Real Light or Lightmap?

Gladius_Coldhead · Post by **Gladius_Coldhead** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:50 pm

Hi.
Its better use in outdoor(city) scene one Real Light(sun) or Lightmap?
why?

sgt_pinky · Post by **sgt_pinky** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:04 am

Most games with immersive levels use a lightmap for static objects, real light for shadows of dynamic objects and highlighting key areas of the level.

Why - because a lightmap is a pre-calculated texture map. Dynamic lighting requires a lot of calculations in your cpu or graphics hardware. Also, the number of dynamic lights with current hardware is limited - to 8 lights on a typical new graphics card.

If your city scene buildings don't sway in the breeze, I would use a lightmap.

Gladius_Coldhead · Post by **Gladius_Coldhead** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 4:48 am

and how big games, like GTA Vice City(or San Adreas), make a good day/night system?
with lightmaps?

Frobozz · Post by **Frobozz** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:09 am

sgt_pinky wrote:Also, the number of dynamic lights with current hardware is limited - to 8 lights on a typical new graphics card.

I was under the impression you could bypass the limit by coding a shader that looks for more.

But as for the outdoor scene, you could try having a series of lightmaps for different times of the day. Maybe one for every hour or so.