XNA - Fast 2D shadows - Part one

                                      [ Fast 2D Shadow PART 2 is available here ]

In 2010 Catalin Zima developed a really cool  technique to handle pixel-perfect shadows in 2D games with XNA (see video below).

The technique is explained and downloadable here (Catalin official site).

In our next game shadows and light will play a key role in the gameplay and Catalin shadows come in great help.

The only "problem" was that the original Catalin technique is not Reach profile compatible.

Although we are not developing a Windows Phone game, we want our games to run on low end computers like Netbooks.

So here we are, I made Catalin shadows Reach compatible. It has been quite easy and it is possible to download there:

Downlaod the Reach Compatible Catalin 2D Shadows sample code


Soon I'll make a detailed post explaining what I did to make it Reach profile compatible.

Even more, I'm working to further improvements:
- Configurable Shadows quality
- Higher performance in shadow generation
- Easier light management
- Enhanced shaders to render lights

NOTE: although Reach compatible, it wont run on Windows Phone because of custom shaders. The reason of making it Reach compatible is being able to run on low end PCs like Netbooks.

 [ Fast 2D Shadow PART 2 is available here ]