Shadow
Note: Object-cast shadows have been temporarily removed as of
SL 1.10.
SL's "soft" ("fuzzy", "blocky", aliased, low-resolution) shadows are automatically created for the
sim's daytime single
light source and are based on the
prim's overall
size and shape (before
tweaking--
scale and
rotation being the only things that affect shadow shape). Shadows darken the
ground, other prims, and
avatars (which also have 2 "foot" shadows made from
masked textures). Light will lessen all shadows except avatar foot shadows.
Avatar shadows can be removed:
- Via the Debug menu option Rendering > Types > Alpha - Ctrl-Alt-Shift-2. However, this also disables all transparency and masked textures).
- In "C:\Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings\viewerart.ini" by changing the value of the line that starts with "foot_shadow.tga" from the key "14e8a47d-1055-0a68-5d55-eafd9ad3da5b" to "11ee27f5-43c0-414e-afd5-d7f5688c351f" (a fully transparent image), and then restarting the client.
Runitai Linden, 5/5/06:
Shadows are baked into vertex colors. Only light from the sun is affected by shadows. The updating of shadows happens gradually, updating only a handful of objects per frame, and an object will lose its shadows whenever it changes level of detail, moves, or something between it and the sun moves.
Shadows for moving objects and avatars are rough approximations based on a 5-point sample around the object. Attachments take the shadow value of the avatar they are attached to.
The shadow an object casts is based on its bounding box. To see the bounding box, turn on the octree info display from the debug menu.
Light |
Ground |
Avatar