[fourteenfour]

I've always thought Valorant looked like crap because the players don't cast shadows. Just found out the other day that it's because other player model positions aren't sent to the client until the server determines they are visible to reduce cheating. This would cause shadows to appear and disappear as the player model was loaded and unloaded so you would never see a shadow unless you could also see the body of the player.

[jsheard]

I think you read my post about that, I don't know if they specifically disabled player shadows because of the anti-cheat system but it certainly makes the anti-cheat simpler. Valorant intentionally has extremely bare-bones rendering to allow for very high framerates on modest hardware, aside from no dynamic shadows it has no dynamic lighting whatsoever, and no alpha transparency anywhere. Things like smoke that would usually be transparent are stylized in ways that let them be drawn fully opaque because it's faster. Regardless of the cheating situation they probably would have skipped dynamic shadows anyway, for performance.

[enragedcacti]

Spot on: "We have cast shadows only on objects in first person, like your own hands and weapon. This is to avoid cast shadows being a competitive factor in both effect (knowing where your cast shadow is) and performance (low-spec machines can’t reasonably run well with cast shadows)."

https://technology.riotgames.com/news/valorant-shaders-and-g...

[scudsworth]

interesting decision - makes sense for performance but shadows giving away a player's position in a competitive fps adds depth (and fun!) imo. satisfying to read a bad approach and also to play around if you notice your shadow's about to give you away.

[enragedcacti]

I agree it lessens the depth though I think it generally aligns with Valorant flattening out some of the complexity of CS to free up overhead for hero abilities and ultimates. Each round has as many as 40 abilities to think about across 10 players and many maps add unique mechanics on top of that (e.g. teleporters). Also in CS because of a fixed sun position the parts of the map where shadows are relevant never change and become mostly rote memorization which is another thing I think Riot tried to minimize somewhat (e.g. Brimstone and Omen smokes not requiring memorizing dozens of lineups across the map pool).

[scudsworth]

for sure, its a totally valid design decision either way. also, good point about the fixed sun in cs. i've had a lot of fun with the shadows in r6 siege - since a lot of the combat takes place indoors where you can really reshape the level on the fly it doesn't feel as static

[sitzkrieg]

its so people using cheats do not even receive the data

[enragedcacti]

But its not, as we see in the posts above. CS has shadows and a fog-of-war anticheat implementation, Riot could have managed it if they really wanted shadows.

[fourteenfour]

Thanks for the clarification, that was the post I read. I think it would look better if they did a cheap shadow like N64 Zelda which starts from the feet instead of the centered circle which falls off to transparent before it gets out to the feet but I guess you run into problems when the shadow extends past the player model sometimes.

[tetris11]

Link to your post for the curious?

[jsheard]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41937205

[mikepurvis]

Surely fixable by the server checking for visibility of the shadow as well? I don’t know Valorant but I assume that could actually become a strategic element to not hide with a light source at your back.

[Unai]

Positioning is already a huge part of the game, and every wall, corner and box to duck behind has a strategic purpose that one must be aware of, just not based on lighting but geometry and game strategy. So adding a whole other mechanic to it wouldn't be interesting.