[Bf-funboard] Shadow casting particles

[Robert Wenzlaff]

On Sunday 19 December 2004 23:55, J L wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As we've known for ages, Particles don't cast shadows.
>
> This is ok for animated particles, but what about static ones? The
> workaround is rendering the frame from several different angles and using
> that for shadow maps. But the problems comes with animations.
>
> The main reason that this happens is that static particles can only use
> Halos if they are to not appear as a fuzzy blob. So why not introduce
> another type of material that are like Halos, but cast shadows and don't
> glow.

The problem is that halos don't cast shadows (and considering what a halo is 
supposed to be, this is quite logical).  A partical system (both static and 
dynamic) with a dupliverted mesh or metaballs does cast shadows.

I'm not quite sure what you are saying about the "fuzzy blob" part.  Is it 
that the mesh corners show or are you refering to metaballs being fuzzy?   

If you are using shaded halos to do something like smoke, you can always 
duplicate your emitter, parent and duplivert a mesh to it, and set it to 
shadow only.


Robert Wenzlaff