Hi

I have to say the latest FPSC BETA's and The Escape demo are a significant milestone for FPSCR. This is real cause for celebration TGC.

However there is still a huge part of the engine missing which is indoor environments and lighting.

For example once we get indoors we are going to need many more lights and Lee has already hinted about some restrictions with the number of lights we can use. Also there is the question of how shadows will be done if we can only have 1 light which casts dynamic shadows i.e the sun.

We may need to move to a deferred rendering system or deal with some potential performance issues here which really should be done now before we consider performance to be solved only to find we can't have any lights or shadows inside of buildings.

There is talk of having an early access version of FPSCR on Steam by September but if going inside buildings is still limited to the entity buildings we have now and no control over lighting this would not be well received.

In fact I think the lighting system in FPSCR needs to be worked on in general to give basic control over point lights, directional lights, range, intensity, falloff and all of this. Except for the awesome dynamic shadows the lights themselves are still FPSC Classic.

My main concern is this topic has not really been given any priority or focus and the quality of the lighting system of Reloaded is going to far more important than some of the other features being worked on at the moment.

Well said

A very valid point and one I am sure is high on the list, or at least should be. I don't think Lee means a limitation on number of lights in game but the dx limitation of only 6-8 dynamic lights displayed within radius of player view at any one time (I have a lot more than 8 dynamic lights in my level which all work fine). Even at that if it is corrected for indoor lighting you will still have one light source only casting shadows in any scene (another dx limitation and performance hungry as it is), at present this is the sun.



I am thinking this may be a large undertaking to solve and still feel a mix of static lightmapping and dynamic would work best. All the same that lightmapping stage was a major part of the memory limit in Classic and perhaps they want to avoid this altogether.



If a way is found to only include objects in range of a static light for lightmapping then it would be more feasible when it comes to memory limits at build.

You've raised the some important points, all of which we are aware of internally, but it's good to know that our thinking and the thinking of the community is along the same lines.



The ConKit will most likely follow the Steam Early Access release if we go ahead as scheduled, but the ability for characters to navigate the interiors of entites (I.E. Buildings), is on our list as a vital feature and one that we're giving a high priority to. This of course in turn will lead to further AI improvements.



Lighting does need quite a bit of work, and realisticly could be an update in itself. We are looking at a number of options for this, and we'll let you all know the moment we do.



SC

I'm glad you agree as this is my biggest issue with the engine after they've put all this time into other things. Nomad is founded in his viewpoint and I cannot agree with him enough. I find it sad that I can still make better scenes with Classic than with Reloaded currently.



Until I can get as detailed as this in the FPSCR editor, I see no reason as holding FPSCR as the premium product:



http://www.thegamecreators.com/userdata/gallery/2076_1024.jpg



http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/22/21099/thumb_620x2000/Biodome.png



http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/19/18514/thumb_620x2000/snapshot46.png



http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/22/21099/thumb_620x2000/Lounge.png



http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/28/27280/thumb_620x2000/BranCastleExterior1.png



These screenshots are from my projects made solely in the FPSC Classic editor with a mix of segments, entities, and careful lightmapping. I really want to see FPSCR reach a point where I can do even greater things in it than this. It shouldn't feel like one giant step back and unfortunately, that is how I feel.

I understand you, mate. Me too

Taking time to step back and think some more, I would like to further explain my viewpoint. I think the terrain in FPSCR is the BEST thing about it. The fact characters can travel it easily and the prospect of huge maps is AMAZING. However, I feel we are gimped in all other areas. I understand we are still in Beta but after 1 year, I was always hoping we could have been at a fundamental level that FPSC Classic was. I know we've got a long way to go but I do feel that Classic was based on a great underlay. Right now I'm not so sure where FPSCR is at in this regard. If a compromise needs to be made, so be it. I want to be able to make stunning outdoor levels but just as easily make amazingly lit indoor levels (or hybrids even) as well. Indoor scenes and outdoor environment should be able to meld together seamlessly and look great while at it. I am currently aware the old system of lightmapping left a lot to be desired with build memory issues. I just hope you guys can find the time to study into this further. Once performance is top-notch... proper lightmapping needs to be the next step.

totally feel lighting needs some serious overhaul or at least improve.

I'm going to echo the above points. There are systems already which can calculate lightmaps in a small memory footprint. Maybe it would be useful to - instead of reinventing the wheel - base FPSCR's lightmapping on an already widely-used system?

Of course such a system would need to be licensed but creating a global illumination system befitting FPSCR's ambitions might take months of work and ultimately cost more.

Its good to know other people feel the same way about the lighting in Reloaded and even better to hear from Scene Commander that TGC feel the same way.

Performance will always be the number 1 enemy of Reloaded and Lee will need to fight a war on that front so its not an area I like to discuss over and over again. Lighting is a really significant part of any FPS game engine and at the moment Reloaded is over a decade out of date.

I don't want this to take away from the amazing work TGC has done and I'm very happy with the progress since pledging my gold subscription but lighting is something which before now was not getting any attention or even being discussed which was becoming a concern.

Indoor environments is something which I understand has not been the focus until now and it will be interesting to see how the construction kit will change the face of Reloaded games but its critical we are able to have interesting indoor environments integrated into these terrains with lots of lights and interesting features.

There is still a question over performance and introducing lots of real time lighting effects might not be possible but we need better light mapping features than FPSC Classic and better control over the lights themselves.

I think the artists on the forums have done a brilliant job with whats available but we are not going to see the next graphics milestone for Reloaded until lighting is really updated and improved.

I am definitely awaiting the day when we have a full lighting system as various others have described here. I know it will definitely raise the bar on what's possible at that point.

I always talk Fallout... lol but its a great resource to look at.



In Fallout you have your outdoor maps and your indoor maps. Both are treated differently. Indoor maps have no large directional global shadowing.

I think the consensus is building that as much illumination in whatever form should be baked. As pretty as realtime illumination is, I don't personally think there's any point using it for using it's sake.



Ideally you want them to be calculated once and then forgotten about, and only disturbed again if there's a change of lightning like a lightning strike or the time of day changes.

Unity is a good example of how this should work. You bake in your lighting once for your scene, but dynamic objects still cast dynamic shadows and there is a balance between when it uses realtime dynamic lights/shadows and when it uses the baked stuff. So, you really need both and the engine needs to be able to handle them the way you specify it.

I think Unity might have been where I remebered it from.

Commercial stuff like Enlighten has two sort of channels of illumination - static and dynamic - but I'm not exactly sure how it blends between the two.

I think Unity has a light mapping mode called dual light maps which enables you to have dynamic shadows in the foreground and static light mapping in the background based on a transition distance threshold the user can control.

A combination of static and dynamic lighting seems like a good direction for Reloaded both in terms of performance and quality. I also think an option of only having dynamic objects casting dynamic shadows would be fine if this can be integrated with the static light mapping.

The most important thing is having control over individual light properties and having good control over any static light mapping solution so you can do a bake in less time to get a sense of how things will look and then you can ramp up the resolution and passes etc nearer to completion.

There are some amazing real time lighting solutions such as Enlighten which are being integrated with Unity and Unreal Engine but things like this will probably either be too expensive for TGC to license or will not be performance reasonable in Reloaded.

I just think we desperately need a good lighting solution for Reloaded which can handle outdoor environments, indoor environments and does not look so out dated. I think it was brilliant that Lee got dynamic shadows working but lighting did not get any attention after this feature which happened very early on in the project.

I will be experimenting with ambient occlusion light maps (baked) for V1.009 and the improved demo, so you can look forward to that work to get your scenes really popping. As to interior scenes, I literally done ZERO work on this since the project started. This was deliberate, allowing me to focus on an outdoor scene and game play. The good news is that I am working the mechanics for indoor collision for V1.009, which will also allow AI characters to chase you into buildings and from that, who knows. If I can grab some art time, I would also like to add doors and windows to the editing process which is one stage closer to having fully realized indoor environments. The real bulk of the interior creative process will come from the CON KIT, which is being worked on RIGHT NOW, so we have started the plate spinning on that one with the goal to have it finished before we leave it. Bear in mind it will be a V1 of the feature, but you will be able to create rooms, floors, whole buildings, stairs, ramps, columns and the myriad of combinations that will give you hours and days of creative freedom. I will probably take a closer look at the dynamic lighting for interior scenes once the ambient occlusion baking is done, and find a nice way to combine dynamic shadows from local light sources (not the sun) into the scene. Performance is always king however, so prepare for some limitations on what you can do in the first few builds. Thanks again for your feedback as it does highlight in the strongest light what you feelings are when it comes to the features that are so-so and the ones that are desperately anticipated

Here's something to look at:

http://tesseract.gg/

Tesseract provides a unique open-source engine derived from Cube 2: Sauerbraten technology but with upgraded modern rendering techniques. The new rendering features include fully dynamic omnidirectional shadows, global illumination, HDR lighting, deferred shading, morphological/temporal/multisample anti-aliasing, and much more.