Real-time soft shadows using shadow texture

Abstract

To represent shadows, traditional methods such as shadow mapping have been frequently used. However, the rendering results do not appear natural since they assume a point light source. On the contrary, methods which assume an area light source can render soft shadows; however, their, computation is too burdensome due to consider over the whole light source surface. Many alternative methods have been introduced, but they have problems such as light loosing. In this paper, we propose a method to improve those problems by using pre-filtered shadow texture. Our approach can be implemented simply, and generates plausible soft shadows in constant rendering time. Copyright © 2014 IADIS Press All rights reserved.