There is not a game engine on this planet with *dynamic* lighting that behaves any differently than the way the NWN2 engine does. Not NWN1, not Doom3, not Unreal3. We do not do realtime raytracing, nor does anyone else.
Any other game you've seen with movable dyanamic lighting that doesnt bleed light through "solid" objects has done this using the exact same techniques that you will all use in NWN2... careful design. Do not place large, bright lights where the light might bleed into an area you want to stay very dark. It really is that simple. Our artists and designers have made hundreds of fantastic looking areas with this rule in mind... the reality of dynamic videogame lighting has not stopped them, and it wont stop you.
The NWN2 toolset gives you an (IMO) umprecedented amount of power to create the exact same "cutting edge" content as ourselves, the developers. But this power comes at the cost that you must now understand some of the techniques and "tricks" that game designers use, and have always used, to make cutting edge games. You must come to terms with the smoke and the mirrors. The magician does not *actually* saw that woman in half... realtime dynamic lights are not *actually* blocked by walls.
I know you guys can do it.
P.S. Shadows in videogame engines are not created by the "blocking" of light by another object... but rather, they are actually the addition of "negative light" projected behind an object.
Jason Keeney
Crate Programmer
Obsidian Entertainment
Posted by ErrantMinion at 2007-03-06 22:35:09 Voted 6.00 on 03/06/07
Programmers talking about physics... Always worth a laugh. :p
Negative light is not shadow.
Negative light is... well... There is just no negative light. Not in this world, sorry.
In CG negative light is also no light but just the lack of light.
After all CG just copies nature laws, don't they?
And some programmers are sometimes just to lazy to set a flag here or there and tell the user later they have to be careful.
But programmers only do what all humans do most of the time: going the easiest way.
Considering the state of this software after 4 patches I wonder that it didn't turned out as an text-only rpg for the commandline.
Ok, that was mean... Peace.
Posted by Rhedd at 2007-02-02 16:40:42 Voted 5.00 on 02/02/07
While I don't really have a problem "working around" this particular engine limitation, this article isn't exactly what I'd call the "whole truth".
Even in a program that most certainly does use true raytracing, like a 3DS Max renderer, it is possible to set an object to cast shadows, or not, at the whim of the artist.
The fact is, programs don't respect solid objects unless they're TOLD to. This is just as true of light as it is walkable solidity, gravitational physics, or any other property.
Now, it really doesn't matter what the method used to cast shadows is. "Negative light", "blocked" light, it doesn't matter in the final analysis. They're shadows.
In NWN2, people cast shadows. Trees cast shadows. Buildings cast shadows. Furniture cast shadows. A pillar that you add to a room casts shadows. Even exterior hills cast shadows in valleys. This is because the engine, and the objects themselves, were TOLD to cast shadows.
Interior tileset walls, however, do not cast shadows. Why? Because nobody told them to. Could they have? Yep.
It's semantics to say that the Unreal3 engine doesn't handle light any better, because walls in U3 DO block light, whatever the reason. Probably because they were told to.
Someone should've told NWN2's walls to do the same.
Posted by Alaster Wolf at 2007-01-07 15:47:14 Voted 10.00 on 01/07/07
This is one good tip and an honest explanation. People should understand that while the tool is very important, an essential thing is the designer's experience.
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