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Tech Details of BioShock Infinite's Lighting

#1
Steve Anichini, the Principal Graphics Programmer for BioShock Infinite, has written a blog post on BioShock Infinite's Lighting, which describes in considerable detail the graphical techniques used to render the world of Columbia.

I don't pretend to understand more than a fraction of it, but I can get enough through context to think this might be a handy source of technique references and inspiration for any graphics programmers we might have around here. ;)
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Re: Tech Details of BioShock Infinite's Lighting

#2
And here's an opinion from a casual player...

I played Bioshock Infinite on max settings without FPS drop. To me, I didn't notice any difference between the lighting in this game versus some of the other AAA titles I've been playing.

Which tells me, that while there might have been some really good stuff that went into this, if they're going to spend that much time on something that casual gamers may or may not notice, it seems like the talent could have been put elsewhere.
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Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: Tech Details of BioShock Infinite's Lighting

#3
DWMagus wrote:I played Bioshock Infinite on max settings without FPS drop. To me, I didn't notice any difference between the lighting in this game versus some of the other AAA titles I've been playing.
Alternate explanation: the lighting was so good that you didn't even notice all the useful scene-setting and mechanics-supporting things it was doing. ;)

Personally, I was too busy cursing the oppressive limits on my freedom to explore -- or save my game -- to remember much of the visuals. I remember some prettiez, but I also recall breezing past them once it was obvious that everything was a façade with no actual depth.

Of what use is beauty that can't be embraced?

But that's for another thread; this one is just meant to highlight a nicely detailed technical piece on the effort that went into those visuals.
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Re: Tech Details of BioShock Infinite's Lighting

#4
DWMagus wrote:And here's an opinion from a casual player...

I played Bioshock Infinite on max settings without FPS drop. To me, I didn't notice any difference between the lighting in this game versus some of the other AAA titles I've been playing.

Which tells me, that while there might have been some really good stuff that went into this, if they're going to spend that much time on something that casual gamers may or may not notice, it seems like the talent could have been put elsewhere.
The big thing graphics programmers go for these days isn't so much making better effects than cryengine. Moreso, they try to optimize and innovate new algorithms that allow greater graphics with less FPS impact.

Implementing a lot of high-end graphics algorithms is not a difficult thing to do for graphics programmers. The difficult part comes from making it all work fast on an "average" PC
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Re: Tech Details of BioShock Infinite's Lighting

#5
I think a lot of my problem isn't due to the "How good shadows and lighting are", it's more of a "How well to use shadows and lighting".

In something like BioShock Infinite, it was more the former than the latter. But because they may not of been used to the best they could have been (yes, there were some decent scenes), it fell a little flat.

On the other hand, in Doom 3 (ignoring gameplay issues), the lighting and shadows were incredibly superb in delivering atmosphere. Of course, it was also far more pronounced as well. In this scenario, while the shadows and lighting may not have been top-notch, they delivered the point well enough that such things were far more memorable than BioShock.

Knowing when and how to use them trumps how good they are in any situation.
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Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.

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