Re: [Plib-users] Shadows

[Steve B. <sjb...@ai...>]

Arne Kreutzmann wrote:

> I would like to know if plib supports shadows or not, and if how to set
> them up.

There is no direct support - but some of the techniques people use to
generate shadows in OpenGL should be applicable to PLIB applications.

Shadows are *VERY* hard to do "correctly" and "universally".  For most
rendering algorithms, drawing without shadows takes an amount of time
thats directly proportional to the number of polygons on the screen.

Drawing shadows "correctly" takes an amount of time proportional to
the the number of triangles in the entire scene multiplied by the
number of triangles that are on-screen.

Hence there are a number of cheats that work with varying degrees
of success to produce visual effects that trade quality against
performance.

In my games, I generally limit myself to putting a fuzzy translucent
circle on the ground beneath each moving character - and either hand-modelling
shadow for the scenery - or not bothering.

What kind of application do you have in mind?

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