h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Fascinating, fascinating. Sounds fun, do you enjoy it?

Mostly.

Except the oceans. Can't bear oceans.

Tim

Very interesting. I'm a theatre lighting designer, and I was wondering -- do games designers have people that just specialise in lighting? I've played a few games, and there's always something wrong with the lighting. Usually it doesn't make sense; sometimes it's just boring. The rest of the time, it's nicked off Alien. You're in the biz - do you foresee a time where a game would have a lighting designer?
Please say yes. And then please say now.

First of all, I agree with you completely - the lighting in most games is not good. Having witnessed the process, I can attest that it's in a large way due to the fact that 3D modellers/level designers etc. don't put logical lights in the same place as physical lights.

The state-of-the-art at the moment seems to be "add some lights and move them around until it looks ok". Combine that with the current fad of "our engine can do coloured lighting, so by God we're going to use it", and it's all a bit sad really.

On one game I worked on, one of the 3D artists used to be a theatre lighting designer, but it didn't seem to help any. This may be more related to that person though.

I've certainly seen enough renders where the shadows bear no relation to the visible light sources.

But anyway, what's wrong with nicking it from Alien?

As for a lighting designer role on games, I'd like to have someone doing that on our next game project, but it's not necessarily enough to fill a full-time role. Combined with a role equivalent to Director of Photography, and in some cases maybe even Art Direction, it would probably be a good idea.

Tim

Thanks for your reply. As well as the logical use of light, there are also loads of theatrical tricks you can use, which can greatly improve atmosphere of games. In theatre, we use lighting changes to cause pschological cues in the audience. For instance, if there is a sinister moment, you can gradually add cold colours over the whole stage, over a few minutes. This is not usually consciously noticable to the audience, but can change the atmosphere sublinimally. They can be terrifically effective. And wouldn't it be great in games if you were actually blinded by light sometimes, or the setting sun created huge shadows?

I am not advocating ultra -realistic lighting by any means though. There is no reason why lighting should resemble the real world. Realism in games is just a pardigm; there's no need for it. As long as everything makes sense in the game-world, you should be able to do what you want.

Anyway, I think you're probably right - games are more like film than theatre; though I relish the day when this isn't necessarily so. It is a strange though - when total player involvement is the thing, why stick to the schema of film?

anyway...

Damn these numbers. I'm Alan.