Lighting plays a crucial role in the perception of a game, shaping its overall aesthetics and mood. It is essential for creating visual depth, evoking mood, and providing information to help players play. Poorly lit spaces often feel stale, flat, unfinished, or confusing. In games, lighting design is a complex science and art that can profoundly shape the game environment.
Various types of lights are used in games, and the calculation methods in game engines are explored. Five popular lighting techniques are discussed, their pros and cons, and their impact on the game’s visuals. Lighting can portray moods, convey emotions, and create shadows, reflections, and other effects. The lighting and shadowing of surfaces are dynamic, constantly changing with environmental conditions and the player’s actions.
Good lighting in a game has several key benefits, including visual appeal, utilitarian functionality, and directional cues. Most contemporary games use lighting as a utility tool, with most calculations done by running shader programs.
Video game lighting is more important than most people think, as a lighting artist is responsible for the overall look and feel of the entire game. Lighting is about picking and choosing only what is needed, and most game engines allow for setting one light to turn off shadows or set different colors.
As a lighting artist, the goal is to ensure that the game looks as good as possible within the art direction. Lighting and sound design are two powerful tools that game designers have to create immersive and memorable game levels.
📹 Are you lighting things like this?… – One Minute Game Design
Light is one of the most powerful things for game developers to use. In this One Minute Game design short tutorial, we look at how …
Why does lighting matter so much?
Light and color have psychological effects on health and well-being, impacting cognition, mood, and performance. Bright light intensifies emotions, while low light keeps emotions steady. Proper lighting in workspaces can facilitate rational decisions during negotiations or meetings, regardless of location. The intensity of light can either amplify or dampen emotions, ensuring a healthy environment for productivity and focus.
How to become a lighting artist in games?
A Lighting Artist is a professional who creates lighting for pre-rendered 3D scenes or real-time video games, enhancing characters and environments while maintaining a consistent visual style. They translate artistic and directorial intentions into scene lighting, create high-quality lighting in various environments, optimize all lighting elements, and use lighting to convey emotional experiences. They master technical and artistic aspects of lighting, prepare presentation materials for validation and reviews, perform retakes, stay updated on advancements in lighting techniques and rendering engines, contribute to the improvement of the production pipeline, adhere to deadlines and production schedules, and collaborate closely with relevant departments.
Is lighting more important than textures?
It is impossible to overstate the significance of lighting and texturing in photorealistic rendering. The implementation of appropriate lighting serves to establish the desired ambience, accentuate pertinent details, and augment the realism of the composition. Conversely, the incorporation of texturing facilitates the creation of depth, enables the replication of materials, and fosters a tangible connection with the subject matter. The mastery of these principles enables artists to create visually stunning and lifelike renders.
Is lighting useful in any way?
Lightning, or thunder, is a powerful force that has numerous benefits. It dissolves unusable nitrogen in water, creating a natural fertilizer that is absorbed by plant roots, aiding in nitrogen fixation. Additionally, lightning produces ozone, a crucial gas that protects our planet from harmful UV rays. Nitrogen is essential for other living beings, as it breaks down nitrogen bonds in nature, which require high energy to break.
Lightning provides this energy, breaking nitrogen bonds and mixing them with oxygen and hydrogen to form nitrates, which are essential for the existence of life on Earth. Lightning is an electric current, created by collisions between frozen raindrops, which create an electric charge, making it a vital component in the origin and evolution of life on Earth.
Is game design major hard?
The field of game design presents a challenging career path, characterized by intense competition and the constant necessity for innovation. Nevertheless, with perseverance and the establishment of long-term objectives, it can prove to be a rewarding and fulfilling pursuit. Those who are willing to work hard and demonstrate dedication will find that a fulfilling and rewarding career is within their reach.
Is a game design degree easy?
A bachelor’s in game design typically requires 120 credits and takes four years to complete. Some schools offer bachelor’s-to-master’s programs, allowing students to earn both degrees in less time. The program includes a general education curriculum with language arts, math, and science courses, followed by a core major curriculum covering interactive media, level design, and digital audio production.
Students often complete their program with a capstone project and co-op experiences to develop soft and hard skills in real-world work environments. Admission requirements vary by school, but typically include a high school diploma with four years of math, two years in science, and a few computer science, arts, and media courses.
Why do designers like designing with light?
Interior design projects often lack the depth and energy that come from expertly placed lighting. The balance of light and shade is crucial in creating depth, height, cozy spots, and attracting attention to impressive areas. An architect or interior designer may only incorporate a grid of downlights into their plans, which may not fully capture the design. Therefore, it is essential to work with lighting design experts to maximize the impact of your space.
Design Associate Sabrina Fiorina emphasizes the importance of lighting in interior design, stating that it is as important as every other element of the design. Good lighting transforms a space, making it feel comfortable and dramatic. For example, a downlight can highlight an artwork on a wall, while a darker area around it draws the eye to the artwork.
How important is lighting in design?
Lighting is a crucial element in interior design, as it transforms a space into a comfortable and dramatic environment. It can be used to highlight artwork, add depth to a room, or create a focal point. The skill of interior designers involves combining various lighting options such as downlights, uplights, wall lights, floor lights, hidden lights, feature lights, integrated architectural lighting, pendants, and lamps to create the ideal architectural lighting design.
There are four main types of lighting in interior design: ambient, task, accent, and decorative lighting. Each type serves a distinct purpose and, when layered together, can create a harmonious and visually stunning environment. By combining different strategies, designers can create the ideal architectural lighting design solution for each room. Overall, lighting plays a vital role in creating a well-balanced and inviting interior.
Can I teach myself to make video games?
Video games can be created using various programming languages, including JavaScript, Java, and Swift. JavaScript is a popular choice for creating mobile apps and games, as it can be combined with HTML, CSS, and the PhoneGap platform. With millions of people already having working JavaScript knowledge, it is a simple and accessible way to create games. Other languages like Python, Ruby, and Java can also be used for creating complex games for computers or consoles.
Developing a game with JavaScript is straightforward, as it requires a deep understanding of these languages and their capabilities. With a background in programming, applying experience in game development is straightforward.
Is game design a fun career?
Game design is a lucrative and rewarding career for those interested in creating video games for the public. On average, game designers earn $68, 000 per year and the industry is expected to experience rapid growth in the coming years. This profession blends artistry and games, allowing professionals to apply multiple creative and technical skills daily. Game enthusiasts can find fulfillment in creating engaging storylines and beautiful visual effects, making game design a promising career path for those who love gaming.
📹 How Lighting (Basically) Works in Games
Edit: There is a mistake towards the beginning. A green object REFLECTS green and absorbs everything else. I had this fixed on …
Small correction – at 1:15 it should be “reflects red light and absorbs all the other colors”. The reason it looks red is because red is the only color that bounces off and gets to our eyes – the other colors are absorbed, so they don’t get reflected back. So shining blue light onto a red object makes it appear black because blue is not reflected.
Tiny note on the lighting equations: The extra cos theta is unnecessary since N dot L ~= cos theta, and what this means is simply that the more parallel the lighting vector is to normal vector, the brighter the shading should be. Along with a solution for specular reflection (simulated using an exponent in Phong shading), this pretty much describes all of article game lighting up until about 10 years ago, definitely all real-time lighting (games as early as Quake 2 had pre-calculated radiosity, the reflection of a light ray from one surface to another). Speaking of, you know what would be a neat article series? The history of article game lighting, from the flat shading of Alone in the Dark and Starfox to the hand-shaded surfaces of the 2.5D shooters, to lightmaps, to per-pixel lighting and normal maps (Chronicles of Riddick, of all games, is the first I remember with this feature), to the ubiquity of the Unreal Engine’s deferred rendering, to the modern era of of global illumination and materials based lighting. How something works is interesting, but how something’s changed over time is probably more interesting, since the former is usually pure math.
A red object absorbs ALL light of all colors EXCEPT RED. Only red light is reflected, as a result the object seems to be red. Black objects absorb (nearly) all visible light, white objects reflect nearly all light. Generally light is electromagnetic radiation and our eyes are constructed to be able to register it. Purple light has the highest frequency, red the lowest (Visible Light!). Before Purple, visible light comes UV (ultraviolet) light, after red comes IR (infrared).
Hi! That article was once again great! I really like your “How X Works in Games”-videos. However I find it a bit odd that you talk for the first nearly 6 minutes about the game design aspect of lighting, then you state that you aren’t an expert in that topic but you know the math and theory behind lighting much better. After that you just take around 2.5 minutes to talk about the math and theory of lighting models. Personally I am more interested in the “technical theory”-part. Of course the game design part is important as well but there are already quite a few websites covering that while I don’t know a single one that covers the technical part as well as you do. I’m not telling you to remove the game design aspect I’d just recommend to maybe balance the two. Ok, enough critique. Let’s talk about lighting: using OpenGL I have already messed around with lighting on a lower level quite a bit. The lighting models you have mentioned describe pretty well how lighting is done in most games. However when you apply just those lighting effects to a bigger scene with multiple objects you lack an important thing: depth perception. The solution to this are shadows. Unfortunately all common solutions to create shadows in a rendered scene are ugly hacks. The two most common one are shadow maps which get pixely and blurry and volumetric shadows which are computationally expensive. If we would render scenes using ray tracing there would be nicer and cleaner solutions, but that’s rarely done for different reasons.
When you used Bloom Waker: HD as game that reflected too much light, that was good joke, but you should have immediately followed it up with Doom 3 when you said games could have too little light. Oh wait, but then you complimented it. I don’t think anyone denies that Wind Waker: HD looks like a better game than the GameCube version, (though that’s questionable when it runs on Dolphin at ultra setting), but clearly, they oversaturated the game with reflection. In regards to the Order, whether the elements aside from the visuals were so utterly inadequate that it made the visuals almost immaterial in judging the game, I won’t say, but if you look at the game’s, you can clearly see numerous tricks the developers used to achieve high fidelity that it became distracting. Uncharted 4 approaches the visual fidelity of The Order and it’s actually a game.
Actually Quantum Physics got light wrong, photons, a quantum packet of light, just so you know I know the definition lol, dont actually exist but light is more of a ripple on the ether like sonmeone standing in a pond and waving their arms forming waves. So I agree light is an electro-magnetic wave but it is more on the lines of pressure and flow. This makes the speed of light non-existent since light doesnt have speed. It would fill this comment on explaining it but you get the picture and if you subscribe to the Quantum Theory, we will agree to disagree.
5:18 I dont agree with this, i feel like good game design should make you want to explore instead of blasting past everything, the aim shouldnt be to get to the next part and to the next part, the fun should be in solving the mystery otherwise whats the point? and lets say you ARE invested and want to solve the mystery, spotlights make it too easy you dont feel like you figured out this amazing mystery yourself you feel like the game is holding your hand saying: “look here stupid!” then you start blindly walking from one highlighted thing to the next and then it just becomes a task and a chore, you stop thinking and just do, im sure most people know what im talking about. Im the sort of person that when i visit a new town/city i want to see the locals and what its really like to live there not see the tacky tourist attractions.
dude now i feel like an idiot for totally ignoring those sign an bible verses in bioshock infinite. i just rushed through the tower like an idiot. i just wanted to get the part i start killing stuff as soon as possible. and really thats all i do nowadays. long ago i used take my time and go everywhere/break the game. but back then there was like one game per year that worked on my pc. and there wasn’t that many games either.
1:17 just because no ones pointed this out yet from what i see: you said it backwards. If a ball is red that means it reflects red light and absorbs all other wavelengths. the red light leaves the source, reflects off the ball and back to your eyes. black means everything was absorbed thats why black things get hotter in the sun because the energy is absorbed and heats up the material
In my opinion, as far as math and physics goes, I think you should give us what you got, and connect it with programming using lots of jargon and very brief explanations without distracting from the main topic. This is because it seems like you’ve covered most of basics in game design, and the tough concepts are up to the viewer to research, and terms and subconcepts that are not understood by the viewer are just a Google search away. I like how you include the mathematical methods and programming terms already because they’re all huge concepts on their own. I’m just saying this cause I decided to take up tensor calculus with just a basic exposure to linear algebra and I’ve found myself somehow handling the information density by supplementing the material with further imbedded research during the article. Also the guy is an outstanding educator and so are you so I think you should make an “advanced” segment cause I know you want to share your physics knowledge but avoid it 😉
So when light hits an object and reflects from it and then comes to your retina, you see the object. So what you see is what is reflected. If ball looks red, it reflects red. If you strike a ball which was red under white light, with a light which has only green and yellow, Ball will absorb these two colors and will look black.
The interesting thing is that light sources themselves aren’t usually active: The actual (surface-) shaders of objects themselves will look for nearby or global light sources and compute the surface color from that – traditionally, no ray casting from the light source itself is actually done here. The light sources themselves are merely abstract properties sitting around to be read. There are other things like image and lighting effects where raycasting may be done, but that’s not usually the case
interesting article, love the The Order 1886 shoutout at the end. I still feel somewhat bad for the studio for the sheer amount of undue hatred they got tossed their way. By the way, I have a question for you. Not sure if you’re the best person to ask, but you’re the best person to answer this question who I personally know of, so here goes. I’m 25 years old and looking to get into computer science next year. I have 9 months to get my fundamentals up to scratch when it comes to the maths required. Do you reckon that’s doable at all, for the average person?
Thanks for all you do. I just started game design a few months ago and made a mistake of jumping right in without any understanding of the basics. perusal your vids really helped me to comprehend and think about how I need to go about creating artistic and interesting assets. Please keep up the great work!
You are super intelligent, more so then me, I know obscure facts, but I believe everything that Tesla said and did, so that way you know what I believe when it comes to physics. Gravity and Relativity are BS and there is alot we are yet to discover but we will, we came this far. I love an intelligent women. I am not being sarcastic either I mean what I say. I might not be right all the time but I mean it and until I get new evidence, I know what I know and I hope to learn volumes from you.