https://youtu.be/dMHqkrI-24U
There are so many elements to make a vast open-world environment believable — from the ground textures to the vegetation to lighting, fog, and weather — but one of the most important is shadows. But shadows are very expensive (that’s game dev term for “slows the game down”), so we’re always trying to use the least shadows we can. In a big map like Amethyst Mountain, that means we can only have shadows extending out 50-150m from the player — beyond that, nothing casts a shadow, which often isn’t even visible or noticeable, but with long views it becomes quite apparent and detracts significantly from realism.
In the old game, we could “bake” shadows into the textures, which is great for both performance and visual quality — but that only works when the sun does not move. With our dynamic day/night and weather systems, it’s not an option. I’ve been looking for more than two years for a way to have distant shadow but had given up hope until last week I began talking to Georges Pax, a graphics and rendering wizard who developed the special type of shadows we use for grass and rocks in the game. He’d been working on an amazing new technique that draws shadows out to the horizon — and no more “expensive” than what we already are using for grass shadows! So today’s video looks at how his innovative technique makes WolfQuest’s recreation of Yellowstone look even better.
If you’re curious to learn more about his work, you can find him on the Unity forum, where his username is tatoforever.
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We are releasing the first episode, Amethyst Mountain for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access on July 25. That will be followed by multiplayer and Slough Creek some months later, then followed by the mobile versions. We’ll then resume development of the next episode, Tower Fall.
WolfQuest 3 will be a free update to players who own WolfQuest 2.7.