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Export Scripts - Part 8

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Lighting

Lighting is relatively simple in our engine; it uses a simple vertex lighting system where lights can have one of the following properties: Static Some geometry is loaded in statically, and thus can be treated this way in the lighting system (for performance benefits). Static lights will only affect static geometry, which are really only the background tiles. Static lights are pretty much only used on the tiles themselves, for small amounts of shading. For this setting, leave both checks of "Is Dynamic" and "Affects Dynamic" un-clicked. Dynamic Dynamic lights affect both types of geometry in the same way. We use these lights only for animating lights like torches and spell effects. As they are calculation intensive, dynamic lights should be used sparingly if possible. For this setting, click both checks of "Is Dynamic" and "Affects Dynamic". Hybrid This flag counts a light as both static and dynamic. As long as the light does not move, it can light static geometry statically and dynamic geometry dynamically. We use the lights for the sun model, and all the predominant tile related lights we can. It's the best of both worlds, giving you control over both types without the performance hit that a pure dynamic light gives. To have this setting, just click "Affects Dynamic Objects".

Other functions in Aurora Light:

1. Lens Flares

   Most of these settings are self-explanatory, but the flare radius is in cm and the "Position" is a value from -1 to +1 of where the flare will occur (see description below spinner). We didn't use this function as much as I would have liked… the main reason for this is because lens flares will only get occluded by walkmesh geometry. Walkmesh will be described in another document, as it is fairly specific to creating tiles.

2. Fading Light

   When a light (connected to a model) is loaded or dropped from a scene, the light can effectively 'flick' on and off. If this check is on, the light will take a moment to fade on or off for a better overall feel. In some cases it's best to have this un-checked, for things like spells where you want the light to be at it's brightest as soon as it appears.

3. Multiplier

   It's tough to explain this one… first of all, a multiplier can make a negative light in our engine, which is quiet useful for darkening corners and general shading (some spells too!). We also use this to enlarge the inside radius of a light as the lighting system clamps at 1, and if a light has a multiplier that goes above this, then it will simply push the inside radius out further (but will keep the outside radius to the correct setting.

4. Priority

   Aurora has a light manager to prevent the engine from counting too many lights that affect dynamic objects. This relates to the light count setting in the game. In order for the manager to know which lights it can cull from the list first, we assign a priority number to it, from 1-5, 1 being the highest priority. This is the general scheme we used:

   1. The sun/moon
   2. Torches/ light spells
   3. Spells, general lights (which is why a new light will have this number as default)
   4. Un-needed tile lights
   5. Magic weapon lights. (for example)

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