Shadow / Layer problem in the 3D Platform Tutorial

Graphics Lighting & Global Illumination
1

I am working my way through the 3D Platform Tutorial and I have come across a problem that. I have added the Blob Shadow Projector to the Player. When I create the noShadow layer and add my Player (and all its sub-nodes) as instructed, the Lerpz mesh becomes very dark. It doesn’t have anything to do with the blob shadow projector… I can tell that when I tell it to ignore objects in the noShadow layer, it is not effecting the Lerpz mesh anymore. Also the dark Lerpz problem persists even if i delete the blob shadow projector.

Basically, the Lerpz mesh is only being lit by the point light between the two jetpack jets which was added and parented to the torso node earlier in the tutorial. The point lights around the level seem to no longer effect Lerpz once I add the player node to the noShadow layer.

One discrepancy I noticed with the tutorial .pdf file and the project file I am working from is that in on page 31, it shows a graphic of the Tag Manager window and shows User Layer 8 - 10 already used by layers called “ignoreLights”, “cameraTwo” and “cameraTwoIgnoreLights”. In the scene file I downloaded, I don’t have any such User Layers and these were definitely not created at any part so far in the tutorial. Perhaps this has something to do with it?

Anyway, I’d like to have the Lerpz mesh properly lit again AND have a proper shadow blob. Anyone know what I can do?

Thanks,
Aaron

2

I noticed that in the next step when adding the canister and health pickup prefabs to the noShadow layer, the same thing happened. Then I tried creating an additional layer, reassigning the player and the two prefabs to it and having the blob shadow projector ignore that layer instead and everything seems to be ok now. Don’t really understand what the problem was with the first noShadow layer, but I guess I’ll just move on!

3

Shadow projectors often do make everything dark if they are not set up correctly.

4

Hi Aaron. I recently went back to redo the Platform Tutorial after having not touched it for about four months, and I had the same problem. As far as I can tell, what’s happening is that the User Layers 8, 9, and 10 are actually being used already, they’re just not showing up as being named in Unity 2.6.1. I created my noShadow layer on Layer 17, and it worked perfect! In fact, exactly as I remember the first time I did the tutorial!

Edit: Okay, edited out my warning. The other problems I was having stemmed purely from me missing one single step earlier in the tutorial! /facepalm

5

I am having the exact same problem.