Shadows and Shader Cutoff Point?

[Rayn Sideways]

I dunno if this is intentional or not, but I've noticed that there's this rather noticeable and somewhat annoying effect where, if I go far enough away from an object, the game starts to darken the object and simplify its shading. The problem is, the range it does this is so tight that things that aren't even very far away start to look different.

It seems to be farthest away on the "Best" shadow setting--cranking it up to Ultra makes it so bad that I can't even zoom out to get a good look at my ship without it becoming completely dark. The weird thing is turning it down to Barebones makes it just as close. Turning shadows off completely makes it go away, but totally nerfs the look of the game. I'm not having framerate or memory issues on any of the settings either.

Since uploading a file seems to be broken, here's a link to it in action on Ultra shadow setting:

http://i.imgur.com/GWTbRA0.png

And before anyone asks, no, it's not having a shadow cast on it. It's in totally open space and the shadow starts to further engulf the ship the further away I go from it.

 

[Criss]

Honestly it's probably intentional. Considering cranking it up to ultra reduces the distance, it's probably a feature to make sure that some people's computers do not melt. Trading quality for quantity. All the shadows of the ship are still there, just not the cast shadows from other objects. Do we really need to see shadows on asteroids that are thousands of meters away? Not really. No need to waste power rendering that.

 

[Rayn Sideways]

That's the thing--it reduced the distance even when I turned it down. Barebones made it close, Best made it farther, and then ultra made it close again. You're probably right, though. I wish it was tweakable, because sometimes it's really annoying.