Darkplaces lighting - Revision history

VorteX at 14:51, 9 August 2012

2012-08-09T14:51:11Z

VorteX: fix a typo

2012-08-09T14:16:38Z

fix a typo

VorteX at 07:34, 9 August 2012

2012-08-09T07:34:17Z

VorteX at 07:26, 9 August 2012

2012-08-09T07:26:17Z

VorteX at 13:59, 8 August 2012

2012-08-08T13:59:38Z

VorteX at 13:58, 8 August 2012

2012-08-08T13:58:16Z

VorteX at 21:15, 5 August 2012

2012-08-05T21:15:34Z

VorteX at 21:08, 5 August 2012

2012-08-05T21:08:25Z

Show changes

VorteX at 20:20, 5 August 2012

2012-08-05T20:20:44Z

VorteX at 20:07, 5 August 2012

2012-08-05T20:07:54Z

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 Textures are the base for lighting. Before starting to learn how lighting works, be sure to check out [[Darkplaces material system]] as many of it's concepts and features used by lighting too.
-== Chapters ==
+==Chapters==
 <font size=3>
 #[[Darkplaces lighting/Introduction|Introduction]]
@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 #[[Darkplaces lighting/Special effects|Special effects]]
 #[[Darkplaces lighting/Light sources|Light sources]]
 </font>
-== Recommended articles ==
+==Appendix==
 * [http://www.moddb.com/tutorials/lighting-in-game-environments-the-hows-and-whys Lighting in game environments - the hows and whys]
 __NOTOC__
 [[Category:Darkplaces engine]]

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 </font>
-== Recommemded articles ==
+== Recommended articles ==
 * [http://www.moddb.com/tutorials/lighting-in-game-environments-the-hows-and-whys Lighting in game environments - the hows and whys]
 __NOTOC__
 [[Category:Darkplaces engine]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[File:Darkplaces_gl_lightmaps_2.jpg|400px|thumb|Map with only lighting applied]]
-Lighting is one of the most important things to level design.
+Lighting is one of the most important and influential elements in level design. It has the power to make or break the visuals, theme and atmosphere. Lighting is just as important as geometry. Without lighting there is no environment but just a group of 3-dimensional objects. Its purpose goes further than just giving the players the ability to see where they are going.
-Darkplaces engine combines several lighting techiques in order to get best performance and best looks. Because of that there is lots of options for lighting renderer. Clever usage of them will help designers to make fast-to-render and pretty maps.
+Darkplaces engine combines several lighting techiques in order to get best performance and best looks. Because of that there is lots of options and tricks. Clever usage of them will help designers to make fast-to-render and well themed maps.
 This reference will guide you in the deep dungeon of Darkplaces lighting methods, effects, tricks and quirks.
 == Chapters ==

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-{{unfinished}}
+[[File:Darkplaces_gl_lightmaps_2.jpg|400px|thumb|Map with only lighting applied]]
-{{grammar}}
 Lighting is one of the most important things to level design.

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 #[[Darkplaces lighting/Tweaking|Tweaking]]
 </font>
 __NOTOC__
 [[Category:Darkplaces engine]]

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 ===Shading===
 Shading is done by using dotproduct of light vector and pixel normal. Some ambient lighting could be added for a more smooth result.
 Rough shading algorithm explanation:
@@ Line 53: / Line 55: @@
 {{cvar|r_shadow_bumpscale_basetexture|Forces normalmap to be automatically calculated from color texture by using it as bumpmap, value controls magnitude. Requires r_restart.}}
 {{cvar|r_shadow_bumpscale_bumpmap|Normalmap can be supplied as _bump texture, in this case engine converts it to normalmap on load, values is magnitude. Requires r_restart.}}
 {{cvar|r_ambient|Amount of ambient light to be added to all surfaces. Makes level brighter.}}

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 Basically Darkplaces lighting model involves this data to be processed for each pixel:
 * Vertex normal : values between vertices of pixel's triangle are interpolated by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouraud_shading Gouraud shading]
 * Normal Map : texture storing additional surface curvature (optionally, alpha storing height)
 * Gloss Map : texture is used for specular and containing gloss color (RGB) and exponent mod (alpha)
@@ Line 352: / Line 353: @@
 {{cvar|r_shadow_scissor|Use scissor optimization of light rendering (restricts rendering to the portion of the screen affected by the light)}}
 {{cvar|r_shadow_sortsurfaces|Improve performance by sorting illuminated surfaces by texture}}
-{{cvar|r_shadow_usebihculling|Use [[BIH | Bounding Interval Hierarchy] for culling lit surfaces instead of [[BSP|Binary Space Partitioning]]}}
+{{cvar|r_shadow_usebihculling|Use [[BIH | Bounding Interval Hierarchy]] for culling lit surfaces instead of [[BSP|Binary Space Partitioning]]}}
 ===Light attenuation===
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 == Getting lights on the map ==
 Engine supports two ways to get lights on the map.
 ===World lights===
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 {{cvar|r_shadow_realtime_world_compileshadow|Enables compilation of shadows from world lights for higher performance rendering (shadow volumes only)}}
 {{cvar|r_shadow_realtime_world_compilesvbsp|Enables [[svbsp]] optimization during compilation (slower than compileportalculling but more exact)}}
 === Dynamic lights ===