Lighting Design
What do games do?
What is the next step?
Why Lighting?
Dramatic Tension
Visual Focus
Style
Feel of the space
Time of Day
Period
visibility
Lighting in Traditional Media
e.g., Temporal Color Modulation
Study of several movies led to discovery of
several temporal color patterns:
Contrast from in terms of hue from warm to cool
Contrast from in terms of saturation
Game Lighting: Mirroring
Traditional Media Techniques
Static lighting design
Dynamic lighting effects
Static Lighting Design
Manually setting light layout
(light maps)
x =
Advantages:
realistic Images from Lightmaps (static shadowmaps) article written by Kurt Miller from:
http://www.flipcode.com/articles/article_lightmaps.shtml
Controllable
Disadvantages:
Don’t adapt to variations
in the environment
Requires much memory
Image from Max Payne
Dynamic Lighting Design
Manually scripting Lighting effects
Advantages:
Adapt to changes
better gameplay
cinematic effects
Problems:
Repetition of patterns
Restricted patterns
Do not adapt well to
unpredictable user patterns
Images from Doom 3
Problems: No modulation
Screenshot from Mission 21 Saturation Graph
Devil May Cry for Screenshot
Problems (Blade of Darkness): No
adaptation to game Play
Problems (Half Life 2: Episode One):
Repetitive Design Patterns
Lighting Design Methods
Develop a lighting plot or setup based on:
Narrative configuration:
Story
Conflict/dramatic tension
Timing and dramatic progression
Physical Configuration:
Camera orientation
and position
Characters positions
and orientations
Issue 1
Unpredictability
Problem 1: unpredictability
Develop a lighting plot or setup based on:
Narrative configuration:
Story
Conflict/dramatic tension
Timing and dramatic progression
Physical Configuration: depend
Camera orientation on user
and position
Characters positions
and orientations
Need to redesign for every change
Lighting can be part of
gameplay
E.g.1: Stealth Based Games
But can be much more
dynamic and responsive to
game play
E.g. 2: Dynamic environments (e.g.
Rez)
Or a new Interactive
Performance: Painting with Light
Intelligent Systems
Pressure +
Physiological
Sensors
Issue 2
Lighting is part of the gameplay –
Dynamic manipulation of lighting
Game Lighting: Mirroring
Traditional Media Techniques
Static lighting design
Dynamic lighting effects
Game Lighting: New Methods –
a dynamic system based on
traditional lighting techniques
Dynamic Lighting Design for
Games is Hard: why?
Allow Dynamic Lighting
Artistic control for style
low-level balancing of context and
lighting parameters but provide
continuity
ELE – Expressive Lighting Engine
A lighting system that:
Intelligently adjusts
lighting in real-time accommodate
context and effect
Based on cinematic
theory
Allow artist to control
lighting at a high-level
ELE
ELE
Artistic Previous Current
Constraints State State
WAMP (World Action
Message Protocol)
Allocation Subsystem
Game/Rendering
Engine
Angle Subsystem
LAMP (Lighting Action
Message Protocol)
Color Subsystem
The three subsystems: use optimization to find best solution
given context, desired effects, state, and artists’ constraints
ELE
ELE
Artistic Previous Current
Constraints State State
WAMP (World Action
Message Protocol)
Allocation Subsystem
Game/Rendering
Engine
Angle Subsystem
LAMP (Lighting Action
Message Protocol)
Color Subsystem
The three subsystems: use optimization to find best solution
given context, desired effects, state, and artists’ constraints
Automatic light allocation
find best allocation
given artistic
constraints:
Modeling
Depth
Visibility
Visual Continuity
Visual Focus
Low vs. high key
Algorithm for dynamic allocation
1. Calculate visible area
2. Divide the zone into overlapping areas
3. Allocate a number of lights to areas,
given that p : L A minimize:
popt
arg max(vV ( p) d D( p) m M ( p) vcVC ( p))
p
depth modeling Visual
visibility
continuity
ELE
ELE
Artistic Previous Current
Constraints State State
WAMP (World Action
Message Protocol)
Allocation Subsystem
Game/Rendering
Engine
Angle Subsystem
LAMP (Lighting Action
Message Protocol)
Color Subsystem
The three subsystems: use optimization to find best solution
given context, desired effects, state, and artists’ constraints
Lighting angle Selection
Select azimuth, elevation angles, given
artistic constraints :
Visual Continuity
Motivation of direction
Visibility
Modeling
Mood
ELE finds best light angles to meet goals
Evaluation of key light angle
visibility & modeling
Light
s Nose
line
k
Camera
From: Millerson’s
The technique of lighting for television and Film, 1991
We described these rules as :
V (k , s) sin(k ) cos( s)
ELE: Angle Subsystem
Artist's setting
120
100
Costs
80
60
40
20
0
y
d
t
as
lit
oo
bi
tr
M
si
on
Vi
C
Showing character’s facial
expressions and gestures
ELE: Angle Subsystem
Artist's settings
120
100
Costs
80
60
40
20
0
y
d
t
as
lit
oo
bi
tr
M
si
on
Vi
C
Mood Angle = side angle
Emphasizing mood and
mystery
ELE: Angle Subsystem
Artist's settings
120
100
Costs
80
60
40
20
0
Showing character’s facial
y
d
t
as
lit
oo
bi
tr
M
si
on
Vi
C
expressions and gestures, high
tension
ELE
ELE
Artistic Previous Current
Constraints State State
WAMP (World Action
Message Protocol)
Allocation Subsystem
Game/Rendering
Engine
Angle Subsystem
LAMP (Lighting Action
Message Protocol)
Color Subsystem
The three subsystems: use optimization to find best solution
given context, desired effects, state, and artists’ constraints
Design Method 1: Use Light
as tension
Dynamic Intelligent
Cinematic Lighting
can make a difference in games
Demo (Dynamic Lighting)
Demo (Static Lighting)
Results of Pilot Study – during
CHI 2005
Non-players liked the visual representation
Liked representation of information through
lighting
Some players said: it made the game too easy
Some gamers said: lighting was disturbing
Design Method 2: Adapting
Difficulty of Spotting
enemies
Adaptive Visual Focus
can make a difference in games
Results of Eye Tracking
Experiments
With ELE:
significantly
faster spotting time
than without
Also:
players didn’t die as quickly
(I do not have the graphs … sorry)
Another Application: User
adjusting Lighting in Sims
or Movies
Blog Entry
Lighting in the game