Lights do not cast shadows

[ggbuttonclicker]

Hi everyone,

I recently started playing this game on the RT Overdrive Preset and while most of the time the games looks really good, there are instances where apparently some lights don't cast shadows and I was wondering if it is intended or there might be a problem, since, from what I've learned about path tracing in this game this should not be the case. The issue is very noticeable during day time when characters are not under direct sun light but also at night, when characters are near other sources of light.

See for example the screenshot below where the character in the center is under a strong light source but no shadow is casted.

 

[helifax]

But it casts shadows if you look closely in a realistic way as it should.
(Just not the fake black hard shadows via cascade or shadow maps that are traditional of rasterization and a gross simplification of how shadows actually work in real life )

If you want to understand the topic better and why what you see if correct start by looking at some of Digital Foundry's videos on the topic on YouTube for example.

 

[ggbuttonclicker]

Thank you for you reply.

I watched a Digital foundry video on the topic and it seems they used the word "nearly" quite a bit, and that's precisely what I'm asking for. While it seems that the majority of the time there is really ray tracing, in the picture above the way the character in the center doesn't have any realistic shadow on the ground doesn't seem natural. I'm aware of the difference between rasterization technique and path tracing, I'm asking if every light source is really treated the same way especially when it comes to calculate shadows on characters.