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Fake shadows for non-moving characters

j9907
Registered User
Quote
2018-11-28 15:20:21

I expanded upon srfstudio's idea of using planes and static images for fake character shadows :)

My shadow technique is only effective with static (non-moving) characters who aren't controllable since I don't think a "on key release" option is available in CopperCube (so you could switch out the various shadow states (running, idle, jumping) when needed. If anyone can prove me otherwise, please do!


Anyways, it involves going into Blender and removing the textures from your character and set the shading to "shadeless". change the viewport to "Front" and quite simply grab a few frames of each animation. Then, go into Gimp / Photoshop and crop out the unwanted parts (UI, etc..) and extract the pure white shape of your character for each frame (I only do 6-7 frames since each animation is over 30 frames and that's too much work). Fill it in with black, adjust the opacity, export as PNG (for transparency) and just apply that texture to a plane (and rotate as needed and set to double-sided), and use the built-in "animate a texture" behavior.

Sorry for the cropped image, but I really don't want to give out many details about this project yet! This will give you a bit of an idea though. Just look: he has 2 arms on one side of his body, and his shadow does, too.

🔎︎



blackwater
Registered User
Quote
2018-11-28 19:33:15

Oooh...That's brilliant!


j9907
Registered User
Quote
2018-11-28 23:47:59

Thanks! I had to have character shadows since it looked terrible without... I also found a way to have collision for these characters so you don't run right through them! I'll post about it in the open discussion. It's a very simple technique!


srfstudio
Registered User
Quote
2018-11-29 19:36:17

Good work, this does look like a regular shadow. Did you manage to successfully synchronize it with the character animation?


j9907
Registered User
Quote
2018-11-29 19:49:39

I didn't, no. I only did a handful of frames. I'll definitely be doing all of the frames and will get the magic number which will allow them to be synced :)


xanimalkingx
Registered User
Quote
2018-12-01 13:51:33

wrote:
Thanks! I had to have character shadows since it looked terrible without... I also found a way to have collision for these characters so you don't run right through them! I'll post about it in the open discussion. It's a very simple technique!


I know exactly what you mean! Create a static mesh of the same character, assign a completely transparent texture to it with the transparent (alpha) material setting, then put the animated mesh as a child of the static mesh.
The only issue with this is the static mesh does not follow with the animated mesh... so an extended arm wont have collision compared to the t-pose static mesh.


srfstudio
Registered User
Quote
2018-12-01 18:38:44

@xanimalkingx yes but you don't really need static mesh of a character for collision, it's cpu-fps cheaper to just use a simple ball or a cube. Since collision geometry is not animated & can't really 'follow' main geometry animation, it's all the same :)

You can also make collision box to be both a parent or a child.


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