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RT Shadows
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Post by W!ZARD // Sep 6, 2008, 1:39pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Chapter 3 pages 14 and 15 of the manual make reference to Shadow Filtering Quality Parameters. It also makes repeated references to what happens at maximum quality settings (Poisson Filtering enabled) and how to use this feature.
Unfortunately there seems to be no indication of what the maximum quality setting is! (Either that or I missed it somehow). My question then is, what is the maximum Shadow Filtering Quality setting? There appears to be no effective limit to how big a value you can set.
Any input here much appreciated.
TIA
WZRD |
Post by stan // Sep 6, 2008, 1:47pm
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stan
Total Posts: 1240
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it might mean the workspace hardware setting panel. there is a 'shadow filtering quality' droplist..poisson disk shadows. |
Post by W!ZARD // Sep 6, 2008, 2:07pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Thanks Stan.
That would certainly ensure that all the lights in the scene render at maximum shadow quality but it's the actual value in the individual light settings that I'm after. Sometimes you want lights that are maxed for quality but other not so maxed for performance.
Good point though Gord, I'd not spotted that drop down before - handy to know it's there.:D |
Post by Délé // Sep 6, 2008, 4:30pm
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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I believe that with the filtering quality, the highest you can go is how far the slider will move (five I think it is). I've tried setting it higher than that and I can't see any difference. The highest setting is not always the best though from my experience. For me, it usually looks better set to four rather than five.
I'm not sure if there is a limit to the shadow map size though. I've gone as far as setting that to 4096 with my new card. I had to in order to get good shadows. That seemed to work without trouble. |
Post by trueBlue // Sep 6, 2008, 6:44pm
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trueBlue
Total Posts: 1761
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Here is an insert from the D3DViewSettings.xml file:
<SHADOW_SIZE_SCALE Value="default" />
- <!-- SHADOW_SIZE_MAX specifies the maximum allowed shadowmap size. All shadowmaps with size greater than specified value (after shadowmap ratio is applied) will be scaled down to this size. Smaller shadowmaps produce less memory usage and higher performance of rendering. Following values are valid: "default" - the original resolution is used for each shadowmap. "none" - shadows will be disabled. "<num>" - i.e. "256". All shadowmaps with size greater than <num> are scaled down to <num>. Examples of <num> are 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64. Most graphics card allow only power-of-two shadowmaps. -->
<SHADOW_SIZE_MAX Value="default" />
- <!-- SHADOW_FILTER_QUALITY specifies the best shadow filtering quality which is allowed. The value directly affects the performance of the rendering - lower quality means higher performance. Following values are valid: "default" - the shadow filtering is used as specified in each light. "none" - no shadow filtering is performed. Best performance. "pcf2x2" - Percentage closer filtering of 2x2 values around the pixel. "pcf2x2f" - Percentage closer filtering of 2x2 values around the pixel with additional bilinear filtering. "pcf3x3" - Percentage closer filtering of 3x3 values around the pixel. "pcf3x3f" - Percentage closer filtering of 3x3 values around the pixel with additional bilinear filtering. Best quality. -->
<SHADOW_FILTER_QUALITY Value="default" /> |
Post by W!ZARD // Sep 6, 2008, 8:10pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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D'oh!:D Awe heck! Forgot the screen grab! |
Post by W!ZARD // Sep 6, 2008, 8:24pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Ah OK I think I've figured it out. You guys are talking about the Hardware settings. As you can see in the screeny below there are seven settings for Shadow Filtering Quality. I've been looking at the 'Use Light Settings' option.
In the Exp tab of individual lights you can set any value in the Filtering Quality parameter - below, I have one light with 0 and one with 200 entered into the Shadow Quality parameters. The default value in the default New scene settings is 6. This was a bit confusing - or, more accurately, I was a bit confused!
However, this parameter can also be controlled with a slider in the Advanced tab (which I only just realised :o). Setting the slider to either extreme and switching between the Advanced and the Exp tabs I see the range moves between 0 and 5.
I should have just checked the other tab before posting:o D'oh!:D |
Post by parva // Sep 6, 2008, 10:59pm
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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I think 6 is the highest possible shadow filtering so a value of 200 will have no effect. Thats the reason why a slider is choosen.
The steps of the slider sets the values from left (no filtering) to right (max filtering). |
Post by TomG // Sep 8, 2008, 2:19am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Yep, "set it with the slider" is my advice :) Then you just drag it all the way to the right to enable that setting, and lower it notch by notch if you don't want to use it.
HTH!
Tom |
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