Yeah, I think the point is to get that flat shadow effect - you do get that in DBPro with the new shaders - but nobody tries stuff like this in DBC anymore, not even Bolt now that he's switched to Pro. DBC has plenty oomphf these days on modern PC's
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Maybe using a solid shadow would be best. Like using a black background and dark grey shadow images, you could paste them onto a single bitmap in position, grab that - then texture it onto a ghosted shadow plain you can stick under the dogs. Meaning 1 big plain for the dog shadows, all of them pasted then textured onto a single plain.
I think GET IMAGE is quite fast in DBClassic, which is really the biggest concearn in that method - no fading necessary, so it would be faster I think.
Aegrescit medendo