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Games With Best Lighting?
- Thread starter bridegur
- Start date
Property of Jumpship
Banned
ICO
I dont know how to post pictures, but if you have never seen this game you are a loser.
I dont know how to post pictures, but if you have never seen this game you are a loser.
If it ran better than 30fps (sometimes, if its lucky) I would say Splinter Cell.
Beyon that, its really a matter of the "kind" of lighting you are talking about. Realistic, interactive, textured, volumetric, etc...
Half-life 2 gets the award for using "bloom" correctly and not overdoing it. So I say HL2.
Beyon that, its really a matter of the "kind" of lighting you are talking about. Realistic, interactive, textured, volumetric, etc...
Half-life 2 gets the award for using "bloom" correctly and not overdoing it. So I say HL2.
Kleegamefan
K. LEE GAIDEN
I don't have any pix, but I would say Doom 3....
MrAngryFace
Banned
On a technical level Doom 3's lighting is god damned fucking amazing.
Shin Johnpv
Member
are you talking about from a technical stand point or from an artistic stand point
because yeah DOOM 3 had some great lighting but i think alot of it, like most of doom3 was boring and not used artistically IMHO
because yeah DOOM 3 had some great lighting but i think alot of it, like most of doom3 was boring and not used artistically IMHO
I agree with PV.
I don't think it would be a very interesting thread to argue completely technically. Artistically, though, Half-Life 2 is probably my favorite, and with the HDR coming I think it will be absolutely unmatched as far as just looking spectacular.
Splinter Cell CT, Ico, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, Rygar, GT4, PGR2, all feature some absolutely beautiful lighting as well, whether artistic or technical.
I don't think it would be a very interesting thread to argue completely technically. Artistically, though, Half-Life 2 is probably my favorite, and with the HDR coming I think it will be absolutely unmatched as far as just looking spectacular.
Splinter Cell CT, Ico, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, Rygar, GT4, PGR2, all feature some absolutely beautiful lighting as well, whether artistic or technical.
SpeedingUptoStop
will totally Facebook friend you! *giggle* *LOL*
Riddick, Doom 3, or SC. it's a complete toss up.
Spectral Glider
Member
HL2, Riddick, Thief Deadly Shadows. Far Cry wasn't bad.
Doom3's lighting is as overrated as its gameplay.
Doom3's lighting is as overrated as its gameplay.
Spectral Glider
Member
The games I've listed impressed me on a much higher scale than anything Doom did. Sorry, it's my take.
Say what you want about Doom 3's gameplay and character design (lord knows I have), but I think the lighting is definitely tops, both technically and artistically.
In fact the weaknesses of those first two aspects only reinforce for me how well done the lighting is. The tense atmosphere is almost entirely due to lighting and light effects (with some help from sound)--passages of pure darkness, lit only by your flashlight or the glow of an imp fireball? Following the sentry robot's headlight as it moved ahead of you, or the glow of that tube as it was transported down the hall? Almost all my favorite memories of the game have to do with lighting--it's very rare I can say that.
I mean, come -on-, look at that shit!
Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, and a few of the REs are other good canidates.
In fact the weaknesses of those first two aspects only reinforce for me how well done the lighting is. The tense atmosphere is almost entirely due to lighting and light effects (with some help from sound)--passages of pure darkness, lit only by your flashlight or the glow of an imp fireball? Following the sentry robot's headlight as it moved ahead of you, or the glow of that tube as it was transported down the hall? Almost all my favorite memories of the game have to do with lighting--it's very rare I can say that.
I mean, come -on-, look at that shit!
Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, and a few of the REs are other good canidates.
-=::[Eagle-Vision]::=-
Banned
Rebel Strike. The dynamic soft shadows in the forest are awesome.
midnightguy
Member
Virtua Fighter 4 series - NAOMI 2 Arcade
-=::[Eagle-Vision]::=-
Banned
Doom 3. I know a lot of people dismiss it automatically because of the general artistic choices but I'm still really impressed with what Carmack and co. managed to do. Screenshots are pointless in this regard because they look just like how normal lightmapped scenes do - in motion, when you see everything casting shadows and react to the moving ambient lights is where it really shines. Nobody else has done a unified lighting engine because nobody else even thought it could be done.
evilromero
Member
Doom 3 hands down.
BuckRobotron
Member
Gotta go with Doom 3 and the Xbox/PC Splinter Cells.
Shin Johnpv
Member
MarkMacD said:Say what you want about Doom 3's gameplay and character design (lord knows I have), but I think the lighting is definitely tops, both technically and artistically.
In fact the weaknesses of those first two aspects only reinforce for me how well done the lighting is. The tense atmosphere is almost entirely due to lighting and light effects (with some help from sound)--passages of pure darkness, lit only by your flashlight or the glow of an imp fireball? Following the sentry robot's headlight as it moved ahead of you, or the glow of that tube as it was transported down the hall? Almost all my favorite memories of the game have to do with lighting--it's very rare I can say that.
I mean, come -on-, look at that shit!
Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, and a few of the REs are other good canidates.
there is nothing amazing about the lighting in any of the pictures you posted
Project Midway
Member
Wreckless
Wreckless 2 is looking good too:
Wreckless 2 is looking good too:
Spider_Jerusalem
Member
Technically Riddick, Doom 3 and Splinter Cell are kings. Infact, these are all games that rely on their lighting model to build up their gameplay.
Artistically (ie best lightmaps design), a good winner could be RE4.
Artistically (ie best lightmaps design), a good winner could be RE4.
hukasmokincaterpillar
Member
I think its a little harsh to penalize Doom 3's lighting artistically since its breaking completely new ground on a technical level. Holding it to standards as creative as mapped lighting where developers have been required for years to make artistic choices to get the most out of the model isn't a good comparison. The art has to catch up to the tech first. In this case the tech has overwhelming merit though since it'll pave the way. Its a "first talkies" type milestone for videogame development.
To be fair I do think iD did do some nifty things from a design point, the aformentioned robot leading the way with its multi-directional high beam through the pitch black maintenence level being one. Simple but effective.
And yeah, screen shots are hardly going to do much justice to the quality of lighting in any game. Let alone one thats completely real time.
To be fair I do think iD did do some nifty things from a design point, the aformentioned robot leading the way with its multi-directional high beam through the pitch black maintenence level being one. Simple but effective.
And yeah, screen shots are hardly going to do much justice to the quality of lighting in any game. Let alone one thats completely real time.
hukasmokincaterpillar said:I think its a little harsh to penalize Doom 3's lighting artistically since its breaking completely new ground on a technical level. Holding it to standards as creative as mapped lighting where developers have been required for years to make artistic choices to get the most out of the model isn't a good comparison. The art has to catch up to the tech first. In this case the tech has overwhelming merit though since it'll pave the way. Its a "first talkies" type milestone for videogame development.
To be fair I do think iD did do some nifty things from a design point, the aformentioned robot leading the way with its multi-directional high beam through the pitch black maintenence level being one. Simple but effective.
And yeah, screen shots are hardly going to do much justice to the quality of lighting in any game. Let alone one thats completely real time.
The thing is, Riddick actually pulled off the same kind of lighting model months prior to the release of Doom 3. It also made heavy use of pixel shaders for other effects (which Doom 3 did not). Riddick's lighting model is pretty much on par with Doom 3's and is only really held back by the fact that the world it is used in is geometrically simple.
Also, while nowhere near as robust, Silent Hill 2 (back in 2001) was the first game I can think of that featured projected soft shadows from all objects. However, shadows could only be cast from ONE light source (the flashlight). Still, unlike Doom 3, the game featured soft shadows and used those shadows in a very artistic manner.
100Bullets
Member
Riddick and the Pc system specs were also pretty reasonable even with all that eye candy and ran perfectly.
SH2 shadows were cast from one light source for performance reasons - similar to why D3 shipped with non-shadowcasting projectile light sources. XBox Doom3 has a much lower number of shadowcasting lightsources then PC counterpart too.
But yep, underlying lighting model was quite similar - point lights + volume shadows, and that didn't stump the artists on that project
