Improving the Light Engine| What and How

[twisted 127]

Things like

• Objects blocking light
  
• Improving shadows
  
• every object in the same scene sharing the same light value
  
• multiple lightsources (dynamic) causing shadows
  
• deferred lighting (hidden potential regarding GPU usage)
  
• Ambient occlusion
  

all. but these in particular. terrian, objects, vegetation and buildings casting shadows and the terrain catching them is something i'd like to see in particular.

[purepassion 22]

I have one question in my mind tough.

What was it that made you decide Arma 3 will use DX11?

Is it multithreaded rendering? The fact that DX11 allows better lightning, better shadows and allows various better post-processing effects? Better texture compression? Maybe even Tessellation?

[Lorca 10]

Btw, the BF3 lighting tech is actually a third party tech from Geomerics Enlighten. They bought the license I heard.

[frostwyrm333 1]

I don't think they will outsource entire renderer, thats sounds quite crazy. Just because they have some fancy colored shadows and something newest ambient occlusion and stuff. Most of that stuff is useless anyway. You have no way of knowing if it is even capable of rendering arma 2 kind of graphics, and arma game code and engine are most probably very tied together so it would mean remaking most of the game.

BF3 was intentioned to be cool not realistic, all those maps are handcrafted/scripted.

Source map is nice but baked, you don't have much choice in these things, arma is simply too vast and full of models. But still there is a lot of room for improvement and with new generation of HW. I hope that this will be the first arma that will have everything on a level with other commercial games.

Geomerics Enlighten - thats probably that real time radiostiy thing

[Lorca 10]

Geomerics Enlighten - thats probably that real time radiostiy thing

I believe that's correct.

[EricM 0]

This Geomerics Enlighten looks really good. That's pretty advanced stuff to make this work realtime. Didn't know that was a third party middleware they had bolted on Frostbite 2.

This kind of middleware (or similar) would probably also allow BIS to add it to RV engine without having to recreate the wheel or "ditch the engine" as some say, same as they did with the weather in Take On and Xaitment for VBS.

But I guess it must still be pretty pricey. Can BIS afford that many 3rd party middlewares ?

On the other hand, it's dev time savings and you know that you get a top-notch AAA system working even on consoles. Not to mention, that recreating a real-time radiosity engine isn't trivial stuff.

[wipman 1]

Hi, this is the ArmA2 "so called HDR", which is a F joke:

BIS HDR:

As you can see... at certain times of day you can't distinguish anything on the ground, is like that too without the NVGs and that's the same lighting that you can see on the ArmA3 screenshots; if it gonna be like that... then i know what game i don't gonna buy.

Because i just can't play missions that take place at those certain times as i don't see anything on the ground but the AI keep seeing perfectly, with... and without NVGs. Let's C ya

[Cripsis 10]

I recently stumbled upon some interesting Unity game engine videos on Youtube, I don't know much about the engine but the lighting looks damn nice. Best to play the videos in 720p.

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[neokika 62]

Unity Engine uses PureLight Technology I believe.

[PuFu 4599]

there are a lot of middlewares providing lighting solutions. Even software developers such as autodesk have their own solutions: http://gameware.autodesk.com/beast

[purepassion 22]

Unity Engine uses PureLight Technology I believe.

Really? If so, then it's the same solution this

used

there are a lot of middlewares providing lighting solutions. Even software developers such as autodesk have their own solutions: http://gameware.autodesk.com/beast

It would be awesome if the team could benefit from something like this!

[neokika 62]

Really? If so, then it's the same solution this

used

Seems so, at least, in pureLight's website, you can download a Unity Demo with PureLight implemented.

_neo_

[wipman 1]

Hi, those videos don't look bad for a ground based (infantry only) game, but we'll have to see that with choppers and jets on a so big terrain as the ArmA series one; what i didn't like of that, is how the shadows become stronger (becoming as strong as they should be) at like 20m of the observer, they're not there or are lighter far away from that. Other thing that i didn't like, was the candle glow inside the house, glow that much inside a house being observed from outside the building on a sunny day!?, it wont be like that IRL.

I'd like that there isn't any stupid glow of surfaces like the bricks, the dusty ground, the tents and neither the vehicles and also how the glasses of the shops reflect just a bit, without silly over done UV maps etc, but i don't think that that tecnology shown on those videos be applycable to the ArmA series; still looking good in general in general. Let's C ya

[EricM 0]

Actually, Unity uses Beast by default (from their site). And it seems to be limited to baking pre-computed lightmaps (like purelight), while enlighten seems more advanced with real-time interaction, like Cryengine 3.

I could be wrong though.

[PuFu 4599]

all of those engines have integrated GI (global illumination), which means there is no real need for individual light sources to fake GI. True, the GI is baked into the scene, rather than have it raytraced (we are still far away from a hardware perspective to have RT ray tracing). BUT that doesn't mean they environment doesn't react to other light sources, on the contrary: it does.

btw:Crysis 2 has been lit using autodesk beast, NOT geomerics enlighten

[danny96 79]

PLEASE BIS studio DO THIS! With this you'll reach a graphics of BF3 or CRYSIS 2 !!!

[Tonci87 163]

Well lets see, do we wat graphics like in BF3 or Crysis 2?

Only partially while some aspects of the graphics are great, others are not. Like exagerated Bloom, Lens flare, color filters etc...

[Cookieeater 10]

ArmA needs much better lighting indeed. The HDR is such crap.

[wipman 1]

Well lets see, do we wat graphics like in BF3 or Crysis 2?

Only partially while some aspects of the graphics are great, others are not. Like exagerated Bloom, Lens flare, color filters etc...

Hi, no; i don't want BF3 graphics. I want a lighting engine and an HDR that simulates the human eye, not a bad video camera or photo camera. Let's C ya

[Cookieeater 10]

AbDEXtl51bc

Deferred shading would be amazing for a game such as ArmA as well. Right now, ArmA uses forward shading, which is fast for smallish lit scenes, but when lights stack up, the performance dramatically drops as the objects are rerendered multiple times. Deferred shading naturally runs slower than forward shading, but the massive benefit is that performance doesn't decrease with lights.

Forward lighting
Pros:

• Fast
• Anti Aliasing on DX9
  

Cons:

• Performance exponentionally decreases with more lights
  

Deferred lighting
Pros:

• Lights do not decrease FPS
  

Cons:

• Conventional Anti Aliasing does not work on DX9
• Slightly slower than forward lighting in scenes with few lights
  

For a setting like ArmA though, the pros for deferred lighting massively outweigh the cons. In a situation with multiple vehicles on fire, the FPS drops down massively, while with deferred lighting, the FPS would remain stable. It'd also allow lights inside buildings.

[dmarkwick 261]

Yeah I agree, I've said it before. Deferred lighting has an initial performance hit, but has far far less performance hit per light after that initial hit. I think the initial performance hit is an acceptable price.

[Flash Thunder 10]

Yeah I agree, I've said it before. Deferred lighting has an initial performance hit, but has far far less performance hit per light after that initial hit. I think the initial performance hit is an acceptable price.

Its the better option once you pay the initial price you can render as many light sources as you want, and in a game like ARMA that's a GOOD thing! :eek: flying helicopters at night would be unreal. *passes out*

[rye1 21]

That would be unreal. Hopefully it would change certain things for the better i.e. being able to use flashlights properly during the daytime in shadow spots. Xmas wishes? :D

[smookie 11]

That would be unreal. Hopefully it would change certain things for the better i.e. being able to use flashlights properly during the daytime in shadow spots. Xmas wishes? :D

Why on earth would you need that in ArmA?:)

[rye1 21]

Well if the engine was improved in that sense you would have shadow spots and darkness in places not hit by the light or whatever--i.e. outhouses with no windows, rooms with limited windows or something blocking them like curtains, places like closets, hangars, attics, basements, even behind objects and other auditories or barricades etc--the list is endless. It could also be used in a tactical sense to temporary blind or distort the enemies vision, it's down to your imagination really. I'd find a way to use it.