? )

There are some shadow options. Quad core is fine for new LFS as it has two main threads (graphics and physics). That leaves 2 cores for OS use and other minor threads. I think 2.56 GHz should be OK for most things. I've been developing on a dual core CPU with 3.2 GHz (nice fast computer, despite what people seem to think). I imagine you might want to turn down some settings at heavy tracks. But I can't say anything for sure. That might struggle with a full field of visible cars at South City, for example. But my words are pure speculation. We aren't like a big game studio that has actual budgets for such things, it's more like have a go and see what happens, try to optimise what uses a lot of resources.

EDIT: As for shadow options, the biggest one is to switch off shadows in mirrors. But that means very illuminated mirror views if you drive in a dark place. I have on my list to have an option for the number of shadow cascades to be drawn in mirror, Maybe it will not be noticeable to skip the cascade responsible for the distant shadows, for the mirror view.

Also you can set 1024/1536/2048 for the texture resolution per cascade (number of cascades normally 4).

It could be possible to do more optimisations like options to remove smaller objects from the distant cascades. So you still get building shadows but small objects don't produce a shadow which you probably can't see anyway. The trouble with shadow maps is they can draw a lot of things that you can't see and make no difference to anything, but it's hard to stop them doing that in a good way.

Quote from Evolution_R :

Thanks. "A picture is worth a thousand words."

So, I'm on my way to optimize (reduce tris) of the LOD2s of my mods.

I think it always uses the same LOD for the shadow, as for the main object.

But LOD2 is still used to create the soft ambient shadow below the car, even if main object is LOD1.

Quote from Scawen :

There are some shadow options. Quad core is fine for new LFS as it has two main threads (graphics and physics). That leaves 2 cores for OS use and other minor threads. I think 2.56 GHz should be OK for most things. I've been developing on a dual core CPU with 3.2 GHz (nice fast computer, despite what people seem to think). I imagine you might want to turn down some settings at heavy tracks. But I can't say anything for sure. That might struggle with a full field of visible cars at South City, for example. But my words are pure speculation. We aren't like a big game studio that has actual budgets for such things, it's more like have a go and see what happens, try to optimise what uses a lot of resources.

EDIT: As for shadow options, the biggest one is to switch off shadows in mirrors. But that means very illuminated mirror views if you drive in a dark place. I have on my list to have an option for the number of shadow cascades to be drawn in mirror, Maybe it will not be noticeable to skip the cascade responsible for the distant shadows, for the mirror view.

Also you can set 1024/1536/2048 for the texture resolution per cascade (number of cascades normally 4).

It could be possible to do more optimisations like options to remove smaller objects from the distant cascades. So you still get building shadows but small objects don't produce a shadow which you probably can't see anyway. The trouble with shadow maps is they can draw a lot of things that you can't see and make no difference to anything, but it's hard to stop them doing that in a good way.


I think it always uses the same LOD for the shadow, as for the main object.

But LOD2 is still used to create the soft ambient shadow below the car, even if main object is LOD1.

Talking about mirrors, i've seen some sims that only show the road/grass and the cars on the mirror, that should really help fps on low/medium end pc's