Lighting - Ambient and Dynamic
Josh86
Join Date: 2010-12-06 Member: 75513Members
Join Date: 2010-12-06 Member: 75513Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Discussion about lighting in the spark engine</div><b>more edit:</b> <i>It seemed like the atmospheric effects can be mapper controlled. I feel reassured that the lighting will be great as the game/mapping comes along. The volumetric lighting looks very nice (checked it out a bit since this post). Seeing comments from Max, Corey, and mappers -- they have made me rethink my statement about the lighting. Feel free to use this thread to talk about it more or discuss the emergency lighting or anything else lighting related.</i>
<b>edit:</b> <i>I went and watched <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheRealFlayra#p/u/15/1G3amfulHoo" target="_blank">"Anatomy of a Scene"</a>. I think the thing that bothers me is the "atmosphere" and color grading processing that is done. Maybe this is just my personal preference, but I like things to appear a bit more crisp/contrasting. To me, the "atmosphere" processing makes the render look less attractive, regardless of the color grading.</i>
I can't say whether it's because of the mapping or the engine, but I'm still not completely impressed by some of the lighting in the game.
It's not bad by any means -- the bright ambient-like lighting that fills rooms makes the marine structures look VERY nice. There's just a few things that kind of put me off when playing.
Probably intentional, but do other people notice the <b>haze-like effect</b> when looking into the distance? It's this supposed to be an effect of dimly lighted areas? It has the same feel as the night-time maps in Left 4 Dead, which were all very bland in color and contrast (except in rooms where light was completely absent). This was probably intended to give the characters, color halos, items, special infected, etc a bit of pop and stand out.
<b>Emergency lighting</b>. While I wouldn't mind complete darkness, I agree others that it might not have the effect people want with gameplay and atmosphere. I feel that the current emergency lighting should be tweaked somehow because:
1.) The current red lighting -- to me -- provides no contrast when looking around the area. This, in turn, does make it a LITTLE harder to visually detect aliens, but it also seems extremely bland...it doesn't impress at all visually or give me any sense of atmosphere or "suspense". I just get a little irritated by it. I think this could be fixed by means of changing the uniform ambient light and allowing lights to have a more focused source and fade/dissolve outward (causing nice dark spots in rooms for aliens).
2.) I, like some others, am a bit red/green colorblind. To me, I really like when there is a good amount of contrast when it comes to red and green colors. I can see red and green, of course, but certain shades appear very washed out and greyish making the visuals even less interesting.
<b>Dynamic Infestation.</b> More of a question I suppose -- I wonder if the DI will cast a soft lighting for alien controlled rooms. Marine rooms already have that slight bluish hue. Will alien areas have a green or orange hue...or both? Alien structures look like they are primarily composed of greys (or pink makes sense I guess...colorblind) and oranges. I've seen concept artwork that had areas dominated by both green or orange.
BTW -- when I think about lighting and sounds and all that stuff for NS2, I'm very much influenced by the Alien(s) movies I watched so much when I was younger. Remember the sweet effects when Ripley turned on the self destruct for the Nostromo and tried to make it back to the escape shuttle? Another time is in the second movie when she is making her way to the Alien Queen. These things still make me feel all good inside when I watch them.
<b>edit:</b> <i>I went and watched <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheRealFlayra#p/u/15/1G3amfulHoo" target="_blank">"Anatomy of a Scene"</a>. I think the thing that bothers me is the "atmosphere" and color grading processing that is done. Maybe this is just my personal preference, but I like things to appear a bit more crisp/contrasting. To me, the "atmosphere" processing makes the render look less attractive, regardless of the color grading.</i>
I can't say whether it's because of the mapping or the engine, but I'm still not completely impressed by some of the lighting in the game.
It's not bad by any means -- the bright ambient-like lighting that fills rooms makes the marine structures look VERY nice. There's just a few things that kind of put me off when playing.
Probably intentional, but do other people notice the <b>haze-like effect</b> when looking into the distance? It's this supposed to be an effect of dimly lighted areas? It has the same feel as the night-time maps in Left 4 Dead, which were all very bland in color and contrast (except in rooms where light was completely absent). This was probably intended to give the characters, color halos, items, special infected, etc a bit of pop and stand out.
<b>Emergency lighting</b>. While I wouldn't mind complete darkness, I agree others that it might not have the effect people want with gameplay and atmosphere. I feel that the current emergency lighting should be tweaked somehow because:
1.) The current red lighting -- to me -- provides no contrast when looking around the area. This, in turn, does make it a LITTLE harder to visually detect aliens, but it also seems extremely bland...it doesn't impress at all visually or give me any sense of atmosphere or "suspense". I just get a little irritated by it. I think this could be fixed by means of changing the uniform ambient light and allowing lights to have a more focused source and fade/dissolve outward (causing nice dark spots in rooms for aliens).
2.) I, like some others, am a bit red/green colorblind. To me, I really like when there is a good amount of contrast when it comes to red and green colors. I can see red and green, of course, but certain shades appear very washed out and greyish making the visuals even less interesting.
<b>Dynamic Infestation.</b> More of a question I suppose -- I wonder if the DI will cast a soft lighting for alien controlled rooms. Marine rooms already have that slight bluish hue. Will alien areas have a green or orange hue...or both? Alien structures look like they are primarily composed of greys (or pink makes sense I guess...colorblind) and oranges. I've seen concept artwork that had areas dominated by both green or orange.
BTW -- when I think about lighting and sounds and all that stuff for NS2, I'm very much influenced by the Alien(s) movies I watched so much when I was younger. Remember the sweet effects when Ripley turned on the self destruct for the Nostromo and tried to make it back to the escape shuttle? Another time is in the second movie when she is making her way to the Alien Queen. These things still make me feel all good inside when I watch them.
Comments
I don't know if the developpers already though about that but it's good that you point it out, I think they could easily, in a later version of the beta, add an option in the settings for people who have the same problem as you. I think I already saw that in an other game ...
Thanks for the info -- I didn't know whether or not lighting was still a WIP or not. I will be patient of and see what other maps/lighting look like on release. From what I've seen from some mappers screenshots they are doing a good job.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It doesn't sound cool to be red/green color blind =O<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not a big deal. It just makes noticing or perceiving things under certain color combinations a bit difficult. For instance, I would have a very hard time initially seeing a dark red (or very RED red) flag in a grouping of evergreen/conifer trees. A red-orange would be easier.
Aside from that, I know Left 4 Dead has a color-blindness setting -- I've tried it before but it doesn't really need to be there for someone with RG color blindness like me. The red and greens (for player halos or hud elements) they use in the game are already very vibrant and stand out extremely well against all the shades of grey in the game. I also noticed BF Bad Company 2 has a color-blind option. It changes the team colors for the hud/map. It does help slightly, but I can tell the difference between the friendly blue and the reddish-pink orange color (thats what it looks like to me) for the opposing team.
I can only see the first image in this test. I fail the other 7/8. There are many CB tests out there. Try some with friends, its neat! Some websites even have color-modified pictures to show what color-blind people see.
<a href="http://colorvisiontesting.com/ishihara.htm#plate%20with%2010%20answer" target="_blank">Ishihara color blindness test</a>
I've mentioned in another post that a lot of the time, the small details are what makes a game "feel" good when playing. Audio and visual effects that you don't quite notice consciously are equally important as engine and gameplay in making a game enticing.
I'm more confused how the emergency lighting is supposed to work. I'm starting to get the feeling it isn't to benefit aliens but is more of neutral grounds. DI would be for aliens and power for marines. That would mean the temporary blackout makes sense if skulks had just rushed in and destroyed the power node (giving a brief advantage in the dark), but once the red lights kick in should not be terribly beneficial to the aliens or marines. Is this how it's planned? (recent dev posts seem to point this way)
I agree, but that's not my concern with NS2. Also, aliens now lean more towards the warm spectrum as well -- orange/pink -- not green (will the DI have a green tint?). Wamer colors make sense since the opposing marines are the cool colored blue/green.
j/k ;p