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Tili_us
February 5th, 2014, 19:11
Hi guys!

I am doing some research on the lighting system DK2 used. Is there any information to be found on this?
I am aware the meshes DK2 uses have some extra vertices in them just to show light information, as you can see below.

1325

It just insane how a game from 1999 uses so many dynamic looking lights on the screen at the same time.
The light from the torches are constantly animating and so are the light that are cast by your cursor and monsters.

Any ideas where/how I could find more information about this?

Tili

Hapuga
February 6th, 2014, 20:20
Hi guys!

I am doing some research on the lighting system DK2 used. Is there any information to be found on this?
I am aware the meshes DK2 uses have some extra vertices in them just to show light information, as you can see below.

1325

It just insane how a game from 1999 uses so many dynamic looking lights on the screen at the same time.
The light from the torches are constantly animating and so are the light that are cast by your cursor and monsters.

Any ideas where/how I could find more information about this?

Tili

I'm not sure what you mean by "to show light information". I think their vertices hold position, normal, texture and maybe color information, that's it.
From the looks of it I'd say - deferred rendering and blinn lights. Oh, and their shadows are buggy.

Also, the picture that you attached has nothing to do with lights. Its a vertex representation of the wall.


Hi guys!

The light from the torches are constantly animating and so are the light that are cast by your cursor and monsters.

Tili

um.. torch fire animations have nothing to do with light. It's an effect. and light just has a radius and faloff that is being modified to give the effect of "torch light".

Tili_us
February 6th, 2014, 20:57
I'm not sure what you mean by "to show light information". I think their vertices hold position, normal, texture and maybe color information, that's it.
From the looks of it I'd say - deferred rendering and blinn lights. Oh, and their shadows are buggy.

Also, the picture that you attached has nothing to do with lights. Its a vertex representation of the wall.


DK2 uses something called gouraud shading, where the light information is interpolated at the vertex level, more vertices in the meshe equals better looking shading. Thats why I posted the mesh pic.

Also deferred rendering wasn't something that was possible in 1999, or do you mean deferred at the vertex level?


Oh, and their shadows are buggy.


Care to explain why? This might hold some clues on how DK2 calculates light.

Hapuga
February 6th, 2014, 22:07
Care to explain why? This might hold some clues on how DK2 calculates light.

Well, deferred shading was invented in the 80s, I believe some form of implementation could be found in 1999.

It looks like the shadow is being calculated from a limited amount of light sources (4 as far as I can tell), due to that, when a creature enters another room, shadow will "jump" around the model.