Do you reckon I could get away with not putting shadows in a game that otherwise is very graphically good? I can’t afford Unity Pro yet, so realtime shadows are out- but for this day and age, shadows seem very mandatory. Can the game still look great with no shadows?
For example, Rainbow Six 3 (consoles) didn’t have realtime shadows. The first Halo didn’t. But those are old- can I still think it’s reasonable not to have shadows or reflections?
Yeah its totally reasonable, it just has to meet the style of the game.
The less it tries to be realistic, the less problems there are with no reflection and only blob shadows for example
If you try to do an AA graphics shooter, it won’t work out, but if you do that affording Unity Pro should be peanuts as the artists to achieve it cost you 6 figure a year.
Fallout 3 doesn’t use real-time shadows, you could build a game with an overcast or night setting and bake the AO in your modelling app
hah! I never even noticed that. Shows you how much of a videophile I am.
There you go Fishman… If Bethesda can get away with it with a multi-million dollar AAA budget, I think you’ll be fine 
Me neither! Well yay, I shall go ahead if I can get that quality with no shadows.
The age old saying of “it’s all in the art” reigns true
I always thought it was rather interesting that Fallout 3 doesn’t have real time shadows or really even that many features that are equivocal in unity pro. Looks like skyrim has realtime shadows though.
One thing to note is that the game does take advantage of reflections and post effects, but those are really just icing and don’t make or break a game.
Also, as others said, if the game has some sort of overcast/cloudy weather, a simple blob shadow (just a semi transparent black blob on a poly at the characters’ feet) looks pretty awesome.
I think a good blob shadow projector should do the trick, although once your game does heave realtime shadows in, the difference will be huge.
Wow, in the past 45 minutes, you posted in well over 10 topics in this section alone, with your posts being the most recent.
Slow down, man, my brain hurts!
Do you think I should lightmap with just AO then? Because why put any shadows when nothing will cast them?