Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
8.8.1 m aKing s ure y our l ighTing i s s een
Because you are a diligent designer and want your project to look its best, you should plan from the very
beginning to test the performance on all sorts of platforms and under various conditions. Remember to
consider the slower machines your audience or visitors may use. In Second Life and OpenSim, take a look
at your environment using the various types of draw ranges and quality settings in the Preferences/Graphics
menu. It also behooves you to look at your scene under a variety of WindLight (or LightShare) settings in
Second Life or OpenSim because people visiting your build will do that.
8.8.2 p er V erTex l ighTing Versus p er p ixel l ighTing
As you seek to pack more detail and “realism” into your scene with numerous complex materials/shaders
and lots of light sources, the demand on the graphics processor starts to elevate. This is especially the case
if your scene is being rendered as “per pixel,” meaning that the level of illumination is being calculated
for each pixel on the screen. With this approach, creation of the rendered image becomes “expensive” in
terms of processing resources. While some of the high-powered game engines like Unreal, CryENGINE,
and Frostbite Engine can utilize this form of lighting, most other game and 3D world engines need to have
another option. The use of “per vertex” lighting, which calculates the illumination at the vertex and then
interpolates the color/shading across the surface until it reaches the next vertex, is much more economical in
terms of system resources. This type of lighting is also known as Gouraud shading and is a common feature
in most 3D modeling software [5]. In Second Life and OpenSim, you can make your objects take on a richer
look by combining the basic default lighting with shader settings and special textures with baked in lighting.
Also consider exploration of the newer material settings that utilize bump maps and specular maps, as it will
provide even greater latitude in your lighting design.
8.9 PROJECT: LIGHTING THREE BASIC SCENES
The best way to learn about lighting and how to light something, or someone, is to do it. This project will help
you create three of the most basic scenarios in lighting: a portrait/daylight scene, a large night scene with an
avatar, and a still life or “product shot.”
The irst thing you should do is make sure that all ambient light in your real environment, the room around
your computer, is off or very low so you have the best view of how the lights are being displayed in your
scene. Put a small light behind your monitor so that it shines only on your keyboard from below the monitor's
frame if you need to see the keys more clearly. Having a keyboard with lit keys is useful in this situation. Also
make sure you have turned your render settings up as high as they can go, in Avatar/Preferences/Graphics
under the General tab. You should have the Advanced Lighting Model and Ambient Occlusion boxes checked
for on. Turn down your draw distance if this drives your computer into a frenzy.
8.9.1 l ighTing for a p orTraiT of an a VaTar in a d ayTime o uTdoor e nVironmenT
As a designer, you will need to illustrate how your client's visitors will look in the environment you are build-
ing for them. One simple way is to show the avatar within the environment in a lattering light. In Figure 8.5,
the avatar is showing how she looks while visiting Wheely Island at sunset. The sky is deeply colored as the
custom WindLight setting “Shambala” has the Sun/Moon color set at orange, and this strongly colored light
is showing on the screen left side of the avatar's face.
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