Is UE4 indicative of the sacrifices devs will have to make on consoles next gen?

[milk]

Ah, you might be right there. I perceived a weird, large, black, curved wall behind the light! I can see the spotlight now (that's why we need GI as standard!), although GG do mention they support omnidirectional lights in that presentation. Omni lights are easier to do than spotlights so I see no reason to doubt they are present using the same tech.

Poor Scofield took a page to convince me, and now another one to convince you, hahaha. I also see this more as a curious thing then as evidence that GG has got no area omni lights support. But, speculatively, it could be the case that their spherical lights are only so when it comes to specular, and their difuse works much like a point-light, because that is not what would make the most difference. Then when he wanted to illustrate the effect of changing a lightsource's area without changing its strength, he used a spot-light to better illustrate and forgot to rename the slide (?).
But this is an interesting point, does the diffuse factor alone of a light improve in a very significant way if you treat the light as a sphere vs. a dot? Is it worth the cost?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But, speculatively, it could be the case that their spherical lights are only so when it comes to specular, and their difuse works much like a point-light, because that is not what would make the most difference.

The lighting categorically changed when changing the light shape. The difference to diffuse light will be subtle, but it is there. The spherical spotlight will be the cheapest light to render, but it would give a wrong specular highlight. A disk light (or rectangular) is more accurate in the reflected shapes but will have a little extra cost to determine light shape in each direction (depending on their algorithm; they may have suitable compromises/cheats. I'm talking pure terms here from a basis in raytraced lighting).

But this is an interesting point, does the diffuse factor alone of a light improve in a very significant way if you treat the light as a sphere vs. a dot?

Yes, the shadowing is markedly different. Later in the video they compare lighting a face with 5 point lights and one square area light. The square area light was IIRC 20% more processing cost than one point light, so cheaper than multiple point lights and with better results. That's GG's solution. Dunno about other engines.

 

[milk]

Yes, the shadowing is markedly different. Later in the video they compare lighting a face with 5 point lights and one square area light. The square area light was IIRC 20% more processing cost than one point light, so cheaper than multiple point lights and with better results. That's GG's solution. Dunno about other engines.

Yes, but in many real time renderers, shadowing is separated from shading. You can still have fancy area shadows, masking out the lighting which is being shaded as if by a pointlight, that happens to be treated as a sphere light by the specular factor.

 

[L. Scofield]

I think Shifty actually meant "shading" and not "shadowing".

 

[Cjail]

New video.

 

[RudeCurve]

Watched the 1st and 2nd in this series and came away very impressed. Those artists are very talented.

 

[L. Scofield]

Video collection, includes official videos and also others from current beta-testers:

http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/977368-Unreal-Engine-4-Video-Collection