The fact that those threads seem to be lost is irritating. There was some nice info pertaining to 2.5D techniques in them. I can't find them in a search, and I can't seem to convert the old format to the new forum syntax. I'm sure there's a way, but I've run out of variants.
Instead of bumping the
shadows on none surfaces thread, I'll just post his here since it's related to it, but also to this one in some sense. The Animatrix short, "A Detective Story" from YouTube is copyrighted, so jcl once you view it, please remove the link if you don't want it posted on the forum. Sorry for posting it, but it best shows what I'm want to explain because 1. It's a black and white Noir work like The Disenfranchised (plus it kind of looks like it in places..the snow, this layering effect, the contrast, etc)), and 2. It shows the effect I've been playing with since the beginning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMHCK5MTBOcThe relevant portion starts around the 53 second mark and ends at 1 minute 6 seconds. The parallax scrolling in the mid- and foreground layers is what to look out for, and specifically the part where the camera moves back and shows the telephone. My title will be using this effect a lot and I think it's what The Vampyre Story game I've mentioned does, too. That little piece of art is 2D in nature, yet it will be in a 3D world. As I've stated, I don't want to do a pure 2.5D game. If I wanted to, I'd be using Wintermute. I want to combine that aesthetic with realtime, so let's call it 2.75D.
Anyway, if I wanted to cast a nice shadow across that telephone, I can't do it in 3DGS right now (using stencil shadows I mean). In an actual level, the telephone sprite (or panel depending on how you do it) would be at that location and some invisible geometry that represents it would be just behind it. I'd want the shadow to adhere to this geometry, thus my shadows on none surfaces request.
