SunSpreadAngle doesn't work?

[Psyrius]

In the Light_Enviroment, I've tried all kinds of different numbers for the SunSpreadAngle. And they always looks as sharp as they do on 0 or 1.

The map I'm building is gonna have a cloudy setting, so this is crucial for me to fix. I've been trying the whole day now

What could it be?

[Radix]

I guess it's because of the dynamic shadows which are always 100% sharp.

The static lightmap shadows should be affected by the settings, but you can't see it because the dynamic shadows superpose them.

 

To make it look fine, you will have to reduce the dynamic shadows' alpha (shadow_control entity Edit: That's wrong). But I have to admit, that I myself am not able to make this work. Whatever settings I make, the dynamic shadows always look the same (too dark)...

Edited September 8, 2015 by Raidix

[Psyrius]

The funny thing is that I've gotten it to work a few times. I think I used light_directional also. But I'm not sure. And then I try to tweak it to look better, but the next time I compile, it's gone. And now I can't get it to work again.

Anyway... does anyone know what settings I should use for this kind of scene? I could put the sun and light_enviroment at a -90 pitch. But then I won't get much shadows at all and since I'm trying to get inspiration from Sweden for this map, the sun is never at the zenith here. As you can see in the following picture, the shadows are sharp.

This is the settings I use:

 

 

[ElectroSheep]

The dynamic shadows will be sharp whatevere you use because you can't make them smooth or what, it's not how they work. But you can try without them, then test your spread angle with lightmapped shadow which are using the spread angle.

use the env_cascade_lighting entity and put a very low distance (default is 400 I think)

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Env_cascade_lighting

[leplubodeslapin]

As 3Dnj said, if i was you i'd also disable the dynamic cascaded shadows.
You can maybe also kill the entity with a logic_auto that do this output at the beginning of each rounds :

OnNewGame -> name_of_the_env_cascade_light -> kill

[Psyrius]

The dynamic shadows will be sharp whatevere you use because you can't make them smooth or what, it's not how they work. But you can try without them, then test your spread angle with lightmapped shadow which are using the spread angle.

use the env_cascade_lighting entity and put a very low distance (default is 400 I think)

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Env_cascade_lighting

"then test your spread angle with lightmapped shadow" What do you mean with this and how can I test it?

As 3Dnj said, if i was you i'd also disable the dynamic cascaded shadows.
You can maybe also kill the entity with a logic_auto that do this output at the beginning of each rounds :

OnNewGame -> name_of_the_env_cascade_light -> kill

How do I disable the shadows? Is it "All Shadows Disabled" in the "Shadow_Control" entity?

[leplubodeslapin]

I don't want to advertise my work or anything but i think it will be easier for you to understand.

At this article : https://www.mapcore.org/articles/development/source-lighting-technical-analysis-part-two-r66/

Read the part "Projected texture and Cascaded Shadows", you'll get some infos about cascaded shadows. 

 

As Raidix said before, cascaded shadows are superposing the static shadows, if you delete them you'll only get the static shadows (the one that use the lightmaps on your brushes). And as 3Dnj said, you'll be able to see the effect of the sun spread angle with these static shadows.

[Psyrius]

Thanks Now I have some reading to do! Posting result later.

[ElectroSheep]

The shadow control only affect shadows from dynamic object. Better use for indoors stuff so don't use that.

[Psyrius]

Looks much better now. Thanks

 

[text_fish]

It would be interesting to see side-by-side comparison screenshots from exactly the same angle. At the moment I actually prefer the earlier version, because I think the cascade shadows improve the sense of scale, and greater contrast is always pleasing to the eye.

[Psyrius]

It would be interesting to see side-by-side comparison screenshots from exactly the same angle. At the moment I actually prefer the earlier version, because I think the cascade shadows improve the sense of scale, and greater contrast is always pleasing to the eye.

Since I'm going for a cloudy overcast setting, I think the sharp shadows look unnatural. So I'll keep it this way  And the last picture I posted isn't my final result. More tweaking to make it look better will come soon  I'm busy making my own skybox at the moment ^^

Edited September 8, 2015 by Psyrius