0005189: noshadows mask spawnarg for shadows optimization - The Dark Mod Bugtracker

ID	Project	Category	View Status	Date Submitted	Last Update

0005189	The Dark Mod	Coding	public	22.03.2020 02:19	05.12.2022 19:34

Reporter	stgatilov	Assigned To	stgatilov
Priority	normal	Severity	normal	Reproducibility	N/A
Status	assigned	Resolution	open
Product Version	TDM 2.08
Target Version	TDM 2.12

Summary	0005189: noshadows mask spawnarg for shadows optimization
Description	The engine has "noshadows" spawnarg for lights, which makes the light rays pass through everything. This keyword is often used to optimize away shadows drawing, which is often pretty expensive, especially for complex geometry with stencil implementation. However, this keyword makes the light pass through brush walls (which is undesirable for mappers) and hence disables some useful area/portals optimization (performance). The new idea is to allow players define "groups" of entities (as well as have some builtin groups), and allow to disable shadow for every light+group individually. So, the lights get a new spawnarg "noshadows_mask", which contains the set of groups to not cast shadows from. And the entities get a new spawnarg "shadow_groups", which specifies one (or even several) groups the entity belongs to. OLD: The idea is to add "shadowworldonly" spawnarg for such optimization purposes. For a light with this spawnarg, shadows from worldspawn brushes (and patches) are enabled, but shadows from any entities (and models) are disabled. This greatly reduces shadow drawing complexity, makes lights behave in a well-defined way (stable w.r.t future engine changes), and allows to use visportal-related optimizations (like light flow and interaction culling, including 0005172).
Additional Information	See discussion: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21106-mirceakitsune-ambient-light-and-noshadows/ OLD: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20224-arealock-keyword/&do=findComment&comment=444731
Tags	No tags attached.

Dragofer 30.09.2021 18:27 developer ~0014381	The spawnarg could be renamed from shadowworldonly to i.e. noshadows_entities (1 = entities cast no shadows, but worldspawn still casts shadows). Advantages: - similar to the existing and commonly used "noshadows" spawnarg, so hopefully easier to remember - imo it better indicates that, effectively, this new spawnarg turns off shadows for entities (technically worldspawn is entity 0, but I think mappers don't think of it as an entity)

stgatilov 01.10.2021 02:54 administrator ~0014383	I have rewritten this proposal in terms of shadow masks. Since world geometry would have built-in group 0, "noshadows_entities" will simply be "noshadows_mask" "0".

stgatilov 17.10.2022 06:28 administrator ~0015340 Last edited: 17.10.2022 06:44	Found the same idea in Unigine Engine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI8Q3bANsM8 but on a larger scale =)

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
22.03.2020 02:19	stgatilov	New Issue
22.03.2020 02:19	stgatilov	Status	new => assigned
22.03.2020 02:19	stgatilov	Assigned To	=> stgatilov
22.03.2020 02:22	stgatilov	Additional Information Updated
05.12.2020 12:33	stgatilov	Target Version	TDM 2.09 => TDM 2.10
30.09.2021 18:27	Dragofer	Note Added: 0014381
01.10.2021 02:53	stgatilov	Summary	shadowworldonly light keyword for shadows optimization => noshadows mask spawnarg for shadows optimization
01.10.2021 02:53	stgatilov	Description Updated
01.10.2021 02:53	stgatilov	Additional Information Updated
01.10.2021 02:54	stgatilov	Note Added: 0014383
22.11.2021 14:06	stgatilov	Target Version	TDM 2.10 => TDM 2.11
25.07.2022 18:02	stgatilov	Relationship added	related to 0005880
17.10.2022 06:28	stgatilov	Note Added: 0015340
17.10.2022 06:44	stgatilov	Note Edited: 0015340
05.12.2022 19:34	nbohr1more	Target Version	TDM 2.11 => TDM 2.12