[SOLVED] Peter Pan Effect

[michael_kuerbis]

Maybe this is not directly a bug, but it definitely affects the playability a lot.
Langoth suffers from the Peter Pan effect. That occurs when you are stand on the ground, but there is a gap between you and your shadow. Thus, judging from the shadow, it appears that you are hovering above the ground, like Peter Pan.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873699126
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873699318

Langoth is a third-person 3D platformer. In this genre shadows are actually very important. They help the player judge how far they are above the ground and where that jump is going to land them. If this shadow information is unhelpful, as is the case here, it makes the game very difficult to control.

Back in the 90s, before stencil shadows or shadow maps were common in games, 3D platformers used blob shadows. Those are dark circles directly below the model (regardless of the light sources). Just look at some Mario 64 footage for an example. Now I have seen games that featured both "shape-based" shadows and a little blob shadow. This might be a temporary fix for Langoth.

This article by Microsoft has a few tips for the Peter Pan Effect, but I cannot say how useful they are for UE4 games.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee416324(v=vs.85).aspx

I speculate that a higher level of shadow quality in general would solve the Peter Pan Effect.
Maybe I will tinker with UE config files and see if that helps.

[michael_kuerbis]

Okay, I hadn't reached the second level yet. In level 2 the shadow situation is a lot better.
EDIT: that was the secret level.
EDIT 2: In the actual second level (ice world) the Peter Pan effect is also much smaller, kinda within acceptable bounds. Seems like the desert level just needs a better shadow quality.

[pinkerator]

That's very strange - thanks for noticing! We'll try to fix that in updates :)

[michael_kuerbis]

I played again with the patch and started a new game as Eve. The shadows are fine, seems like Peter Pan went back to Neverland.
Thanks for the fix.

[pinkerator]

Originally posted by michael_kuerbis:

I played again with the patch and started a new game as Eve. The shadows are fine, seems like Peter Pan went back to Neverland.
Thanks for the fix.

Thank you for feedback!