The "IT'S EASY!" challenge #6 - Fake realtime shadows

Welcome to the "IT'S EASY!" Challenge, part 6 of 6.

Inspired from the "Oh it's easy, Construct can do anything that's in 2D" reply that I've seen a lot. I decided to create a few challenges, see just how 'easy' some things really are. I dunno, call it the virtual equivilant to Myth Busters, only with a much better looking host.

<img src="http://steamgauge.com/misc/construct/challenges/its6.png">

Challenge #5 - Fake realtime shadows

The badly drawn red face, we'll call him Dudley. Has a torch with him, so he can see where he's going in the evil badly drawn forest just outside of badly drawn town in the kingdom of childish scribbles. Unfortunately a wicked witch has cast a spell that makes all the shadows do the opposite of what they should be doing, why she did this, nobody knows, and nobody really cares, but it was probably for attention because nobody ever goes to visit her and the children make fun of her and throw eggs. The challenge is to not only make the tree shadows behave correctly by facing away from Dudley as he passes by. But also to stretch, skewer and fade them out as he travels along, closer, pass and further away from them, like a real shadow might behave.

Basically, behaving sort of like real shadows, and sort of like the shadow casting behavior, only unlike the behavior, this method would work to create customizable shadows to fit the object supposedly casting them.

I'm also betting that the results of this challenge is bound to be useful to a lot of people, because who wouldn't say no to shadows with this level of control?

Download: here

Rules:

1) Use any methods Construct provides, to create it.

2) You must provide your cap and workings, not just exe files, so others may benefit.

3) Your solution must be replicatable by other users (don't include unreleased addons or methods which others may be unable to use).

4) The resources are provided as is, but you may if you need to, edit them further. But please show what and why you did it.

5) Dont' reply with "It's easy" unless you can also include a cap as proof.

6) You don't have to leave the shadows as rotating, you can use other methods such as skewering or stretching, depending on the distance and angle the player is at, compared to an individual tree/shadow

7) The tree and the shadow must remain as single sprites, instanced across the layout, you can't clone them as individual sprites per tree/shadow. Because can you imagine the horror of trying to use them in a real game, if EVERY tree and shadow was a completely different sprite!

The winning entry will be whoever comes up with the best or most elegant working solution to the problem. Challenge is open to everyone.

End Date

Midnight January 20th 2010 (Eastern Time, US)

<img src="http://steamgauge.com/misc/construct/challenges/easy6.png">

Good luck!

This seems fairly simple, I'll take it. But do take note that sprites should be drawn in a way they are facing the angle 0, which is to the right. You drew your tree shadow diagonal. Just draw it straight up, then turn by 90 (the image editor allows that) and there we go

Edit: actually, just take 'em as they are and turn the image by 45 degrees. Easy fix

Edit2: Done! Bit hacky, but easily faked. However, those are trees, which are taller than Dudsley, so their shadows would have to be have to be drawn indefinitely with Dudley standing at their base - onto other trees, for example. So, let's assume Dudley is flying around on the broom he stole from Harry!

Here is the actual file, since the forum won't let me attach them.

This seems fairly simple, I'll take it. But do take note that sprites should be drawn in a way they are facing the angle 0, which is to the right. You drew your tree shadow diagonal. Just draw it straight up, then turn by 90 (the image editor allows that) and there we go

Edit: actually, just take 'em as they are and turn the image by 45 degrees. Easy fix

I didn't know that My bad, I didn't think it mattered unless it was something like a player character (but now I think about it, yeah, erk, sorry hehe). Can I blame that on the witch too?