i’m working on my own little engine atm, and a lot of stuff is already working fine. but now i’m at a point where i have to choose how i want lighting and shadows to be done. so i implemented humus’ shadow volume maps: http://www.humus.ca/index.php?page=3D&ID=47
works fine - now i still need shadows for dynamic lights and objects. i gave stencil shadow volumes a try… http://www.vexator.net/graphics/two_shadows_blended.jpg
but we all know of the disadvantages 
high fillrate, hard edges… doesn’t look very realistic when combined with the soft shadow volume map. so i thought of using soft shadow maps, but these only work for directional lights… but the shadow volume maps expect point lights.
can you give me some hints what would be a good combination for precomputed and realtime shadow techniques?
and another question, would it be possible to not only store shadows in a volume map but also light color/attenuation? or even normal information?
thanks in advance 