Shadows

I am trying to learn how to do shadows in opengl and having been looking at scube.c found at http://www.sgi/com/software/opengl/glut/examples. In the code to produce the shadow are the lines…

myShadowMatrix(groundPlane, lightPos);
glTranslatef(0.0, 0.0, 2.0);
glMultMatrixf((const GLfloat *) cubeXform);

My question is “Why is
glTranslatef(0.0, 0.0, 2.0);
called?”
I know that it isn’t called then the shadow does not appear in the correct place. But it seems like to magic to me. I understand what myShadowmatrix does and what the glMultMatrix call does but the translation escapes me entirely. Please help!

the link didn’t work for me (and i’m new to opengl) but the logical reason i see for the translate along the z axis is:
you’re probably facing the face you’re drawing the shadow plane to. the translation would move the shadow face above the object 2 units above the geometry plane.
(i really don’t know though, and i’m sure there are many others on this forum that could reply more intellegently than i)

-mike

That would be correct, if a face offset would have the same result. Or, try to set depth test mode to GL_EQUAL and comment that line out. If it’s just so simple, both ways will produce the same as the translate does.