Bug with symbols casting shadows? (DD3)
mcg197
Newcomer
Hello, I'm very new to CC3+, having just picked it up in the humble bundle recently. I've found myself rather bothered by trying to set up a point light setup for a cave battle map I'm working on. I was able to get the lights working for the walls in the cave, but despite using the same setup for the elements like pillars and tables, they don't appear to be casting any shadows!
I have attached my in progress image, if anyone would take a look and see if they can help me, I would really appreciate it. I would hate to have to put down the software because I feel like it's just not working for me right now. The one where it should be really obvious is the pillar in the top right of my image. It should be casting a shadow down and to the left, but it does not.
Thank you!
Comments
Several things here.
There was nothing on the WALLS sheet to stop the light going outside the cave, so I copied the floor to the WALLS sheet and gave the polygon a line width of 1ft to make it a wall rather than a floor.
The WALLS sheet had to be below the LIGHTS sheet, so that it was part of the lit scene and could stop the light coming out of the cave. I moved it up the list to make this true. Unfortunately, I don't know where your entrance is, so you will need to cut one out of the wall or redraw the wall.
The effects were set up ok, but the column was on the LIGHTS sheet, and not the SYMBOLS TALL sheet. That's why it wasn't casting any shadow.
I may have tweaked other things while I was messing around getting it to work, but I tried not to.
You now have a new problem I'm not sure how to cure. The lights are casting rays in the shadows. I think @Monsen might be able to help you with that one. Here is the FCW I produced from yours.
Oh my gosh you fixed it somehow... I had that column on the SYMBOLS TALL sheet for a long time, but it still wasn't working. You're a lifesaver, though I'm still very confused. Thanks for fixing my cave walls though, I wasn't exactly sure whether sheets are up/down logically vs in the display. That still trips me up a little.
The entrance is that straight vertical 3 tile tall flat section to the right of the point light by the column. Used a white light for the actic exterior, but it should be easy for me to slice a section out of the wall. Bringing the value of the effect down from infinite to ~8 or so fixes the large amount of artifacting that comes off that column to a reasonable degree.
If you happen to think of any other logical reason why my shadow may not have casted (back when I had it on the non-lights layer) I would be really interested in knowing, but for now I really appreciate your quick response! :D
Update: I just remembered that as I was updating my drivers to play CP:2077 this evening, I ran into an issue where I had 0Bytes free on my C: drive. (I only use it for my OS but it's a really really small drive). I wonder if it's possible that some of the lighting information was attempting to be baked out onto disk into a C: drive path and since there was no room, it was failing to do so. It's the best guess I have if the fix really was just moving it back onto the layer I had it on before. After cleaning out a few gigs and reloading up the file, maybe it worked? Just a theory in case there was nothing else.
Lighting isn't something anyone gets really easily. I still manage to confuse myself sometimes even now, but well done for tackling it so early in your CC3 experience.
I know much less about how PCs actually work, so I can't help you with your later questions, but Remy (Monsen) might know.