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Lighting & shadowing techniques

Started by CadeF Jan 20, 2006 at 9:03 PM 6 replies 950+ views

Original Post

Jan 20, 2006 at 9:03 PM

Hey everyone. In your current projects, what techniques do you use for lighting & shadowing? In my current engine, which is a week old, I use N.L lighting (currently implementing bumpmapping) and indirect shadow mapping.

Yes, those shadows are realtime. The FPS is between 80 and 85 with vsync, 150-200 with 2 lights without vsync. ;) I'm asking, because Im curious about other methods I could use and what method I should use for lighting. Thanks, Cade

Armadon

Jan 21, 2006 at 1:55 AM

Generally people do whatever and their aren't really set rules but there are shadow volumes, shadow maps... and lighting models are generally also just as diverse. I generally use N.L and per pixel lighting as it gives a greater lighting effect.
Look at this page for a list of shadow rendering techniques.

I hope this helps.
Take care.

jollyjeffers

Jan 21, 2006 at 6:37 AM

this PDF is a summary of 5 lighting models that I've been researching for a project of mine. You can get some very impressive results simply by getting the right model for the right kind of surface. Regular N•L / Blinn-Phong variants can end up looking very fake/plastic-like - the wood in your image just doesn't look like wood to me [wink]

hth
Jack

CadeF

Jan 21, 2006 at 6:40 AM

When I took the picture, yesterday, I only had shadows implemented, the lighting was N dot L. Now, it has bumpmapping and parallax mapping. Right now, I am working on specular. :)

matches81

Jan 21, 2006 at 8:37 AM

@JollyJeffers: Interesting PDF you got there :) Could you provide me / us with some comparison screen-shots of the different lighting models or tell me / us some guide-lines which model to use for which occasion (e.g. to make a wood textures quad look like wood and so on)?
Would be great in order to decide which model to use for which occasion.

CadeF

Jan 21, 2006 at 8:49 AM

For different materials, I will use a custom (for the material,eg,wood,stone) HLSL shader. I have a material system in place, but right now, it only contains the base texture and the bump map(with the heightmap in the alpha channel).

Currently, my lighting pass does
-Texture mapping
-Diffuse lighting (with specular applied using the bump map)
-Bump mapping
-Self shadowing bump maps
-Displacement (parallax) mapping

What else should I do?

jollyjeffers

Jan 21, 2006 at 9:20 AM

Quote:
Original post by matches81
@JollyJeffers: Interesting PDF you got there :) Could you provide me / us with some comparison screen-shots of the different lighting models or tell me / us some guide-lines which model to use for which occasion (e.g. to make a wood textures quad look like wood and so on)?
Would be great in order to decide which model to use for which occasion.

It's still work in progress, but as-and-when I get some results I'll probably be posting them in my journal [smile]

Although, I will warn you that the PDF is likely to change sometime soon. Ysaneya pointed a few differences between the equations I have and some he found. I put together mine from various different sources - and they don't all agree [headshake]

Jack

jamesw

Jan 21, 2006 at 12:49 PM

That's a great resource! I'm gonna memorize it like the back of my hand. Thanks to Armadon and jollyjeffers for the great links. Maybe this should be stickied?

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