Hello!

I have a problem:
I would like to turn off Ambient color to make lights from sun, moon and bonfires. To make night and caves/dungeons look really dark.

The problem is that if i switch off ambient i get completely dark shadows and places where sun do not shine (as seen on the screenshot below).

But if i switch on Ambient then caves and night gets too bright. Is there any way to combine Ambient effects (light diffusion) with sun/light rays?

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P.S. i know that i can adjust Ambient color dynamically, but it's too complicated when having a lot of different areas.

I am very interested in finding a solution to this too.
My problem is finding a balance between shadow Fade and Frac so the mountains won't have that obvious strong shadow you can see in the left picture, but still have shadows for other objects in the game without zooming in on them too much. (like in the 2nd picture).
So I'm sure an answer to this post would help me a lot too.

Greg, is there anyting to do with it?

Ambient light is used to simulate light bouncing around.
In real life, as long as you have a light, there will be light bouncing around, making everything a bit less dark.

So, I don't think that you should fully disable Ambient Light. In stead: put it very low, and reduce the amount of lights at night.

A better way of doing it, might be like the clouds in the day-night cycle: Change the colour depending on the time of day.

(10-27-2014 12:09 PM)Tottel Wrote:  A better way of doing it, might be like the clouds in the day-night cycle: Change the colour depending on the time of day.

Nice try but if it is day and I enter a cave that shall be dark (and lit only by torches) my cave will be very light because of Ambient, so I will also need to make a check if char is inside a cave/dungeon to adjust Ambient level.

(10-27-2014 12:27 PM)Houge Wrote:  Nice try but if it is day and I enter a cave that shall be dark (and lit only by torches) my cave will be very light because of Ambient, so I will also need to make a check if char is inside a cave/dungeon to adjust Ambient level.

Good point.. Hmm.

It might be solvable by putting the ambient really low, and then placing multiple skylights (3-point lighting, like in rendering). One light is the sun, another light (shining from the opposite side) is acting as skylight. This light would soften the shadows a lot.

I haven't tried this at all, but maybe you can fake this by adding a huge cone light (directional would be a lot better).

(10-27-2014 01:10 PM)Tottel Wrote:  by putting the ambient really low, and then placing multiple skylights (3-point lighting, like in rendering). One light is the sun, another light (shining from the opposite side) is acting as skylight. This light would soften the shadows a lot.

And... I will have 3 shadows from 3 directions?

It's rather complicated and it won't solve all the issues...

Disable shadows on the 2nd light.

But yes, it's an ugly solution.

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but here's what I do for caves:

I have my own kind of "trigger system" and when the player enters a cave he passes through a couple of invisible walls that tell the ambient light to go down or up, depending on the order the player passes through them (not brilliant, but works).

It's just a workaround, and not a great one. We need some diffuse light in the engine.

I believe the best way is to dynamically adjust ambient lighting based on player location (surrounding environment).

(10-28-2014 12:36 AM)Esenthel Wrote:  I believe the best way is to dynamically adjust ambient lighting based on player location (surrounding environment).

You think making light diffusion doesn't worth it?

+1 on light diffusion, I think it's quite an important feature for an engine.