I am wondering, what way is the easiest way to calculate and draw shadows in an OpenGL rendered scene? I have been looking at both Shadow Volumes, Shadow Mapping and Stencil Shadows; but none of those seem particularly easy to work with. What might you (yeah, you reading this) have used in your program?
well... your not going to find an easy way... you could always just do plane projected shadows... their easy... (i think that mighta been what you meant by stenciled) ... and anyways... i think you should look into shadow maps... theyre fairly cheap for the CPU as far as i can tell... and not really that hard to implement... hope that helps -Dan
When General Patton died after World War 2 he went to the gates of Heaven to talk to St. Peter. The first thing he asked is if there were any Marines in heaven. St. Peter told him no, Marines are too rowdy for heaven. He then asked why Patton wanted to know. Patton told him he was sick of the Marines overshadowing the Army because they did more with less and were all hard-core sons of bitches. St. Peter reassured him there were no Marines so Patton went into Heaven. As he was checking out his new home he rounded a corner and saw someone in Marine Dress Blues. He ran back to St. Peter and yelled "You lied to me! There are Marines in heaven!" St. Peter said "Who him? That's just God. He wishes he were a Marine."
Yes, I have read that shadow maps should be the least stressful for the CPU, and they are really what I'd like to use since they look the most like real shadows IMO.