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Getting nice looking and customizable soft shadows

Discussion in 'General Graphics' started by Volgix, Jun 21, 2017.

  1. Volgix

    Volgix

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2017
    Posts:
    3
    Hi,

    I want to recreate as best as I can Maya lights with Unity (I need dynamic lights). Unity lights themselves are ok, but I do not have much control over cast shadows. I especially would like to have some control over the 'diffusion', the 'softness' of the shadows (the area which is not completly inside the shadow, nor completely ouside)

    I saw several assets ont the Asset Store which seems to allow this kind of things:
    https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/79454

    https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/61640

    https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/14746

    The first one seems really nice to me, but I would like to know if someone has already some experience with those tools, or similar ones that I may not have noticed? In other words, do you know which asset would be the best in my case?
     
  2. bgolus

    bgolus

    Joined:
    Dec 7, 2012
    Posts:
    12,329
    Only that first one (Next-Gen Soft-Shadows) will do what you're looking for. That has real penumbra control with dynamic lights, but at the cost of a good bit of noise (to stay performant).

    The other two are very special cases for faking dynamic shadows.
    The second link only does soft shadows from the "windows" into a box shaped area, the objects inside that room still have hard shadows.
    The third link is totally fake and uses pre-blurred images projected on the ground.
    Both are intended primarily for mobile.
     
    theANMATOR2b likes this.
  3. Volgix

    Volgix

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2017
    Posts:
    3
    Thank you for those precisions, bgolus.
    I indeed went for the first one, which seems pretty good: there's indeed quite a lot of noise, but it is not that noticeable when the shadow is cast against a textured object.

    Well, I don't know yet how I'll convert Maya shadows parameters to recreate it with Next-Gen Soft-Shadows (I want to do it by scripting, and parameters seem really defferent between Maya and Next-Gen Soft-Shadows), but I should get a better result anyway.