Build Option to Not Cast Shadows
tracked
Ceri Quixote
It would be nice to have a toggle option when building that disables an objects ability to cast shadows, particularly in sunlight.
Use case: I spend most of my time in a skybox. The skybox is large enough that I have a house and garden area inside it and for privacy reasons it is surrounded by walls that are opaque on the outside.
Because the walls are opaque on the outside they cast shadows on everything inside the skybox. Lighting is therefore slightly overcast even if the environment is otherwise set to be bright and sunny.
It would be nice to set the surround to not cast shadows so that I can enjoy proper day / night cycles in my skybox without having to derender or otherwise do away with the surround.
From a purely VFX standpoint I'm sure there are other reasons you might want an object that's visible but does not cast shadows - giant holographic statues, ghost ships, etc.
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Kristy Aurelia
It would be nice if objects had more than on/off shadow state.
I'd like to see at least 3 levels of shadows "Important", "Regular", "No Shadow" (or more). And a graphic setting that controls which shadows are shown, so for weaker machines, a setting that only shows important shadows could be used. "Important" shadow show be used on things like skyboxes, houses or other very large and obvious objects, while smaller things like furniture would be "Regular". With Reflection probes having a sun shadow to stop light leaking into interiors is very important for accurate lighting, but full scene shadows can be too expensive on some machines.
This shadow option should always be modifiable too, even on no-mod items, similar to the new alpha-gamma setting, so builders can adjust and fix cases where creators set their creator to "Important", just because they feel important.
Existing objects should default to "Regular" as that would match the current behaviour the best.
Another option I'd like to see added, is "Front Face", "Back Face", "Both", "Either" option for shadow casting, this can be used as a hint for the viewer to better optimize the shadow rendering. For example, shadow mapping can sometimes cause some rounding errors that cause light bleed around corners of objects, if said object was rendering both front and backface of the object into the shadow map, it would have multiple opportunities to write a more accurate value into the shadow map, potentially reducing the artefacts. Also, some creator use inverted meshes in their creations, which allow people to see though them one way (like a one way mirror effect), but not the other, meshes like that result in incorrect shadows, using "Back Face" or "Both" would fix that.
Existing objects should default to "Front Face" as I think that's what current shadows use.
On high graphic settings I'd consider all avatars as "Important" shadowcasters, on lower settings only my avatar should be "Important".
Also, ability to toggle shadows casting on light sources, preferably on all light sources. Having all lights have that option would make it ready for any potential future shadow implementations for those lights. And for projector lights, ability to pick which lights are the most important while also keeping directionality of other lights, would help out lighting up the scenes. Projector lights are very handy to prevent lights shining through the wrong side of the wall.
Kristy Aurelia
Just to add, the "Either" option would let the viewer know that it casts shadows, but either face is fine, so potentially the viewer, or third party viewers can use it as optimization hint in scenarios like - two linked objects, one is "Back face" other is "Either", the viewer would know that it is safe to batch both objects as "Back face"... assuming that was a potential performance gain, by not having to swap modes between drawing the two objects or similar.
SL Feedback
Hello, and thank you for your feature request regarding the option to disable shadow casting for objects. This suggestion has been brought up in the past and is currently tracked. We understand the importance of this feature for enhancing visual effects and improving the lighting in specific scenarios like skyboxes and skydomes. While we have no estimate on when it may be implemented, please stay tuned for future updates. We appreciate your input and encourage you to continue sharing your ideas to help improve Second Life.
SL Feedback
tracked
Dean Haystack
You can make the outer walls ever so slighty transparent and they'll stop casting shadows while looking pretty much opaque.
Not that that stops anyone from caming inside...
Ceri Quixote
Dean Haystack It's more for the look of things; however I tested slightly transparent walls and they just cast slightly lighter shadows.
Drake1 Nightfire
Ceri Quixote Make the outside texture fully transparent. Your view wont change.
Ceri Quixote
Drake1 Nightfire I realize I can do that - it's just not a desirable option, hence the feature request. I have reasons for wanting the outside walls opaque but not cast shadows inside the box.
Lucia Nightfire
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlSetPrimitiveParams#PRIM_CAST_SHADOWS used to be a thing. There have been requests to bring the functionality back.