Projected shadows in Max Payne

[SkavenRMD]

There are no projected shadows in Max Payne. The ones you saw in 3DMark were created by the MadOnion programmers for the scenes in 3DMark.

I know what you're going to ask next. No, you can't do that, either. Due to exit technology you can't take the 3DMark shadow routine and just slap it into Max Payne. You'd need a general case implementation that works anywhere in the game. The one in 3DMark is a special case implementation, customized to work in those particular scenes only, with hard-coded buffer size limitations etc.

Dunno why, but somehow this situation reminds me of this comic strip (http://www.ozyandmillie.org/d/20020630.html). images/icons/smile.gif

[Krursk]

Well i decided to give max payne another go today. On max setting with all the bells and whistles turned on i got a fantastic FPS and georgeous graphics to boot. Except for one thing. I noticed the dull blob shadows. looking back to 3dmark i noticed the projected type shadows that look much nicer than yucky blobs. So I guess hell max payne would look so much cooler if I could turn that on! Thinking back to quake 3 I rememberd the old cg_shadows setting and how to make nice projected shadows over the crappy blob ones. unfortunantly max payne doesnt seem to have an *.ini or *.cfg file of any discription. I could not even find registry settings for it.

I would like to know if thier is any possible way to turn on those great projected shadows in Max Payne. Like a mod/hack/command line?

[Krursk]

Thanks for the info. In any case are you going to put nicer shadows into max payne 2? If it's possible I mean.

[Ninja]

What? You code monkeys on crack can't give us nice shadows?

Do I have to ship a metric ton of China White over to Finland to get a yes? images/icons/tongue.gif

Seriously though, surely the FX engine isn't designed as to make it impossible for you guys to have projected shadows at all though?

[SkavenRMD]

It's not impossible, but as you all know, no details about Max Payne 2 will be revealed before it's time.

[Co11]

as long as it has max in it...

it does, doesn't it? images/icons/smile.gif

[The Baskinator]

as long as it has max in it...

it does, doesn't it?
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Nope, it's going to be Krusty Brand Imitation Max. 9 out of 10 gamers can't tell the difference.

[Guest]

lol... images/icons/rolleyes.gif

[Krursk]

Well we can only hope max payne 2 has fantastic shadows. They can add so much more to the gameplay.

[Homoludens]

I'm guessing MP2 will have full projected shadows when it launches, considering the latest titles (Soldier of Fortune II, UT2003, The Watchmaker, etc.) have this feature, which will be pretty much automatic -- and old hat -- a year from now.