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Hi All,
I and a friend of mine are working on a survival horror game in the Torque Game Engine for our third year project. Needless to say we would like to get some really dark nightime scenes lit my distant lights and also the ability to carry a light source for our hero.
Now, I have 2 books, 3D game programming all in one and the official torque guide, but all the code and examples I have are in day time.
we have very limited time to do this and I was wondering if anyone here ha s experience of making a nightime scene with the standard Torque game engine or should we shell out for the Lighting engine add on ?
Any ideas here would be greatly appreciated.Rob
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Turn off the lights in the scene and use point lights for the characters torch etc? What your looking for isnt really a torque specific effect, you should be able to find plenty of examples for other engines\api’s etc.
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If you are just looking at lighting for Torque and not Torque Shader have a look at:
http://www.garagegames.com/products/36
It’s only $50 and should pretty much sort out any lighting solutions you are after.
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Why would you shell out $50 for a uni project…a simple lighting system like peter_b said should be easy to implement
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Don’t forget about the community forums behind Torque, chances are if you want to do something its already been tried by someone there so they’d be able to help you in a more Torque-specific way.
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“3d game programming all in one” , great book !! I have it too !
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Why would you shell out $50 for a uni project…a simple lighting system like peter_b said should be easy to implement[/quote:14651d693e]
It’s $50, which comes in around 39 – 40 euro.
Given that he could spend between 3 – 10 hours putting in his own basic implementation. Even if he only considered his time worth minimum wage. It effectively pays for itself.
I am not saying it’s the best option, but I am saying it is a viable option. Why reInvent the wheel at a greater cost or time, when you can simply buy it, plug it in and focus on the main tasks at hand.
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It’s $50, which comes in around 39 – 40 euro.
Given that he could spend between 3 – 10 hours putting in his own basic implementation. Even if he only considered his time worth minimum wage. It effectively pays for itself.
I am not saying it’s the best option, but I am saying it is a viable option. Why reInvent the wheel at a greater cost or time, when you can simply buy it, plug it in and focus on the main tasks at hand.[/quote:b3cb1222d9]
For a student, the time would be much better spent actually writing lighting code than spending time plugging in someone else’s code.
The whole point of uni projects is learning stuff, not using someone else’s code… -
Reckon time spent writing the actual lighting code would be better. Its a college project and an employer would definately prefer to see that the candidate could code the system up from scratch. Also you’d learn alot from the task.
Unless of course time is a huge constraint and the project is very ambitious. Although i would be very careful with large ambitious projects in 3rd year. Its probably your first full project, where you get say over every detail from design\spec\code. A dangerous thing.. :?
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I dont know if I can offer that much help, since I haven’t used Torque yet (will be though next year if all goes to plan) and I’m not sure if your question is more to do with the actual implementation or the theory behind it- but the approach I would take in theory to doing a night scene in the likes of OpenGL (possibly a naive one too) would be something like this:
Do a rendering pass with one big light (a point light) overhead the entire outdoor scene in order to simulate the moonlight. Also add in a certain amount of ambient light to get rid of the total darkness and to fake the light bouncing off of surfaces. Adjust the colors and intensities of the moonlight and ambient light until you are happy with the result. Shadows would also play a very important part the effect.. Seeing moonlight make its way in between gaps of trees in a forest would be a very cool and atmospheric effect indeed..
Then for each additional light (say for your torch lights and such) do an extra rendering pass with the scene lit only by the light source in question and combine it with the first pass we done. Again shadows would be nice.
Now this is slightly simplified (shadows do not take 1 pass) and how you’d translate such an approach to torque I don’t know! But be sure to drop by at gamedev.net as well, there are plenty of smart folks on those forums who may have already used the engine and who might be able to offer more help.
Good luck anyhow.
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I would not bother with the point light for the moon.. just use directional lighting.
Also I would look at baking static lights into you world enviorment.. (light maps etc…)
After that a bloom effect (simple enough shader (or stencil) prolly find one in the dx examples ) would give you some nice effects just has the moon shimmering through the trees etc….
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y2kprawn,
You should review Game Programmers Guide To Torque (google books should have sample chapters free to review) as well as Advanced Game Programming All in One (which is the follow up book for advanced programming with Torque.)
Night-time scenes, and weather systems are covered pretty well in
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Programmers-Guide-Torque-GarageGames/dp/1568812841
Which is a good book for learning the features available in TGE fast.
As some of the board members mentioned, your time may be better spent writing your own “Mood Manager” which would interface with your “Light Manager” and/or “Audio Manager” (if atmosphere is what you are hoping to achieve).
However, the ability to use middleware (which appears to be what you are doing) is a great skill, and if a product ships with the functionality to meet your System Requirements, then you are a smart man to make good use of existing code. Most employers will look for programmers who can get the tasks completed. The exception to this would obviously be an Engine Programmer, who would be considered with writing everything from the ground up.
If you are seeking an Engine Programmer position, write your “Mood Manager” from scratch. If your seeking a Gameplay Programmer post or equivalent, then make effective use of the available functionality from your middleware.
B.
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