Difference between Deus Ex 2 and Doom 3 lighting?

[bbot]

I understand that they both use dynamic lighting, but what is different, when it comes to lighting?

 

[[maven]]

I think DeusEx:IW uses shadow-maps (???), whereas Doom 3 is known to use stencil shadows... For lighting, both use relatively low-poly characters with normal-maps...

 

[nobie]

As far as I can tell DX2 uses no light maps. It's a combination of volumetric lights and stencil shadows. One obvious difference though, is that in DX2 you will only see one light casting a shadow at any given time. Doom3 is better, although they are both similar approaches.

 

[[maven]]

I'm quite confident of having seen about 2 (or maybe even 3) shadow-casting light-sources in DeusEx:IW (full version, don't know about the demo).

 

[bloodbob]

As far as I can tell DX2 uses no light maps. It's a combination of volumetric lights and stencil shadows. One obvious difference though, is that in DX2 you will only see one light casting a shadow at any given time. Doom3 is better, although they are both similar approaches.

Other then limiting it to only one shadow which could be altered how is it any better?

 

[Colourless]

The shadow volume generation in DXIW is really slow for whatever reason. As such only some lights and some objects ever cast shadows.

 

[nobie]

Other then limiting it to only one shadow which could be altered how is it any better?

IMO the biggest difference is that in DX2 the engine sets an ambient brightness for the level, and the volumetric lights are added to that. The shadows merely occlude the light volumes. This is why for instance you will never see a pitch black room in DX2. The lighting ranges from 1.0 (fullbright) ---> 2.0 (overbright) only. In Doom 3 lighting ranges from 0.0 (pitch black) ---> 1.0 ---> 2.0. It might sound trivial but it makes a very big difference.

 

[bbot]

What's the difference between the dynamic lighting used in Splinter Cell and the dynamic lighting used in dx:iw? I've heard that dx:iw uses dynamic lighting more extensively in the game than Splinter Cell.

 

[Guden Oden]

bbot,

Different, apart from that Deus Ex 2 uses per-pixel lighting based on dot-product bumpmapping, and Splinter Cell doesn't?

 

[bloodbob]

Other then limiting it to only one shadow which could be altered how is it any better?

IMO the biggest difference is that in DX2 the engine sets an ambient brightness for the level, and the volumetric lights are added to that. The shadows merely occlude the light volumes. This is why for instance you will never see a pitch black room in DX2. The lighting ranges from 1.0 (fullbright) ---> 2.0 (overbright) only. In Doom 3 lighting ranges from 0.0 (pitch black) ---> 1.0 ---> 2.0. It might sound trivial but it makes a very big difference.

So basicly if they remove the ambient lighting and possible put a multipulier on the current lighting then you would probably argue the the DX lighting is as good as doom3 and I believe it is more scalable.

 

[Ug Lee]

I've just started playing through it on Xbox, and the framerate is quite bothersome.

 

[nobie]

So basicly if they remove the ambient lighting and possible put a multipulier on the current lighting then you would probably argue the the DX lighting is as good as doom3 and I believe it is more scalable.

I think it would be possible to "improve" the DX2 engine to be on par with Doom 3. But it would take an awful lot of improvement.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

IMO the biggest difference is that in DX2 the engine sets an ambient brightness for the level, and the volumetric lights are added to that. The shadows merely occlude the light volumes. This is why for instance you will never see a pitch black room in DX2. The lighting ranges from 1.0 (fullbright) ---> 2.0 (overbright) only. In Doom 3 lighting ranges from 0.0 (pitch black) ---> 1.0 ---> 2.0. It might sound trivial but it makes a very big difference.

I disagree... As far as I know, both engines support ambient lighting, and how much they are relying on it is an artistic decision. Doom prefers a scary mood, which usually needs pitch-black shadows to properly hide monsters; Deus Ex, on the other hand, isn't about horror and suspence.

I also think that DX2 does not use such a high level of ambient light - because ambience is without a direction and it removes the effect of bump mapping, and much of the contrast from the image too.

 

[bbot]

Splinter Cell (Xbox) doesn't have normal mapping?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

AFAIK no, and its lighting is also more of a hack, definitely not on par with the unified system in Doom3/DX2.

 

[nobie]

I disagree... As far as I know, both engines support ambient lighting, and how much they are relying on it is an artistic decision.

As has been mentioned by someone else in this thread, the light volumes in DX2 are very slow and to light a whole level this way would be impossible with todays hardware. So it's dependant on the ambient light.

because ambience is without a direction and it removes the effect of bump mapping, and much of the contrast from the image too.

Yes, this is in large part why DX 2 is inferior to Doom 3...

 

[BoomAM]

I think it would be possible to "improve" the DX2 engine to be on par with Doom 3. But it would take an awful lot of improvement.

If you look at older screenshots of DX2, then you`ll see extensive use of normal mapping on alot of surface, and well as better textures. It look just as good as D3. But due to IonStormAustin using the Xbox as the lowest common denominator for HW specs, practically everything that made the game look that good, has been stripped out for it run run "smoothly" on xbox.
Check the IonStorm forums, and theres several threads where some talented members are picking apart the game, replaceing the textures with higher res ones, and are currently working on a way to adjust the normal mapping settings of DX2. Quite an interesting read.