Improving the Light Engine| What and How

[Haystack15 10]

I don't think that it’s should become a new "High Priority" system to work on, but I do consider it something that should be looked at. I've said to myself quite a few times while playing ArmA, "The Lighting isn't very good here". Majority of the time you can see how bad the lighting is when you’re inside an enclosed space such as a building.

One thing I can say to help out the question how lighting can help a scene, is this:

Although I’m a student in learning 3D computer graphics, I can say when it comes to making your scene realistic, Lighting and shadows will account for 70 – 80 percent of it. If not that much possibly a little more or less. (I could be wrong, any other 3D artist out there please correct me if I am.) But basically saying “Lighting does have a HUGE impact on how your scene will lookâ€. You can even have some of the best geometry and textures/materials created for your scene, but if you had some of the best lighting, It can do that geometry some justice.

I highly suggest BIS to consider taking a look at the lighting of the ArmA world and try to improve it a bit. Especially when it comes to enclosed spaces.

Please excuse me if I offend

[EDcase 87]

I'm a vfx artist and would say that lighting accounts for 80-90% perception of realism in an image.

ARMA can have many point lights and even spots which you can see at night in town street lights. The problem is that its very limited with shadow casting lights. I believe it can only handle 1 shadow casting light which is the Sun or Moon.

In rendering one major effect that adds realism is bounce light (or irradiance mapping) but I doubt it can be implemented into ARMA any time soon.

Ambient Occlusion doesn't seem to work well (for me at least) and has quite a big hit on fps. It works well in BF3 tho and that is one of the things that help its lighting.

The lighting and shadowing is limited by the engine and its obviously harder to fix than just adding 'deferred lighting' otherwise it would have been done ages ago.

Edited November 8, 2011 by EDcase

[maddogx 13]

The lighting and shadowing is limited by the engine and is obviously harder to fix than just adding 'deferred lighting' otherwise it would have been done ages ago.

Actually "just adding deferred lighting" is the really hard part, since (from what I gather) it requires a complete rewrite of the rendering pipeline using shaders. Lighting info (normals etc.) for each object are rendered to a texture and each light source is treated as geometry and applied on a per pixel basis... or something. Really weird stuff.

Anyway, from what I understand, once you've successfully implemented this a lot of things actually become simpler, and you can add many more lights to your scene without incurring as much of a performance penalty.

[dmarkwick 261]

I'm a vfx artist and would say that lighting accounts for 80-90% perception of realism in an image.

ARMA can have many point lights and even spots which you can see at night in town street lights. The problem is that its very limited with shadow casting lights. I believe it can only handle 1 shadow casting light which is the Sun or Moon.

In rendering one major effect that adds realism is bounce light (or irradiance mapping) but I doubt it can be implemented into ARMA any time soon.

Ambient Occlusion doesn't seem to work well (for me at least) and has quite a big hit on fps. It works well in BF3 tho and that is one of the things that help its lighting.

The lighting and shadowing is limited by the engine and its obviously harder to fix than just adding 'deferred lighting' otherwise it would have been done ages ago.

Years ago in ArmA (1) I filmed a viewblock test where my test viewblock objects were visible, in the video below you can see that the bottom of the shapes (particularly noticeable on the capsule shapes) have some sort of faked ground radiosity effect, I'm guessing that all objects are subject to the same basic lighting.

uV8_vRfViZw

[EDcase 87]

Indeed, the render engine has been improved alot over its development and I do believe that ARMA2 has a basic GI rendering solution already. But as I said before, the limitation with lighting and shadows must run very deep for the lack of improvement in that particular area.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

In BF3 you can have a room with 4 windows during bright day and yet the room will be pitch black - can't get any more wrong than that.

Stylistic choice mean anything to you? Check out that video again.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

Never thought I'd say this, as I'm not an overt graphics whore. But I think the lighting realy needs to to be brought forward as a high priority.

Resons already stated

[Flash Thunder 10]

Lots of good discussion but could a BIS developer give us some hints or comments regarding their new visual focus for Arma 3. Dwardens statement from what i recall was vague.

[Vladplaya 10]

From the game footage they showed so far, I can tell that lighting been improved dramatically compared to previous ArmA titles. I guess I have to play it to see how it stands against BF3, but still at least in Youtube videos the game looks great imo.

[PuFu 4591]

Lots of good discussion but could a BIS developer give us some hints or comments regarding their new visual focus for Arma 3. Dwardens statement from what i recall was vague.

Dwardens is a special lad :). don't take everything he says so seriously

[Dwarden 1124]

Dwardens is a special lad :). don't take everything he says so seriously

works in meantime on proving Your shall take some of my words more seriously (guess what i just discussing on background of this window) :cool::D

[wolfbite 8]

(guess what i just discussing on background of this window) :cool::D

Is it what you were going to have for lunch?

[Dwarden 1124]

Is it what you were going to have for lunch?

i eat improvements as appetizer :D

[Cripsis 10]

guess what i just discussing on background of this window

I would like to have eavesdropped your discussion

[NeMeSiS 11]

i eat improvements as appetizer :D

Which is why all additions to ArmA2 are shit.

(Yeah i dont mean it, but hating this game would be so much more fun sometimes. :p )

[Cripsis 10]

Which is why all additions to ArmA2 are shit.

You got me man, I went from happy to instant rage in a millisecond.

[wolfbite 8]

i eat improvements as appetizer :D

Could we trouble you for a small nugget of info sir?

[Smurf 12]

i eat improvements as appetizer :D

So they won´t make to the game? :eek: :(

[Minoza 11]

When people talk about how "impressive" lighting in BF3 looks they talk about these things, no?

It's hard to see any sophisticated lighting behind them - I certainly can't - everything is either very dark or blindingly white

Also see above

You not seeing doesn't mean it's not there...

Indirect illumination, both mentioned engines have it. Frostbite in form of "Radiosity", it is quite impressive to see that happen in real time actually...

Ambient occlusion (not the baked one), Frostbite has that nice screen-space stuff for all the objects, try switching it ON-OFF and tell me if you see any difference. Horizontal based is simplified, renders faster, but looks less convincing.

CE3 actually has rather awesome lighting system, and not just that, it also has cool real time (somewhat "Fresnel") reflections for all surfaces, just like real materials, since everything reflects light in some form - CE3 uses cube maps for pretty much all the environment reflections, and fresnel ones for the screen-space stuff. In combination with the differed lighting system it can achieve very impressive results. Add one more thing on top of this, you can actually use (simplified) environment image to lit up your scene (same as Frostbite 2), that is pretty advanced for a real time rendering engine if you ask me.

SHIFT 2 is another example of differed lighting system, It renders 64 active lights for cars (soft shadows, illumination and specular) plus environment lighting (sun, moon).

All these games AFAIK have issues with AA though and it hits hard on the performance.

Blooming, blurring - postFX, it doesn't directly relate to lighting system.

And regarding static sun position in BF3 -> don't get fooled by that:

It's all dynamic and real time...

Edited November 9, 2011 by Minoza

[CarlGustaffa 4]

A problem with A2's renderer is how it does bloom. It appears to (that's my impression anyways) apply it on white surfaces after image has been mapped to LDR rather than base it on the HDR precalculations.

http://www.trinisica.com/sub_learn_typedissue.asp?lv=3&mode=1&issue=002

It doesn't seem to care if we're getting a clear reflection of the sun (specular highlights simulates that) or a diffuse lighting on a matte piece of paper (compass background), where both would be "white" but the first would be way brighter than white.

Btw, I didn't realize Frostbite2 did realtime radiosity on dynamic lightsources. Is dynamic daylight present in any of the levels/missions, or could it be done convincingly and with adequate speed left to drive the rest of the game?

[BobcatBob 10]

i eat improvements as appetizer :D

What would be the main course then good sir? And what will you be having for dessert shortly there after?

[Flash Thunder 10]

works in meantime on proving Your shall take some of my words more seriously (guess what i just discussing on background of this window) :cool::D

Lighting engine DLC

15 dollars

Comes free with a season pass which cost 50 dollars on top of the orginal game price??

/inb4 thats already happening throughout the gaming industry\

[maturin 12]

Just remember that while Battlefield 3 looks amazing and realistic, it presents a sort of 'epic reality.'

Do a Google image search for sunsets or supermodels and you won't get the snapshot you took last week, nor will you get your girlfriend. ArmA 3 can't depict perfect, epic reality with lighting and environments that are the pinnacle of visual drama all the time.

There is a middle ground.

[Don Camillo 10]

Having buildings, drawing shadows from Headlights would be a wonderful Dinner.

[Flogger23m 2]

Better lighting? Sure. But after animations, squad menu redesign, better AI, ect.

That being said, BF3 lighting and most mainstream games tend to exaggerate the lighting effects. Make it look more realistic, but don't over do it.

And make sure the lower settings work fine for those of us who can't afford to get a new PC annually.