Real-Time Shadows

by Elmar Eisemann, Michael Schwarz, Ulf Assarsson

Important elements of games, movies, and other computer-generated content, shadows are crucial for enhancing realism and providing important visual cues. In recent years, there have been notable improvements in visual quality and speed, making high-quality realistic real-time shadows a reachable goal. Real-Time Shadows is a comprehensive guide to the theory and practice of real-time shadow techniques. It covers a large variety of different effects, including hard, soft, volumetric, and semi-transparent shadows. The book explains the basics as well as many advanced aspects related to the domain of shadow computation. It presents interactive solutions and practical details on shadow computation. The authors compare various algorithms for creating real-time shadows and illustrate how they are used in different situations. They explore the limitations and failure cases, advantages and disadvantages, and suitability of the algorithms in several applications. Source code, videos, tutorials, and more are available on the book’s website .

498 pages, Hardcover

First published July 6, 2011

Reviews

[Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subject of real-time shadows, much like most topics in this area, are a mix of engineering compromises. What is here, is partial information- perhaps the cost in conveying the subject matter simply is still too expensive. There are several possible reasons for this: 1) the lack of mathematical skill in especially topics of geometry and topology of the average GFX practitioner, and 2) and the unwillingness to convey accurate information, but only enough to use the system, given the size of profit margins. It was still helpful, giving me a basic understanding of shadows.