Shadows on Mac

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 12:44 pm

Seems whatever setting I choose for shadows, I get very heavy shadows on the game.

Sorry if this is a known problem.

Other than that , A1

(playing on Mb Air 2011 Lion)

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:33 am

I've just been looking the demo videos on the site and mine doesn't looking anything like as clear or detailed.

I can confirm the demo has the same heavy shadowing.

Anyone else there paying on a Mac?

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 3:24 pm

Well, perhaps someone could kindly tell me the file where it writes the shadow level ? At least then I can have a go at setting it directly.

Surely I cant be the only mac user here

pk867 · Post by **pk867** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 5:12 pm

Hi,

I am a Mac user and my friend's Mac Book Air shows the same symptom. This reason is the graphics chip which is the built in one
will not show the shadows properly like on an iMac or a MacBook Pro with a separate graphics card.
The MacBook Air shares its graphic memory with the main memory.

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 8:08 pm

Thanks for your reply. Thing is, I play other games on it that are shadowed normally..

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 3:19 am

Any chance of a reply from Slitherine?

Been a few days now. How do I switch shadows off on a Mac, as the radio button selector on the intro screen doesn't work

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:42 am

Steveukjapan wrote:Any chance of a reply from Slitherine?

Been a few days now. How do I switch shadows off on a Mac, as the radio button selector on the intro screen doesn't work

Steve,

I'm not tech support but it appears that Pip (slitherine) is on vacation so he'll be the one to help.

Now, I don't have a Mac but there is a way to turn off shadows ...
First of all, for the PC version, when I start the game a window (intro menu) appears allowing me to change my options (is this the radio button you mentioned?) ...
If you don't have this then you can make a change manually, depending if you have an options.txt file (steps below)

Look in your folder ... Documents\My Games\BBCBA

Find the OPTIONS.TXT file

Open the OPTIONS.TXT file and change the line below to read (then save the change) ;

Code: Select all

ShadowQuality 0

The default is probably "ShadowQuality 1" (mine is).
Hope that helps ...
- Rob

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 11:09 am

Yes Phil is the only one who knows about Mac unfortunately and is away until next week.

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:25 pm

Rob, Thanks a lot for your detailed reply. Thanks to you, I found that file.

Both the Shadow and ShadowQuality were already set to 0.

Looks like its a job for Phil the Mac.

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:02 pm

Steveukjapan wrote:Rob, Thanks a lot for your detailed reply. Thanks to you, I found that file.

Both the Shadow and ShadowQuality were already set to 0.

Looks like its a job for Phil the Mac.

Did you try setting them to a value of 1 ?

Perhaps the 0 value is why it's all ugly ... I dunno.

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:09 pm

Yeah I tried that. If you choose high shadow from start menu, it puts a 1 in there too.

There is a value 'Shaders' too...1.

Got to be in here someplace

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 9:55 pm

Steveukjapan wrote:
Got to be in here someplace

Well, there's a final tweak you can try ....

Look in the same directory ... Is there a USER.TXT ?

If not, create one like you would any text document.

Also, look for the directory called AUTODOCS ...

There's a text in this directory called TWEAKS.TXT

Ok ... Put this in your USER.TXT ...

Code: Select all

Shadows,  0

Now, in the tweaks file, you'll see where I got that, plus there's a line about shadow size, but I tried this and it didn't do anything. There are more tweaks in that file too.

Code: Select all

//Enable shadows?
Shadows,  1

//The initial size we try for for shadows
ShadowSize,  2048

Anyway, when I tried the "Shadows, 0" on my PC, it only turned off unit shadows, but it was something.

- Rob

junk2drive · Post by **junk2drive** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:41 am

I remember at one time the tree shadows were cast in the opposite direction of the unit shadows. Don't know if that was fixed, I play with shadows off.

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 4:34 pm

I think perhaps I have described the problem badly.

Shadows could mean the stuff around the trees and units.

Perhaps I should've said the Shading on the units. Like a tank has solid black sides and back. Really heavy shadowing/shading

enric · Post by **enric** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 10:15 am

I'm using a MacBookAir,
The shadows numbers of OPTIONS.TXT file refers to the options
No shadows (0,0)
Low quality (1,0)
High quality (1,1)
I noticed that options 2 and 3 make no difference... maybe Pip will clear this...

no shadows:

low quality

high quality

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 1:02 pm

Enric,

Thanks for posting those. That is indeed what I was expecting the game to look like.

Were your pics done on Lion OS?

Here is the relevant part of my file:

Shadows 0
Bloom 1
Sound 1
Shaders 1
DynEnv 1
TextureQuality 2
ShadowQuality 0
Rez -1

But still very heavy shading. Sides of buildings away from light are pretty much black. Same for tanks.

[/img]

enric · Post by **enric** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 1:20 pm

Yes I use Lion, I could not see your image I suppose you sent.

What's happens if you select no shadows?

My Mac is:

Processor 2,13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 2:53 pm

No, seems I can only use a URL to link an image.

Curiously I did a web search and found this.
Different game but describes and shows the problem precisely, with the same 2011 Air with Lion.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/549 ... k-shading/

See the shading on the Pig, that is exactly what I get on tanks

I have changed all the settings to 0 1 and 2.Nothing seems to make a difference. I notice you mention pairs of numbers? I assume you mean "Shadows" and "ShadowQuality"

enric · Post by **enric** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:19 pm

You can use Dropbox, which is a free utility (untill 2GB of images or any other docs) to post images on the forum, this will help Pip to understand your problem.

I notice you mention pairs of numbers? I assume you mean "Shadows" and "ShadowQuality"

Yes, and I did not change nothing directly in the OPTIONS.TXT file. Used the option on the first screen of the game.

Steveukjapan · Post by **Steveukjapan** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 6:19 pm

Good idea

See the halftrack looks fine but the tanks and buildings are very dark indeed.

I tried different resolutions too, no difference