Best use of global illumination in a game?

[nightshade]

According to what I've seen on the matter, FC3's GI uses precomputed radiance transfer; the information about how light from a given direction (and also position, in the PC version, with a much heavier solution that also works on dynamic lights) should bounce through the scene is baked offline (I'm not sure where you got "during loading" from?). Light can be received by dynamic objects, but can't bounce off of them, so it wouldn't play nicely with destructible environments.

Yea I read up the Farcry 3 GDC article again and I noticed I completely made that bit up, apologies.

You ever notice in Far Cry 4 it never actually gets dark. Night always looks like dusk.

Well that's how night time is done in all games/movies. It's never actually night cause if it would be then it'd be pitch black in a lot of areas. To give the appearance of night developers and directors try to light up a dark scene using muted blue or green lighting, It's an age old movie technique.

That's the first I've heard of it. I've read that they use light probes on the cars for dynamic lighting, but nothing on volumetric lighting. The secondary illumination I'm seeing in screenshots is in fixed locations on scenery, and I'm not seeing any coloured reflections off cars or much illumination from the road. TBH the situation of the cars is such that you can get away without global illumination, especially when the cars are all shiny.

Ignore the commentary cause he exaggerates a lot
You can even park your car so that the back is facing a wall or some solid surface and turn on the tail lamp and it will illuminate your cockpit. Not secondary illumination I know but you can see that bit in the link.

 

[Billy Idol]

That is a nice video! Thanks for sharing nightshade.

 

[L. Scofield]

MGSV is a good candidate as well I think:

It's supposed to be this sort of thing.

Oh, I see now.

I think think it's illumination you're talking about, not global illumination. The best award for global illumination in a game has to go The Tomorrow Children as the only game so far AFAIK to have dynamic GI. Everything else is precomputed and just art.

Tomorrow Children's implementation is very limited. Only big objects bounce lighting.

Ignore the commentary cause he exaggerates a lot

That looks like a blurry reflection.

 

[nightshade]

Why would a reflection light up the interior of the car ? (I know that's how it works in real life but in video games it doesn't work like that). Also notice how the light becomes stronger the closer your car gets to the other car.

Plus if you use the other cockpit camera, ie. the one that is further back and from Driver's POV you will see that it lights up the interior areas like the Driver's hands, the steering wheel, the lower part of the dashboard (i.e. the part that's facing the driver). It really is bounce lighting and secondary illumination.

 

[London Geezer]

Looks like a very bloomy reflection to me.

 

[humbertklyka]

Why would a reflection light up the interior of the car ? (I know that's how it works in real life but in video games it doesn't work like that). Also notice how the light becomes stronger the closer your car gets to the other car.

Plus if you use the other cockpit camera, ie. the one that is further back and from Driver's POV you will see that it lights up the interior areas like the Driver's hands, the steering wheel, the lower part of the dashboard (i.e. the part that's facing the driver). It really is bounce lighting and secondary illumination.

Just to nitpick, if it is showing up in the parts that are facing the driver, it sure sounds like a screen space reflection, as I doubt they would include a triple bounce lighting. (car - driver - dashboard)

Edit: Hard to separate between two and three

 

[nightshade]

Research time I suppose. Will get back after checking.

 

[Davros]

You ever notice in Far Cry 4 it never actually gets dark. Night always looks like dusk.

I think thats for gameplay reasons if youve ever been in the countryside at night you cant see much of anything.

ps: best as in most realistic or visually pleasing ?

 

[Cyan]

I'd say that this new game for the Xbox One called Pneuma: Breath of Life, makes very good use of Global Illumination. It's been made with the UE4 engine:

 

[zupallinere]

I'd say that this new game for the Xbox One called Pneuma: Breath of Life, makes very good use of Global Illumination. It's been made with the UE4 engine:

Interesting. Like a deity plays Witness ??

 

[Nesh]

I am not very sure if I am seeing GI in there. The rooms dont have many colors to make apparent any light bouncing. I think it is either too subtle or absent. The compression of the video oesnt help either. Regardless it sure looks very realistic

 

[Jwm]

You can run the demo on your PC, I just don't know the link. ^

 

[Cyan]

I am not very sure if I am seeing GI in there. The rooms dont have many colors to make apparent any light bouncing. I think it is either too subtle or absent. The compression of the video oesnt help either. Regardless it sure looks very realistic

It is very impressive. Aside from some kind of pop in at times, and the unconvincing shadow casting -that of the kitchen sink and so on, like one of those old games that had some kind of flashlight around your character, only with a shadow in this case- it is breathtaking sometimes, it looks like it's real specially when still. It's not easy to discern if there is some kind of GI for the reasons you mention.

 

[Cyan]

Interesting. Like a deity plays Witness ??

I've never played Witness, but Pneuma: Breath of Life is a game I'd love to have -plus it will increase the number of games in my collection of X1 arcade games-, puzzle solving and tranquil gameplay..

The game is a timed exclusivity. It's set to an exclusivity of 30 days on the Xbox One before it comes out for the PC on Steam. It seems to be a technologically advanced game, as it doesn't only sports Global Illumination but it also will offer support for the Occulus Rift DK2. :smile2:

In the game you are some kind of God in a journey of self discovery. I like that. I believe that God, be it a god or a goddess, if it exists, it's not a God, but an engineer, :smile2:. I mean, everything is calculated -planets rotate around a star, there are seasons, sun, rain, the grass and vegetation grow, then some animals eat that grass and vegetation, and at the same time there are other animals which eat those eating vegetation to keep an equilibrium-.

I think God is just an engineer which plays with us so there are mysteries of life, and humans don't know it all 'cos of that. In my opinion, that engineer should share a tutorial, so no more mysteries, but we humans need a tuto.

 

[London Geezer]

See, that UE4 Paris demo shows what I mentioned in another thread: Subtlety.

Beautiful. I did feel the reflections were a bit broken but maybe it's just me.

 

[iroboto]

Interesting. Like a deity plays Witness ??

I was thinking it seemed like myst

 

[zupallinere]

I was thinking it seemed like myst

Like I said Witness

 

[jlippo]

It is very impressive. Aside from some kind of pop in at times, and the unconvincing shadow casting -that of the kitchen sink and so on, like one of those old games that had some kind of flashlight around your character, only with a shadow in this case- it is breathtaking sometimes, it looks like it's real specially when still. It's not easy to discern if there is some kind of GI for the reasons you mention.

The demo is pretty much a showcase for UE4 lightmass a non-dynamic lightmap based GI solution.
Most of the light you see is not direct light. (Scene would be really dark.)

Would certainly like to see this combined dynamic method like enlighten to get bounce light for moving lights.

 

[forumaccount]

I am not very sure if I am seeing GI in there. The rooms dont have many colors to make apparent any light bouncing. I think it is either too subtle or absent. The compression of the video oesnt help either. Regardless it sure looks very realistic

There's definitely light bounce. But as good as that scene looks, minus some SSR artifacts, GI on a fully static scene has done for a long time. Realtime GI is only interesting for lights that move.

(And I'm really late, but that Driveclub video the guy got so excited about appears to just be SSR. Racing games have a pretty predictable camera so they are likely to work extremely well for that genre.)

 

[Cyan]

There's definitely light bounce. But as good as that scene looks, minus some SSR artifacts, GI on a fully static scene has done for a long time. Realtime GI is only interesting for lights that move.

(And I'm really late, but that Driveclub video the guy got so excited about appears to just be SSR. Racing games have a pretty predictable camera so they are likely to work extremely well for that genre.)

What does SSR stand for?

The demo is pretty much a showcase for UE4 lightmass a non-dynamic lightmap based GI solution.
Most of the light you see is not direct light. (Scene would be really dark.)

Would certainly like to see this combined dynamic method like enlighten to get bounce light for moving lights.

I guess that that technique is used in some of these impressive screengrabs from mods of certain games, particularly the Crysis ones, perhaps it is present on a few Skyrim pics.

http://www.craveonline.com/gaming/a...eferral&utm_campaign=crowdignite.com#/slide/1

While those above are just screenshots it would be nice to know how they look in motion. As mentioned before, the results are awe inspiring, but there ar also some unconvincing effects used, especially how shadows move within the environment, it's kind of odd, the most unnatural aspect of that amazing demo.