Continuation of the off topic discussion going on in this thread. To recap
so what your saying is that your game assets dont cast shadows? you use textures instead? :S seems a bit odd that you guys have normal maps but lack a shadow system.. just going by what your saying.
You really do not want dynamic shadows on everything. Trust me. Not only is there no point (it's easier with static lighting to make a texture based approach - modern games still do this), but realtime shadows on everything would increase CPU/GPU load for relatively little gain.
this I already know, point is you can have a relatively powerful shadow system even in this old engine without it eating frame rates.
I actually rather doubt that. But why bother. It's far more work than is necessary.
Why bother with all the graphical updates in the first place. it's far more work than is necessary to enjoy this game.
Most of the GFX stuff is related to the gameplay to be exact. So it was necesairy ^^
The only things that wernt necesairy are bloom and distance bluring. The rest is all tied in with gameplay ^^
What I'm saying though is if you can get the exact same effect with less work, why not? If we were going to add in tons of dynamic lighting, then I'd agree with dynamic shadows being needed. This attitude is a very common developmental approach in game design. It's all about time in, result out, and what kind of financial resources or man hours would be needed to make it happen.
or i could use a free engine like UDK which i can distribute as a company and WHAMMO, dynamic lighting and so much more with a development time of 0 hours.
you do realise its a very common developmental approach NOT to build up from the ground right?
ok a few facts straight. First of shadows do cost fps eventually and always will with every current approach let it me multi-pass or deffered. Everyone who has actually seen the code behind every shadow approach, shadow mapping or stencil aproach knows that it always eats fps, nowadays techniques and especially directX comes with some handy stuff to help you minimize that, anyways we're developing half-life because we enjoy the moding and the work, otherwise we won't do it, we also do it to learn things, as it is really not much of a challenge to code some unreal scripts or use a state-of-the art engine. So it's not about how we would finish the project most efficiently but rather that we benefit the most of it as developers. But this is going completely off topic. So either get back on topic or start a new one discussing project efficiency, guess I made myself clear.
I'll bite.
Seriously? I think to realign your goals if you think modding for HL1 is where all the cool cats are, and making games you can publish and profit from on the UDK engine is only for the n3wbs. Dont make a sweeping statement like that since its just silly and quite frankly an insult to many aspiring developers who use unreal as a platform.
is borderlands, a modded unreal game which is hugely popular and a financial success, really less of a challenge to make than ESF? It's also worth noting it was started and completed in less than the three years ESF 1.3 has taken!
As for the lighting itself for the mod, i can understand why you've decided against using real-time since the game already puts alot of stress on the engine. all i asked was for an acknowledgement that the tree shadow is being looked into! shouldn't be a problem if your baking things after all!
To be fair, 1.3 pretty much started to be rebuilt after OB:F came out.