Dictator93
Member
Wouldn't having no global illumination mean that shadowed would be pitch black? Also wouldn't metals be pitch black in areas where there is no direct lighting without some form of global illumination (indirect specular).
Well, this could just not have 'localised' global illumination. So it probably does use some very rough world capture to make it so shadows are not black and the shadowed face of specular objects are properly lit with the generic world colour at a specific time of day. But what it does not have, as what John was probably hinting at, would be a localised GI with directionality. So for example with local light directionality, you have a light coming into a dark hut, this would then cause local bounce from the opening, close to it and following the direction of the bounce light. Or you have light hitting the bottom of an overhang rock face, and the bottom of this rock face would have localised light reflected up to it from below. I would imagine that the way it is done in this title is a lot coarser and lacks directionality, so you would not get large effects like light bouncing around a corner or indirect shadows, and objects in shadow have a rather uniform indirect light affecting them.
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One thing that is super awesome about the global volumetric lighting in this game is that it actually is done, seemingly at least, via medium. That means there is no global value that applies everywhere and volumetric light shafts are uniform accross the game scape. Rather the volumetrics apply in different density and pockets: so stuff like low valley fog will have volumetric light shafts, while other world areas will scarcely have any (as there is less dense atmosphere to scatter through).
Take a look at this screenshot (if someone had a better screen of the effect, I would be grateful):

Notice how the area above the valley fog, yet below the mountains has very diffuse fog shadows (scarcely any from the moon behind the mountain). Yet the fog in the valley in the tree line (bottom left) has localised and very obvious fog shadows, due to increased atmospheric density there.
I am a big fan of this!