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visibility options

objects
hidden to camera (ok)
hidden shadows
hidden reflections
hidden shadows (on spexcific objects)
hidden reflections (on specific objects)
show shadows on specific objects
show reflections on specific objects

This option would be useful to create scripts to insert large amounts of clip-mapped objectes (trees and people or watever) composed by two planes.
ex:

First plane with projected 32 bit bitmap, oriented to camera with hidden shadows.

Second plane with projected 8 bit Alpha channel, oriented to sun, with hidden shadows on the first plane.

The first plane is the visible tree , the second one helps only to produce correct shadows on the other objects in the scene.

we have written a similar script for an other rendering engine and it gives nice results.

This a part of a scene that contains more as 2.5 millions of plants

I'm not sure I understand. With clipmaps you need only one plane and one material, it will cast correct shadows.

Hi Mihai, wat you say is true if you workwith trees that use clip-maps only for the leaves.

I'm talking about trees (or people) that are entirely clip-maps, photographies of trees like this one



In this case the tree must be oriented exatly in direction of the camera and a second plane in direction of the sun to make correct shadows (but not on the first plane).
To avoid that the second plane projects a undesired shadow on the first one you need the selective per-object-shadow-projection option.

With only one clip map, if the angle between sun direction and camera direction is 90 degree, you don't will see any shadow on the ground.

Generally for big projects, that is the only way to insert in a scene 100.000 or more trees.

I see, but what about making each of these tree objects have two planes, perpendicular to each other?, You know like the old days of faking plants, several planes in rotation, and it would give the impression of a solid bush, no matter the viewing angle.

Mihai wrote:I see, but what about making each of these tree objects have two planes, perpendicular to each other?, You know like the old days of faking plants, several planes in rotation, and it would give the impression of a solid bush, no matter the viewing angle.

Ok, but what about the shadow between the 2 planes?
And with them you can't render a view from the sky: you would see strange crossed shadows on the ground...
The Daros' solution is very smart!

Ciao, Jo

and it is easy to have even a more accurate interaction with light by projecting the 32 bit image on a cilinder instead as on a plane. But in this case it would be important to have the ioption of one sided material shading.

But with this method, views from the sky wouldn't look right either. If it's just a plane, looking from above will make the trees look like lines anyway....you can't rotate the "shadow" plane to view it from above...you'd see the shadow as if the trees were horizontal

It's always useful to be able to separate shadows/per object etc, don't get me wrong. I'm just thinking in this case, if you wouldn't be able to get about the same thing with a couple of planes. Or even better a really lowpoly cylinder as trunk, and only the tree crown as two planes, or perhaps four.

EDIT: Actually Daros I think with the current material system there might be a possibility to have a plane with the colormap but which does not cast shadow.......i'll check it

Yes, the only problem are byrdeye views however 50 degrees are supported...

Mihai wrote: EDIT: Actually Daros I think with the current material system there might be a possibility to have a plane with the colormap but which does not cast shadow.......i'll check it

That would be really great Mihai!

that would be excellent!

i also second the wish for the above stated visibility options:-)

cheers
stefan