More Awesome Than You!

It made it so shadows will appear from second story walls and stuff like that. Big deal.

But by default, shadows would always fade out after a set distance. Trees in the distance, however, have "dummy shadows" under them which are always there- that way your town doesn't look ridiculous from long distances.

However, the distance that shadows fade has gotten a LOT smaller. It used to be tolerable assuming you didn't move the camera too low, but now it's just ridiculous. When staring at a sim, the shadows just 6 or 7 feet away start to disappear. I was trying to find a fix for this a long time ago (to make the shadows fade at a MUCH larger distance) but came up empty handed. The shorter distance means that the dummy shadows are visible a lot earlier (see the space between the lots), and they just look horrible from this distance- Because they AREN'T SUPPOSED TO SHOW UP SO EARLY!

(http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/8708/screenshot861.jpg)
(http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/7277/screenshot860.jpg)
(http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/124/screenshot859.jpg)

Indoor lighting seems different, though I'm not sure if it actually is or not. I do know that now, lighting isn't rendered constantly. That is to say it's a lot more basic when you first switch to a floor, then it goes back to being how it should. This too is pretty annoying, but way less so than the outdoor shadows.

Here you can see the progession upon switching to the first floor from the second, as the lighting gets noticably more detailed:

(http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/6650/screenshot862.jpg)
(http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/6192/screenshot863y.jpg)
(http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/9229/screenshot864.jpg)

You can see it easily on the fireplace at the top, or the lighting from the door on the right. It goes from minimal shadows/lighting, to half/half (screwed up in a lot of places), to proper, and it's noticable- every single time.

I wonder if they'll ever manage to get it right.

Crap. Don't suppose that this is fixable by mods?

No, or at least not until someone finds a way of getting to the shaders.

Also, looking at those screenshots, it seems that shadows no longer cross lot boundaries. Another successful fuckup by EA then.

They don't cross the boundaries anymore. I just checked. Also, the Sims themselves seem to pause mid-walk a hell of a lot more than they used to for me.

Shadows cross lot boundaries. What you're seeing is the dummy shadows, which dont spread ONTO lots. But if you look at the show with the full shadow and the shot with the half shadow, it's very clear that the shadow goes over the same edge that the dummy shadow doesn't.

Still looks shit though.

However, the light cast out by lamps and what not is now greatly improved (before, one lamp would make the room stupidly bright. Now it just lights a small section of that room). Can't expect them to get everything right can we? I mean, it is EA.

Yeah, I did think indoor lighting seemed different, but I recently wiped all my saves so I didn't get a chance to check out a familiar setting to see. Indoor lighting has always been pretty nice.

If someone could figure out the shaders we'd be all set- I just wish the shadows had a larger "Draw distance". The game isn't going to suffer that much if the shadows are allowed to spread farther. :\

I do wish they'd fix the ATI issue, though, where outdoor shadows are pixelated.