So, I've seen a lot of interesting info out that briefly discuss using deferred shadowing (Unreal, Crysis etc). But most of them stop short in discussing alpha blended objects. How do they handle them ? Are they just ignoring them and letting them sample the opaque shadow values ? Or are they writing special shadow versions (which means keeping the shadow maps around). Other ideas ? Any other descriptions (most of it online is quite vague).

Hmm, thats a good question. Your right though, they dont talk about how they handle transparent objects anywhere (that I know of). My guess is that they either ignore shadowing transparent objects all together, or simple render transparent objects the "traditional" way. I cant think of any way that they coudl integrate deferred shadowing and transparent objects.

Edit:

I did a quick little test in sandbox2 (crysis editor) and it seems that for all the transparent objects I tried, they simply didn't get shadowed.

I guess I hadnt noticed it before since they dont use a whole lot of transparent objects in crysis; so I guess as long as you dont have too many, im guessing that most people wont notice that they arent shadowed. Though if you really need shadowing on them, you could do it the standard way

Yeah, I was guessing that they probably didn't shadow them. Most things I have read have either skipped the topic, or just said it doesn't quite work. I am still interested on what different solutions those that use it attempt. Anyone else using it, please chime in.

I just tested deferred CSM and found that in most cases using the computed opaque shadow value for the transparent objects works (particles not included, i don't usually shadow those directly anyways due to perf costs).

Of course this depends on how you create your transparent objects. If they are just a layer just above or in front of an opaque surface, it seems they will probably shadow correctly. If its not, then it will be wrong. I guess you could specify it per material to allow it to use the shadow value or not.

The traditional way for blended is still an option, but I think it defeats the main reasons for the technique (simplified main shaders, independent shadow sampling, reduced shadow buffer memory if buffer reuse is an option).

Quote:Original post by Hodgman
I'm pretty sure that killzone2 does transparent objects in a quick'n'dirty (i.e. no shadowing) forward-shading pass after all of the deferred passes.

Yeah, it does (or at least did, at the time the presentation was written).

> so we are talking about deferred shadows or deferred rendering systems? One is independent from the other an

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough.

Yes, I was talking about deferred shadows and NOT transparent shadow maps and the like. And obviously you don't want translucent objects to cast shadows in standard shadow mapping.

But I usually want them to receive shadows. In my forward rendering system, translucent objects receive shadows with the exception of particles. So if I have a glass window lit by the sun, it will get proper shadows from opaque shadow casters.

But what happens when I use a deferred shadow mask/collector. The mask can only contain the result for the opaque objects, as the zpass depth has only opaque depths.

So my question is, what do developers use in this case ?

1) No shadow received on translucent objects (ignore shadow mask, shadowAtten=1)

2) Use the shadow mask that was calculated for the opaque object behind it.

3) Mix of 1 and 2 (let the artist choose per material instance).

4) Use actual/original shadow map (defeats some of the purpose and benefits and couples shadow sampling back into shader for translucents).

5) Other... ???


I tested #2 and its generally pretty good based on the type of translucent object. ie if its just a layer above an opaque object, it works well. For other items, not so good. So I wonder if #3 is a reasonable option.



wolf: I assume a shadow collector is the same as a shadow mask ? As this terminology is not really documented, I would like to know for sure.



As per CSM:
Yeah, it seems its the way to go for large range lights. I am using it for directional light across a city. Only issue I had is not using an array index in the shader for calculating the right uv inside the atlas, because certain hardware turns indexing into gobs of cmp instructions.

Doh, I have ShaderX5 (I used it as a reference for CSM, good article btw), but I guess I missed the shadow mask/collector terminology. I thought I remembered the book discussing it, but not actually naming it. My bad.

BTW, thanks for the response. I probably owe you a beer by now.