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Author
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Topic: Heres a Q with interesting possibilites....
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Nat
Pilot
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posted 09-21- 04:35 PM
   
OK, Shadows from aircraft... the question is, if you fly over an aircraft thats sat on the ground, does your shadow cast onto the aircraft below you, or only onto the ground itself? I've never noticed this myself and wondered if anyone had.. I'm really hoping that someone will say the shadow can be cast onto other aircraft wether in flight or on the ground, if not my idea's dead, but it's a wicked idea.. some one please tell be you can cast a shadow onto other aircraft. ~Nat~ ------------------
7./JG3 "Naturlich"
If you can't out run em.. <B>OUT GUN EM!</B>
<B>Nats FS-SDOE Site</B> IP: Logged |
Mighty
General
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posted 09-21- 06:34 PM
Well, it sorta gets cast onto the plane. The shadow is an object itself. What you'll probably find is the shadow will get tilted by whatever polygon the origin happens to hit. You'll see the entire shadow at an angle with part of it going through the ground.It's fairly obvious when you're flying over a building. Fly low over a town and watch the shadow from external view and you'll probably catch sight of it a few times. If you turn on the movie capture and set it to every frame you should be able to see it happening. Try flying a B-17 slow over another B-17. IP: Logged |
Nat
Pilot
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posted 09-21- 06:45 PM
OK Mighty thanks.. so basically it works, if I fly over an aircraft the shadow will appear on it, even if a little distored by the polygons.So, what does this actaully mean.. like, why did I ask at all? Well simple, it means I can build working search lights  (or someone else if they have more time than me and know how to use shadows.. lol) Cool, thanks Mighty ~Nat~ IP: Logged |
Mighty
General
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posted 09-22- 01:41 PM
I think you misunderstood. The entire shadow is one object. For example, when you fly over a building you can sometimes see the shadow "hanging off the edge" of the roof. Part of the shadow is on the roof and part of it is hanging in mid-air. Again, this is most obvious if you're in external view and flying low and slow over a town.When flying over a plane the shadow will go through wild gyrations as it's over first one poly and then another. Also, in the current SDOE shadows are hard-coded to be directly under the aircraft. Michael has tried adjusting it for the sun a few times, but there's something funky in there that keeps them from working very well. I'm not sure how any of this would help in making a searchlight. IP: Logged |
Nat
Pilot
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posted 09-22- 03:52 PM
Hey Mighty, thanks, yeah in testing I noticed that the shadow will only cast downwards.. I was expecting it to cast in the direction it's placed relative to it's parent "casting" model. If this had've been the case it would have been a simple matter to build a searchlight and place a bright (white or yellow etc) colored shadow above the search light itself, then as the light tracks a target the shadow would move with it, when locked on a target the Light shadow would then be cast upon the bottom of the aircraft being tracked lighting it up, it's all very simple.. if shadows weren't hard coded to only cast below it's parent object  IP: Logged | |
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