Hello this isn’t a duplicate of what other people have posted in the past. I’m aware of the differences between Future and shadow map however I don’t know the differences in terms of performance and I was wondering if anyone can help me.
I’m working on a game that will have a very large map with streaming enabled, the game looks so much better with future lighting however I’m concerned about performance issues.
Also would it be possible to script an in game setting to switch between shadow and future?
I believe the lighting technology its self is server/game based and i believe the only way to script this would be to have 2 different plaves and have the user select before joinging. However, you could try coding it other ways. Then, with the performance, just see which settings you get higher or lower FPS on yourself and shoot for that one.
Future and Shadow Map Technology are different of Shadows behaviors and yes, performance.
Shadow Map is more optimized, as the Shadows will only be casted from the Sun. It will not cast shadows from any light source at all. So, with that, the use of Light Instance Shadows won’t make a difference. This will be dependent on your optimization of your game.
Future is optimized but not as good as Shadow Map. Because Future will render shadows from all light sources (assuming Light Instance Property Shadows set to True). But the optimization of light sources will still apply in this. (This is running Future Lighting but its a example for turning off shadows for future or using Shadow Map Technology)
Depending how much light sources, buildings (or whatever you have) in your map. If you are willing to turn off Shadows Properties for some objects as well really focus Optimization. I recommend Future. Just keep in mind, regardless of what you choose, you have to do your part of optimizing if you want the best performance possible.
As for your question, I can be wrong, but I don’t think you can switch Technology Locally. However, you can make it turn off/on Global Shadows in Lighting Properties as well Light Sources Shadows via local script.
