... well, graphics wise at least 
i used to think that glossy bump mapping ala Doom3 was the holy grail of 3D game graphics... well, i was partly wrong... and it's the lighting that really makes the scene... the bump mapping and gloss being sorta like an after effect... a small enhancement...
i came to this realization
while making a scene in another game engine (Unity)...
sometimes, being able to see things from a different perspective (in this case from what the same scene looks like in multiple game engines), can help improve the visuals across the board... and for me it was the realization (i already knew this, but never really seriously applied it to RAD) that i never really applied a "directional" light to a scene along with another (sunlight) source like i did in Leadwerks and now in Unity...
it makes a world of difference, as i hope the screenies below will show (edited the order and changed the original Unity screenie)...
the bottom most is the Unity scene... i was surprised at how well it looked with just the diffuse texturing and the lighting...
so i decided to do the same thing in RAD... the top is the same basic scene as done in Unity, default lighting and diffuse textures... kinda flat and plain...
then i added some bumpmapping to the sub for the second scene... a lil better, and this is what i was depending primarily on to compose my levels...
finally, the third screenie shows what applying the sunlight as a pseudo directional light, and using one of GT's Point Light Shaders to light the sub, terrain, and jetty (the Ocean is using a different shader)...
the difference is apparent... the lighting gives a more real world appearance to the scene... sorta like an early evening setting with the sun just starting to set... the terrain takes on a "shadowed" appearance yet there is no shadowing at all being done here... no lightmapping...
the only bad thing here, for 3DRAD, is the single point lights available in most of the PL shaders... this is gonna require an additional lightmapping pass for interior scenes...
anyways... there you have it... my rant for the month... hopefully someone will get something out of it that'll improve the level of the graphics in their 3DRAD project...
comments, questions, insight, and critiques are always welcome...
--Mike
i used to think that glossy bump mapping ala Doom3 was the holy grail of 3D game graphics... well, i was partly wrong... and it's the lighting that really makes the scene... the bump mapping and gloss being sorta like an after effect... a small enhancement...
i came to this realization
while making a scene in another game engine (Unity)... sometimes, being able to see things from a different perspective (in this case from what the same scene looks like in multiple game engines), can help improve the visuals across the board... and for me it was the realization (i already knew this, but never really seriously applied it to RAD) that i never really applied a "directional" light to a scene along with another (sunlight) source like i did in Leadwerks and now in Unity...
it makes a world of difference, as i hope the screenies below will show (edited the order and changed the original Unity screenie)...
the bottom most is the Unity scene... i was surprised at how well it looked with just the diffuse texturing and the lighting...
so i decided to do the same thing in RAD... the top is the same basic scene as done in Unity, default lighting and diffuse textures... kinda flat and plain...
then i added some bumpmapping to the sub for the second scene... a lil better, and this is what i was depending primarily on to compose my levels...
finally, the third screenie shows what applying the sunlight as a pseudo directional light, and using one of GT's Point Light Shaders to light the sub, terrain, and jetty (the Ocean is using a different shader)...
the difference is apparent... the lighting gives a more real world appearance to the scene... sorta like an early evening setting with the sun just starting to set... the terrain takes on a "shadowed" appearance yet there is no shadowing at all being done here... no lightmapping...
the only bad thing here, for 3DRAD, is the single point lights available in most of the PL shaders... this is gonna require an additional lightmapping pass for interior scenes...
anyways... there you have it... my rant for the month... hopefully someone will get something out of it that'll improve the level of the graphics in their 3DRAD project...
comments, questions, insight, and critiques are always welcome...
--Mike
3DRad_UnityScene_Lighting1.jpg
