Talk:Lighting - Revision history

ThebigMuh: /* Processing Time */

2010-02-11T04:33:27Z

‎Processing Time

ThebigMuh: /* Light Probes */

2010-02-10T19:05:15Z

‎Light Probes

BryanDerksen: /* Light Probes */

2010-02-10T17:21:01Z

‎Light Probes

BryanDerksen: /* No Water */ update link to workaround

2010-02-10T17:16:58Z

‎No Water: update link to workaround

FollowTheGourd: /* Processing Time */

2010-02-10T15:01:21Z

‎Processing Time

FollowTheGourd: /* Processing Time */

2010-02-10T14:59:24Z

‎Processing Time

FollowTheGourd: /* Character and level lights */

2010-02-10T14:55:02Z

‎Character and level lights

ThebigMuh at 03:26, 10 February 2010

2010-02-10T03:26:57Z

FollowTheGourd: Added some things which wouldn't hurt to go into the main article once they're fleshed out more

2010-02-10T01:13:20Z

Added some things which wouldn't hurt to go into the main article once they're fleshed out more

BryanDerksen: /* No Water */ found a workaround

2009-11-25T23:37:54Z

‎No Water: found a workaround

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 :6 minutes? Do you have a render farm or something? Calculating a single room can take more than 20 minutes in the level I'm working on, and it has 6 rooms so far :P [[User:ThebigMuh|ThebigMuh]] 03:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 ::Well... I think that was for the Orzammar Hall of Heroes and maybe some others (can't recall why I wrote "bigger" anymore). It took me about 2h 40m to do the Orzmmar Commons, and that while doing other stuff on the machine as well. --[[User:FollowTheGourd|FollowTheGourd]] 15:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 == Lighting Bugs ==

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:05, 10 February 2010
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	::Unfortunately there's currently a bug involving multiple light probes: [[Bug: multiple light probes all generate the same reflection]]. If there's a workaround, we don't know it. :( [[User:BryanDerksen\|BryanDerksen]] 17:21, 10 February 2010 (UTC)		::Unfortunately there's currently a bug involving multiple light probes: [[Bug: multiple light probes all generate the same reflection]]. If there's a workaround, we don't know it. :( [[User:BryanDerksen\|BryanDerksen]] 17:21, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
		+	:::Hah, no kidding - just checked my level and all light probes show exactly the same reflection map. I didn't notice it because the reflections work nicely for each room in my cave system :) It seems the last probe being rendered gets used, so it's easy to pick one reasonably representative location and make that THE probe for the level. [[User:ThebigMuh\|ThebigMuh]] 19:05, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

	=== Pointers for Num Samples ===		=== Pointers for Num Samples ===

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 Besides water, is there any easy way to know when you should place a light probe? In the Orzammar levels, they seem to be around lava, but that doesn't appear to be reflective. Armour doesn't seem to reflect things, so I'm not sure what they're being used for here.
 :Always use lightprobes. And armor actually does reflect things (but only lightprobes), as do stone, wood, snow and pretty much all surfaces in the game. As here: [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/74/index/1106677] [[User:ThebigMuh|ThebigMuh]] 03:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 === Pointers for Num Samples ===

@@ Line 101: / Line 101: @@
 :The missing water planes actually doesn't have anything to do with the light mapper, it's a separate system. We've got someone looking at that to see what's going on. [[User:BryanDerksen|BryanDerksen]] 23:51, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
-:Found a workaround: [[Level editor#Water tools]] [[User:BryanDerksen|BryanDerksen]] 23:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
+:Found a workaround: [[Bug: Water plane missing in-game]] [[User:BryanDerksen|BryanDerksen]] 23:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 === Lightmapper Glitch ===

@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 There doesn't seem to be a ''lot'' of feedback from the toolset when it's still generating your lightmaps. If you get impatient and toggle showing them, then you might run into an error with temporary directories. For some bigger levels it takes my system about 6 minutes to finish them... I'm sure that'll will vary wildly. In the meantime, I've just opened the windows task manager as an assurance that the process is still running.
 :6 minutes? Do you have a render farm or something? Calculating a single room can take more than 20 minutes in the level I'm working on, and it has 6 rooms so far :P [[User:ThebigMuh|ThebigMuh]] 03:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
-::Well... I think that was for the Orzammar Hall of Heroes. It took me about 2h 40m to do the Orzmmar Commons, and that while doing other stuff on the machine as well.
+::Well... I think that was for the Orzammar Hall of Heroes and maybe some others (can't recall why I wrote "bigger" anymore). It took me about 2h 40m to do the Orzmmar Commons, and that while doing other stuff on the machine as well. --[[User:FollowTheGourd|FollowTheGourd]] 15:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 == Lighting Bugs ==

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 There doesn't seem to be a strong emphasis about character vs. level lights. Reading it the first time it sounds like the difference might be between baked and static lights, but apparently there's a property field "Affects Characters" in the light's property sheet.
 :Characters can't be affected by baked lights (that one should be obvious). Static and Dynamic lights can affect characters (and area placeables) by setting the "Affects Characters" true. Should only be done fore extremely prominent light sources for in-level lights, light for huge bonfires or similar stuff, all other character lighting should be done with separate character lighting rooms (see below) [[User:ThebigMuh|ThebigMuh]] 03:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 Looking at some of the Orzammar level layouts, it seems that the designers made some of the character lights have an incredibly large point radius for point static-lights to assumably light most of the level (100,000 in Orz000d.lvl to even the lava's 5,000,000 in Orz100d.lvl). I suppose the performance for doing that is OK and what matters is how many lights are overlapping or maybe other considerations...? These huge ones are also placed far out of the level, but that might just be for organization reasons given how large they are anyway.
 :Bioware seems to have handled their character lighting as follows, which works really well, is light on processing power, and very customizible:
 :The lights in all their rooms are set to only light the level (the default setting). Only exemption are extremely prominent lights - huge fires, a fat ray of sunlight in a dark cavern, similar stuff. To get character lights, they created new empty rooms with a few lights in them, usually a three point setup. Those three are set to light characters only, not the level. Then, through the room properties, the add all affected rooms to the "These rooms are LIT by lights from the currently selected room:" list. Example: Orz700d.lvl, Caridin's Cross. Consists of 12 "normal" rooms, and 4 character lighting rooms. The lighting rooms only contain static lights that affect several other rooms, with each lighting room giving a certain lighting "mood". [[User:ThebigMuh|ThebigMuh]] 03:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 === Light Probes ===

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:13, 10 February 2010
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		+	== Article Updates ==
		+	Writing here as a scratch pad for topics that could probably go into the main page.
		+
		+	=== Character and level lights ===
		+
		+	There doesn't seem to be a strong emphasis about character vs. level lights. Reading it the first time it sounds like the difference might be between baked and static lights, but apparently there's a property field "Affects Characters" in the light's property sheet.
		+
		+	Looking at some of the Orzammar level layouts, it seems that the designers made some of the character lights have an incredibly large point radius for point static-lights to assumably light most of the level (100,000 in Orz000d.lvl to even the lava's 5,000,000 in Orz100d.lvl). I suppose the performance for doing that is OK and what matters is how many lights are overlapping or maybe other considerations...? These huge ones are also placed far out of the level, but that might just be for organization reasons given how large they are anyway.
		+
		+	=== Light Probes ===
		+
		+	Besides water, is there any easy way to know when you should place a light probe? In the Orzammar levels, they seem to be around lava, but that doesn't appear to be reflective. Armour doesn't seem to reflect things, so I'm not sure what they're being used for here.
		+
		+	=== Pointers for Num Samples ===
		+
		+	It seems some of the fires and other baked lights usually have about 20 for ''Num Samples'', where the main article says that should make the shadows crisper. I'll have to play around with that to see the different results, but the levels have so-called "bounce lights" which might be worth writing about if they're a useful design concept.
		+
		+	=== Processing Time ===
		+
		+	There doesn't seem to be a ''lot'' of feedback from the toolset when it's still generating your lightmaps. If you get impatient and toggle showing them, then you might run into an error with temporary directories. For some bigger levels it takes my system about 6 minutes to finish them... I'm sure that'll will vary wildly. In the meantime, I've just opened the windows task manager as an assurance that the process is still running.
		+
	== Lighting Bugs ==		== Lighting Bugs ==
	OK, lighting is borked for creating new levels. Lets get some conversation going that doesn't get buried under endless posts about making characters bi and taking their clothes off :p I'll start by listing the bugs we have found so far.		OK, lighting is borked for creating new levels. Lets get some conversation going that doesn't get buried under endless posts about making characters bi and taking their clothes off :p I'll start by listing the bugs we have found so far.

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:37, 25 November 2009
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	:The missing water planes actually doesn't have anything to do with the light mapper, it's a separate system. We've got someone looking at that to see what's going on. [[User:BryanDerksen\|BryanDerksen]] 23:51, 24 November 2009 (UTC)		:The missing water planes actually doesn't have anything to do with the light mapper, it's a separate system. We've got someone looking at that to see what's going on. [[User:BryanDerksen\|BryanDerksen]] 23:51, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
		+
		+	:Found a workaround: [[Level editor#Water tools]] [[User:BryanDerksen\|BryanDerksen]] 23:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

	=== Lightmapper Glitch ===		=== Lightmapper Glitch ===