A simple blur on underwater shadows
Posted: 18 Nov 2017, 01:40
For the last couple of months, I've been collecting content for an official BA website and I've made a lot of screenshots. It turns out that provided with some good looking maps you can make really nice shots with current gfx. As the upcoming release introduces a big sea rework, I have made lots of screenshots showing ships etc. Some water renders are dope too, but there is one thing that ruins the whole effect, namely shadows.
As good as they may look on land, in water they just seem a bit out of place having so sharp edges, and also being totally rigid. Some examples below:
My suggestion is to at least apply some blur around the edges of underwater shadows, ideally make their location oscillate a bit around some point, to create an illusion of changing refraction effects due to waves.
To go a step further IMO all shadows cast by units floating over ground should be blurred as well. only point-like sources of light can cast perfectly sharp shadows and the higher is the altitude of an object the more blur should be observed.
It's just a quick suggestion for your consideration. I personally have no idea how much effort would it take to implement something like that in spring and how much the performance would suffer because of that. Yet even a simple blur would make it look way better so maybe its worth considering :)
As good as they may look on land, in water they just seem a bit out of place having so sharp edges, and also being totally rigid. Some examples below:
My suggestion is to at least apply some blur around the edges of underwater shadows, ideally make their location oscillate a bit around some point, to create an illusion of changing refraction effects due to waves.
To go a step further IMO all shadows cast by units floating over ground should be blurred as well. only point-like sources of light can cast perfectly sharp shadows and the higher is the altitude of an object the more blur should be observed.
It's just a quick suggestion for your consideration. I personally have no idea how much effort would it take to implement something like that in spring and how much the performance would suffer because of that. Yet even a simple blur would make it look way better so maybe its worth considering :)