*spin-off Art & Deferred Lighting spin-off

[ultragpu]

Watched about 4min of the leakage [Gears 3], like the addition of reflection even though they seem very low res. The lighting on the deck seems very flat and the lack of deferred lighting doesn't help either. Hope the final build would impress more.

 

[SedentaryJourney]

Watched about 4min of the leakage, like the addition of reflection even though they seem very low res. The lighting on the deck seems very flat and the lack of deferred lighting doesn't help either. Hope the final build would impress more.

I have to disagree with you on this. Pretty much all the Gears 3 maps have spectacular lighting due to lightmass. Foliage and grass also look quite detailed in some of the leaked maps. It's definitely a huge step above Gears 2 and even Bulletstorm.

While it would be nice to have lots of dynamic lights the fact that it's not a deferred renderer doesn't detract much from the overall look. Muzzle flash and explosions still light the environment for example.

 

[Ruskie]

Watched about 4min of the leakage, like the addition of reflection even though they seem very low res. The lighting on the deck seems very flat and the lack of deferred lighting doesn't help either. Hope the final build would impress more.

Yea,I mean,you really need couple of hundred light sources on the deck. Dunno whats with you and deferred rendering? Does every game have to feature few hundred light sources like say GTA IV when it's totally unnecessary?Games like RE2/3 and UC2 are DR and they don't have the need to put over the top amount of light sources per scene just for the sake of it.I mean,not having deferred lights doesn't make a game lighting look flat * cough* Crysis 1 *cough*,its just bad lighting.Does Gears 3 have that? Well, I guess it does, to you, but that has nothing to do with DR.

 

[ultragpu]

Yea,I mean,you really need couple of hundred light sources on the deck. Dunno whats with you and deferred rendering? Does every game have to feature few hundred light sources like say GTA IV when it's totally unnecessary?Games like RE2/3 and UC2 are DR and they don't have the need to put over the top amount of light sources per scene just for the sake of it.I mean,not having deferred lights doesn't make a game lighting look flat * cough* Crysis 1 *cough*,its just bad lighting.Does Gears 3 have that? Well, I guess it does, to you, but that has nothing to do with DR.

Deferred lighting definitely adds tons of atmosphere to the scene alright, objects and environment are more naturally illuminated and simply feel more alive. Just picture a gears game with hundreds of dynamic light sources, I guarantee you the difference would be immense.

 

[nightshade]

.I mean,not having deferred lights doesn't make a game lighting look flat * cough* Crysis 1 *cough*

Truth be told the indoors did look flat in Crysis due to lack of deferred lighting. And I agree Ultragpu when he says that deferred lighting adds to the atmosphere, even daytime scens would benefit from it.

 

[Ruskie]

Deferred lighting definitely adds tons of atmosphere to the scene alright, objects and environment are more naturally illuminated and simply feel more alive. Just picture a gears game with hundreds of dynamic light sources, I guarantee you the difference would be immense.

I don't have to picture anything because it is just dumb.Why would you need couple of hundred light sources in scene where you simply don't need them?Where they are simply unnatural?Show me one scene where UC2 has hundred light sources,you don't have to search,because you won't find any.ND simply doesn't want 383 dynamic light sources in room just because their engine can do it,its not GTA game.

Would you agree that God of War 3 lighting looks "flat"?Dynamic lights in GOW III are achieved by forward rendering,but no body ever complained about lighting,it was actually one of games graphics highlights.

Gears 3 interiors look quite nice.Not flat,not bad,not weakly illuminated,they are just fine the way they are,seriously.And lighting in outdoor section seems to be changed too.Dunno if you would describe it more "meaty" or "flat",but they changed it.

http://i54.tinypic.com/112bu6s.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/15ck56a.jpg

 

[L. Scofield]

Truth be told the indoors did look flat in Crysis due to lack of deferred lighting. And I agree Ultragpu when he says that deferred lighting adds to the atmosphere, even daytime scens would benefit from it.

No, Crysis indoors looked flat because it only used direct lights and very basic ambient lighting. Crysis 2 indoors (and outdoors) look so much better because they used cubemap lights for ambient lighting and reflections.

Gears 3 takes care of that easily with lightmass.

 

[SedentaryJourney]

No, Crysis indoors looked flat because it only used direct lights and very basic ambient lighting. Crysis 2 indoors (and outdoors) look so much better because they used cubemap lights for ambient lighting and reflections.

Gears 3 takes care of that easily with lightmass.

I thought cube maps had more to do with lighting characters and objects in a scene and not the environment from which the cube map is generated.

Truth be told the indoors did look flat in Crysis due to lack of deferred lighting. And I agree Ultragpu when he says that deferred lighting adds to the atmosphere, even daytime scens would benefit from it.

Gears of War 3 has fairly static environments which feature high quality lightmaps. It also has a good number of dynamic lights for explosions. There's no need to go deferred to achieve its look just because a lot of other games are. The main reason for deferred rendering is lots of realtime lights which can dynamically light the scene. Here's an example from Killzone 3.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

This thread is once again totally stupid and completely missing the point. Gears 3 looks very nice and the exact tech implementations don't matter much. We can say the same for nearly every other game.

Sure, Crysis 2 has a lot of tech, but the contrast and general look is just not there, no matter how they do it. UC's filmic tone mapping looks a helluva lot better even if it can't do a gazillion lights.
Maybe C2's flat look is a result of the X360 HDR/gamma isue, although I kinda doubt it as Gears 3 manages just fine with it and BF3's port is probably going to look splendid as well.
And GT5 doesn't have any of these bells and whistles and yet it still has the best looking cars ever. It's the people using the tech and the tools, and not the code itself, that makes stuff great...

 

[SedentaryJourney]

This thread is once again totally stupid and completely missing the point. Gears 3 looks very nice and the exact tech implementations don't matter much. We can say the same for nearly every other game.

On the other hand some technologies should just be in every game, like filmic tone mapping. So maybe it is valid to criticize a tech gap. I do agree though that it's stupid to criticize a game's look because its renderer doesn't support certain features just for the sake of having them. Gears 3 looks great with a traditional forward renderer.

In general I think deferred lighting is a plus and I'm glad Epic has added it to future versions of UE3. Certain games need more flexible lighting, which is why Irrational Games went through the trouble of switching to a deferred renderer for Bioshock Infinite. The tradeoff is that you don't get to sport high quality precomputed static lighting which IMO gives Gears 3 an edge artistically. In particular, there's something about the look of Lightmass in Gears 3 that puts it above other games that essentially do the same thing, like Mirror's Edge for example.

 

[_phil_]

And GT5 doesn't have any of these bells and whistles and yet it still has the best looking cars ever. It's the people using the tech and the tools, and not the code itself, that makes stuff great...

HDR IBL +Mesured BRDF (also primitive based raytracing for the headlights intereflections ) is not that bad , Imo..

 

[SedentaryJourney]

Speaking of deferred lighting and art, the new Metro Last Light footage is out and it doesn't look so hot. I understand 4A are against mixing lightmaps with deferred lighting given their criticism of Killzone in the past, but that section with really dark blacks and high contrast light sources looks awful without indirect lighting of some sort.