Volumetric lights and shadows this gen *spawn

[Laa-Yosh]

Fake (2d) volumetric light is usually a version of radial blur. There's probably a lot more that can be done to enhance the effect, like use a z-buffer as well and so on.

I think it is also possible to place the center of the effect off screen to an extent. A lot of movie VFX uses it and I know it works there but it's because most compositing programs are able to use a workspace larger than the final frame. I'm not sure if Photoshop can do it...

 

[nightshade]

Yes it is possible to have the lightsource somewhat offscreen and still get the shafts, an example would be the Old Town map in Gears 3.

Volumetric shadows achieved via a 2D post process effect disappear when the light source is off-screen. The second screen I posted shows the shadow perfectly visible while the source is off-screen. Simple logic tells us then that it IS a 3D effect.

A couple more for the flashlight

The shadow of the car's brake stick caused by the flashlight, pointing away from the camera, showing it's 3D and not a 2D-postprocess.

And of course, there are those flashes everytime you remove the darkness from the enemies.

At the end of the day it's not what you say, but what you prove

Would help if you properly went through what I posted.
I said Alan Wake uses both 3d volumetric lights (some of them like the flares interact with player/environmet and some of them like the lamp post at checkpoints dont) as well as the ones made using a 2d post process like in the very first video you posted, as you cant see the shadows when the source is behind wake.

 

[L. Scofield]

Yes it is possible to have the lightsource somewhat offscreen and still get the shafts, an example would be the Old Town map in Gears 3.

While it's true that the shafts don't disappear as soon as the light source exits the screen, they quickly fade out, as exemplified in this two screenshots I took with UDK:

Light source is on the screen:
http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/714/shafts01.png

Light source is off the screen
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4344/shafts02.png


Taking that into account, the second picture in this post, in which the light is way off-screen and the shafts remain perfectly visible shows it's a 3D effect.

A bonus one here, from the same video (0:43), the flare is behind the camera and we can see the shafts perfectly:

Would help if you properly went through what I posted.
I said Alan Wake uses both 3d volumetric lights (some of them like the flares interact with player/environmet and some of them like the lamp post at checkpoints dont) as well as the ones made using a 2d post process like in the very first video you posted, as you cant see the shadows when the source is behind wake.

Except you're ignoring the reasons why the character's shadow doesn't appear in the first video when he's looking away from the light:

1) He's directly in front of the camera, the player obstructing the view.
2) He's got the flashlight on, essentially canceling the shadow.
3) The light shafts remain, something that NEVER happens when the light source is directly behind the camera, proving it's a 3D effect.

However, we can see that that same light is also casting volumetric shadows for the fence:

Shadows that we can still see when the camera turns 90°:

And 180°:

In this last one we can even see down the shadow of one of the fence's poles.

And that's ignoring the last picture in my previous post, which shows the flashlight pointing AWAY from the camera, producing a volumetric shadow.

There's also direct confirmation from the developers stating that the lighting is fully volumetric, why should we doubt them?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fqb5VRtTL8

Lighting looks exactly the same as it did back then so no reason to believe they changed the way it works in the final game.

All the volumetric lights (flares, flashlight, lamps, etc..) have a consistent look, no reason to think some are 3D and other use only 2D-post processing.

 

[kots]

Sorry about the quality of the pics i took but it's pretty obvious that Alan 's interacting with the light - his left hand is occluding the light (the source is off screen ).
It's very subtle effect and not always visible , but it's a 3d effect and not just a 2d process.
The same happens with the flares as well .

 

[patsu]

The gentleman was demoing and talking about the PC version instead of the console version though.

EDIT: Did the developers do any special interview/paper on their volumetric lighting everywhere tech for 360 ?

 

[Dungeonscaper]

is dead nation flash light volumetric? Seems to cut through fences very well.

It's fully volumetric AFAICT; casts shadows on everything; very precise and impressive.

 

[LightHeaven]

When i played Alan Wake i noticed that many volumetric lights (Alan's flashlight, the safe heavens, the bigger spotlights you can turn on, etc) did cast volumetric shadows on the enviroment and other personas, just not on Alan.

Probably for performance reasons, though i'm not sure as some lights (like the flare) did cast volumetric shadows on alan without any alarming change at the framerate...