Lighting and Its effect on Vision

[Bhaal_Spawn]

Hi everyone I;m new to the forum and I hope I can contribute my thoughts to help Project Eternity in the best way possible.

 

I've just watched the latest update **Water, Trees, Day/Night, Lighting... All That Jazz**, and i think it was fantastic. This is a huge step towards my most anticipated game since the realease of BG2 SOA.

 

Lighting is something that I have a particular interest in. Nearly all games, including many of 2013's, havnt had very realistic lighting mechanics that work how light does in real life. This is the use of shadows and night lighting. The use of shadows and realistic night lighting wont just make the game have a realistic aesthetic, but will open a whole new area of game play.

 

I have a few sugestions that I hope can help.

 

Shadows

 

I noticed in the most receint video update, the shadows stayed in place even though the sun set and eventually the moon came out it would be cool if these shadows can move while the suns position changes, this would make a more realistic feel, and certain areas would gain shadows during certain times of the daty and night.

 

Night lighting (Mechanical and Magical)

 

The main aspect I would like added, is realisiic night lighting, and how un-natural shadows from mechanical or magical lighting, effect the environment around the character(s)

 

Let me explain how it works in real life.

 

Say you are walking down the street after leaving a friends house. There are stree lamps to your left and right creating un-natural lighting so you can see where you are walking. However your eyes have naturally adjusted to the lighting you are looking at. So if you look away from the area litten up, and into a dark alley, your eyes take a certain amout of time to adjust and see what is ahead. So basically, you have a shorter sight while in the light and you almost walk blind into certain areas waiting for your eyes to adjust.

 

This is an aspect i would love added to the game. As I mentioned earlier this would add certain gameplay aspects to project eternity.

 

- It would be great to walk down a street and not be able to see what is in an alleyway unless i casted a spell of light into it or had a torch.

- Certain characters could perform perfect assinations from dark areas and not be seen for a few seconds, giving valuable time to escape.

- When camping in the wilderness you should have to have your characters face away from the camp fire to gain maximum vision incase you get attacked during the night by bandits or wild monsters.

- Your *sneak/stealth* stats increases should you paint you're armour black while in the city at night. Or should you muddy you're armour and attach leaves during the day in the wilderness.

 

This is just a few of the gameplay aspects I thought of in relation to realistic night lighting.

I hope this is a valid sugestion. Please leave your comments and/or sugestions that could be added.

 

Thanks alot

Cheers, Bhaal_Spawn

 

 

[Walsingham]

Just a thought, not sure why it occurred to me:

 

You mention perking to do assassinations from low light.

 

Wouldn't this inject a whole level of complexity to level design? Suddenly lighting is tactical, not just artistic. It would take over design, OR make shadow assassins uber powerful.

 

Sorry. Unusually smart observation for me. Won't happen again.

[rjshae]

Yes, how they implement the hide skill versus lighting and shadows could be interesting. Perhaps at night it will just depend on the brightness of point light sources and the distance to the light? I'm not sure if they will factor in the effect of obstacles.

[Bhaal_Spawn]

Just a thought, not sure why it occurred to me:

 

You mention perking to do assassinations from low light.

 

Wouldn't this inject a whole level of complexity to level design? Suddenly lighting is tactical, not just artistic. It would take over design, OR make shadow assassins uber powerful.

 

Sorry. Unusually smart observation for me. Won't happen again.

 

 

This implimentation wont necessarily make assassins too strong.

 

I understand this could make assassins stronger, but its not like mages cant cast protective spells. Or that fighters cant have strong armour, or that you cant scout the alley with a long ranged mage light. Or perhaps a *Listen* Perk could be added.

Oh and no need to apologise man, nothing wrong with constructive critisism

Edited April 16, 2013 by Bhaal_Spawn

[AGX-17]

@OP So what you're saying is that they should use things that have been standard in games since the mid/late-90s and which are practically a given already. Of course a "dark alley" is going to be "dark." They had things like torches and flashlights in games in the 90s. Ever heard of Thief? Hiding in shadows (and great AI with guards who aren't fooled if you just jump into a dark corner while in their vicinity/line of sight.) There are lighting modifiers to accuracy in classic cRPGs throughout the late 90s. The lower the amount of light, the lower the accuracy of characters when attacking targets in the dark, lower chance of detection if sneaking, etc.

 

You might as well be saying "I am concerned with swords in the game. Let me start with a real world example, as I am sure this forum's users will not understand the concept. Swords are sharpened metal blades that deal bodily harm to creatures they strike which are not properly armored. I am concerned that swords will not function as weapons in this game, I hope Obsidian implements swordsin this fashion."

 

Hell, just look at the latest update and ask yourself, "if they can and are implementing these visual elements, how could they fail to implement more technologically primitive concepts?"

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63633-update-49-water-trees-daynight-lighting-all-that-jazz/?do=findComment&comment=1321978

Edited April 16, 2013 by AGX-17

[Bhaal_Spawn]

@OP So what you're saying is that they should use things that have been standard in games since the mid/late-90s and which are practically a given already. Of course a "dark alley" is going to be "dark." They had things like torches and flashlights in games in the 90s. Ever heard of Thief? Hiding in shadows (and great AI with guards who aren't fooled if you just jump into a dark corner while in their vicinity/line of sight.) There are lighting modifiers to accuracy in classic cRPGs throughout the late 90s. The lower the amount of light, the lower the accuracy of characters when attacking targets in the dark, lower chance of detection if sneaking, etc.

 

You might as well be saying "I am concerned with swords in the game. Let me start with a real world example, as I am sure this forum's users will not understand the concept. Swords are sharpened metal blades that deal bodily harm to creatures they strike which are not properly armored. I am concerned that swords will not function as weapons in this game, I hope Obsidian implements swordsin this fashion."

 

Hell, just look at the latest update and ask yourself, "if they can and are implementing these visual elements, how could they fail to implement more technologically primitive concepts?"

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63633-update-49-water-trees-daynight-lighting-all-that-jazz/?do=findComment&comment=1321978

 

Appologies if I havnt made it clear enough. But it's quite clear that you have misunderstood this post, next time you reply to a post dont be as rude as you have been please. Now ill explain to you and others in detail if I wasnt clear enough

 

(1) You mention in your 2nd scentence: Of course a "dark alley" is going to be "dark."

I NEVER said that RPGs in the past like didnt make alleys dark at night. Man you really have to learn to read and understand meanings. What I proposed, was that when characters sprint from an area with Strong un-natural lighting (like a main street with bright lamp-posts), into an alley with NO LIGHTING, that it starts out initially close to pitch black and slowly becomes more clear. Its just like the exapmple I gave in my post, however i will give you another one as you clearly didnt understand the first.

Do me a favour and stare into the brightest light in your house then stare out a window into darkness. You will have a delay time for your eyes to adjust, at first it will be pitch black then slowly your eyes will decern contours, adjust and eventually see objects in that darkness. THIS is the feature i propose. Not just to make an alley darker than a street with lights on it.

 

(2) You then say this " There are lighting modifiers to accuracy in classic cRPGs throughout the late 90s. The lower the amount of light, the lower the accuracy of characters when attacking targets in the dark, lower chance of detection if sneaking, etc."

I never once mentioned anything about accuracys in the dark in my post. This is quite clean, and of course old rpgs had this. However i did say this about 3 quarters down my post:    "- Certain characters could perform perfect assinations from dark areas and not be seen for a few seconds, giving valuable time to escape."

I cant recall baldurs gate, icewindale, neverwinter nights or any of the old rpgs initiate this concept. Hoever it is in Skyrim when you shoot an arrow while in sneak mode. But in any case you have made a false attack at my post once again.

 

(3) And finally you say this: "You might as well be saying "I am concerned with swords in the game. Let me start with a real world example, as I am sure this forum's users will not understand the concept. Swords are sharpened metal blades that deal bodily harm to creatures they strike which are not properly armored. I am concerned that swords will not function as weapons in this game, I hope Obsidian implements swordsin this fashion."

 

This is a forum to help improve the game, not a forum to hack on other members while the person being rude is wrong in the first place.

[LadyCrimson]

The time of adjustment eyes require when going from light to dark is something to consider, but I'm not sure it could or should be implemented in this particular game. It seems a little too complex for a party game that is likely largely going to be played out in a fairly zoomed-out point of view...thus you'd be able to see both the lamplit  town street and the dark alley at the same time, making it .... odd.

 

eg, it might work in a 1st person 1-chr type game, but probably not P.E. Just my idle thought tho.

[Frenetic Pony]

You COULD have darkness affect how far you see into the fog of war and/or how well your guys check for hidden stuff (traps/hidden passages/etc.) Not sure how interesting it would really be. To make it fun you'd have to come up with some actual interesting mechanic for it.

 

It's interesting in Dragon's Dogma because you suddenly miss a lot of stuff in the night, and the game looks dramatically different in the night, so instead of just going "oh there's a chest" or "it's this way!" During the day, everything is very black, so you need to find your way in the dark. The map can suck, so finding your way through a complex place, that would be easy during the day "oh, this way goes up this cliff that has no way down" becomes getting lost in the dark at night.

 

Not sure that's going to translate too PE though, with it's overhead view, the way places are designed, a probably far more reliabel map, and the fact that unlike a third person game your vision is already restricted to very close to you much of the time anyway (I assume). I can just picture going through a place at night and maybe being more frustrated than interested. But maybe it would work out differently. It might work if the fog of war vision is farther than most games during the day by a nice amount, but quite a bit shorter than most during the night. Like you might walk into an ambush at night that you'd have seen from far away during the day.

[rjshae]

The time of adjustment eyes require when going from light to dark is something to consider, but I'm not sure it could or should be implemented in this particular game. It seems a little too complex for a party game that is likely largely going to be played out in a fairly zoomed-out point of view...thus you'd be able to see both the lamplit  town street and the dark alley at the same time, making it .... odd.

 

eg, it might work in a 1st person 1-chr type game, but probably not P.E. Just my idle thought tho.

 

Plus your individual party members are going to adjust to the darkness at different rates, depending on where they are situated and their movement. Would you adjust it to the character with the best sight, the worst, or take an average? It's probably much easier just to track the vision effects on the individual character portraits instead of in the area panel, and easier to play that way as well.

[Frenetic Pony]

 

The time of adjustment eyes require when going from light to dark is something to consider, but I'm not sure it could or should be implemented in this particular game. It seems a little too complex for a party game that is likely largely going to be played out in a fairly zoomed-out point of view...thus you'd be able to see both the lamplit  town street and the dark alley at the same time, making it .... odd.

 

eg, it might work in a 1st person 1-chr type game, but probably not P.E. Just my idle thought tho.

 

Plus your individual party members are going to adjust to the darkness at different rates, depending on where they are situated and their movement. Would you adjust it to the character with the best sight, the worst, or take an average? It's probably much easier just to track the vision effects on the individual character portraits instead of in the area panel, and easier to play that way as well.

I can confirm that from a technical standpoint it's basically unworkable, or would look really really weird if you threw a hacky thing together to even try.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Frenetic Pony

[Bhaal_Spawn]

Ye I thought it might be hard too impliment, however i thought id make the suggestion althought my suggestion about the camping in the wilderness should be easy to impliment. Starting at a campfire will blind anyone. Thanks for the feedback though =D

[Lephys]

Plus your individual party members are going to adjust to the darkness at different rates, depending on where they are situated and their movement. Would you adjust it to the character with the best sight, the worst, or take an average? It's probably much easier just to track the vision effects on the individual character portraits instead of in the area panel, and easier to play that way as well.

 

As for that, you'd treat it, I'd imagine, just like you would regular vision. If character A is in one spot, and can only see 20 feet into darkness (in usual games), and character B is 20 feet ahead of A and can see 20 feet further, and spots something 20 feet out (assume they're all in a straight line, for simplicity), then A can use a sufficiently ranged weapon to make an attack on the foe that B has spotted, because A is aware of what B can see, abstractly (as is the player, who shares all their collective senses and knowledge).

 

To put it another way, if character A has low-light vision, and character B does not, and they're standing side-by-side, and A gets blinded, you wouldn't lose the ability to see anything while selecting character A, and have to switch to B just to see what's going on and where your party is. You would simply lose all the sight capabilities from A -- thus, your lowlight vision -- and would only be presented with what character B could see, even though the radius would be largely the same.

 

How well a single character can see can be handled by attack rolls and targetability and such, whereas the player can still be shown whatever his/her best input is from among all the characters' visual senses at the time.

 

At least, that's how it tends to be handled, and is, I think, an understandable abstraction, since you can't really shrug off the "How do we handle the fact that the player essentially IS the entire party?".

 

That being said, I'm not really sure it'd be worth implementing, based on my current level of knowledge.

[rjshae]

A thought occurred to me:

 

As a fairly simple innovation, what the developers could do is to implement a variable radius Fog of War (FoW), with each character having a minimum and a maximum FoW radius that depends on the the race and other factors.

• When a character enters the light radius of a point source, her FoW radius rapidly shrinks down to the minimum.
• Once the character leaves the point source radius, her FoW gradually expands out to the maximum as her eyes adapt to the darkness. The speed at which this occurs may also depend on the race.

This would partially simulate the effect of light blinding at night, giving the player a reason to pay attention to light use and placement. It could also add to the suspense element, since the FoW is now shifting size. Finally, it would provide another readily visible racial difference.

[Lephys]

^ That's the kind of thing I was thinking of, but I didn't really know how to say it without describing it for several pages, heh. I'm glad I didn't try. Your form of the idea is excellently concise.

 

I definitely think it's something to consider, but it's one of those "If I were on the dev team, I'd probably be able to tell you whether or not it was feasible to implement, based on all factors at play. But I'm not, sadly" things...

 

I mean, functionally, at least SOME form of that seems perfectly feasible. But, who knows... it may go against something they've already got in there? *shrug*

 

In an ideal world, it gets into the game. 8P

[rjshae]

^^^^ I agree it would depend on other factors in the design, which may make it unfeasible.

[Bhaal_Spawn]

A thought occurred to me:

 

As a fairly simple innovation, what the developers could do is to implement a variable radius Fog of War (FoW), with each character having a minimum and a maximum FoW radius that depends on the the race and other factors.

• When a character enters the light radius of a point source, her FoW radius rapidly shrinks down to the minimum.
• Once the character leaves the point source radius, her FoW gradually expands out to the maximum as her eyes adapt to the darkness. The speed at which this occurs may also depend on the race.

This would partially simulate the effect of light blinding at night, giving the player a reason to pay attention to light use and placement. It could also add to the suspense element, since the FoW is now shifting size. Finally, it would provide another readily visible racial difference.

This is excatly it. Also torches and light spells would increase the FoW radius.

[Pipyui]

A thought occurred to me:

 

As a fairly simple innovation, what the developers could do is to implement a variable radius Fog of War (FoW), with each character having a minimum and a maximum FoW radius that depends on the the race and other factors.

• When a character enters the light radius of a point source, her FoW radius rapidly shrinks down to the minimum.
• Once the character leaves the point source radius, her FoW gradually expands out to the maximum as her eyes adapt to the darkness. The speed at which this occurs may also depend on the race.

This would partially simulate the effect of light blinding at night, giving the player a reason to pay attention to light use and placement. It could also add to the suspense element, since the FoW is now shifting size. Finally, it would provide another readily visible racial difference.

 

I like this idea, really, but fear it might produce too much micromanagement to be a regular mechanic.  Terrain modifiers and the like would be cool because they add tactical complexity, but are simple to grasp and static.  Lighting can dynamically change the combat environment anywhere that's otherwise dark though, and I suspect this might add a bit too much complexity to chew down properly.

 

As I said, I otherwise do like the idea though.  Between having to deal with a dark screen and shorter perception range, the choice immediately seems obvious, but then maybe you can't fight so well in the dark.  A torch would improve your melee prowess, but what about rangers?  You limit the sight of your own, and provide easier targets to enemies.  Provided these enemy archers are smart enough, perhaps they take advantage of your relative blindness and stay out of your path as they fire on you, who can't manage to find those damned buggers with your torch equipped.

 

There's a lot of potential here, but the real real trick is to employ such with elegence and mechanics simple enough to not overload the player, I think.

[Walsingham]

As other posters have indicated, there's mileage in what you're saying.

 

However, I'm talking about my feeling on whether it's right for Project Eternity. My gut and considered reaction is emphatically no.

 

My considered points boil down to:

 

1. Doing it as you suggest will have a cost in terms of project team time

2. Justifying this means ensuring that enough players like the impact it has on their gaming experience

 

3. To do this means dialling up the impact the mechanic has on combat effectiveness.

4. If the effectiveness is dialled up then it means that the relevant in-game factors become correspondingly more important to good level design.

 

5. There is a risk that existing levels will need lighting redesigns or stealthy players will find them either a breeze or impossible.

6. I just don't feel that the benefit _in Project Eternity_ is worth the risk to invested effort

 

As has been pointed out thsi sort of mechanic would suit a dedicated stealth game.

[rjshae]

 

A thought occurred to me:

 

As a fairly simple innovation, what the developers could do is to implement a variable radius Fog of War (FoW), with each character having a minimum and a maximum FoW radius that depends on the the race and other factors.

• When a character enters the light radius of a point source, her FoW radius rapidly shrinks down to the minimum.
• Once the character leaves the point source radius, her FoW gradually expands out to the maximum as her eyes adapt to the darkness. The speed at which this occurs may also depend on the race.

This would partially simulate the effect of light blinding at night, giving the player a reason to pay attention to light use and placement. It could also add to the suspense element, since the FoW is now shifting size. Finally, it would provide another readily visible racial difference.

 

I like this idea, really, but fear it might produce too much micromanagement to be a regular mechanic.  Terrain modifiers and the like would be cool because they add tactical complexity, but are simple to grasp and static.  Lighting can dynamically change the combat environment anywhere that's otherwise dark though, and I suspect this might add a bit too much complexity to chew down properly.

 

As I said, I otherwise do like the idea though.  Between having to deal with a dark screen and shorter perception range, the choice immediately seems obvious, but then maybe you can't fight so well in the dark.  A torch would improve your melee prowess, but what about rangers?  You limit the sight of your own, and provide easier targets to enemies.  Provided these enemy archers are smart enough, perhaps they take advantage of your relative blindness and stay out of your path as they fire on you, who can't manage to find those damned buggers with your torch equipped.

 

There's a lot of potential here, but the real real trick is to employ such with elegence and mechanics simple enough to not overload the player, I think

 

I agree with most of what you're saying, and I hadn't really thought about it in terms of micromanagement: the change in FoW radius would be handled by the game so, for the player, it's more a matter of tactical planning based upon the lighting.

 

Once a battle is joined, the Priest or Wizard may have a spell that can light up the battlefield for the duration of the conflict. The Ranger can roll off into the bushes, quickly adapt to the darker lighting, then pick off those archers hiding in the dark. The non-humans with improved vision would be at an advantage in the dark, so they too may move outside of the party's torch radius. Maybe the Chanter has a spell that allows her to detect enemies based upon sound rather than sight. &c.

[Osvir]

First of all, welcome
 

Shadows

 

I noticed in the most receint video update, the shadows stayed in place even though the sun set and eventually the moon came out it would be cool if these shadows can move while the suns position changes, this would make a more realistic feel, and certain areas would gain shadows during certain times of the daty and night.

Going to read through your OP thoroughly in a bit. Just want to add one of my ideas to this (old idea from old threads):

Stealth ability: "Hide in Shadows" would be done only in shadows, in shadows the character can be in "stealth" permanently (unless "spotted"). When moving out of the shadow, the character can only be in "stealth" temporarily. Basically having a "Coat of Shadows" or "Veil of Shadows"; "Shadow Embrace" or something. This way a stealthy character requires some micro-management. "Move from one shadow to the next shadow" during some infiltration quests.

EDIT: Furthering the idea/stretching. An upgrade to an ability like this: Teleport from shadow to shadow :D

@Rjshae: 

Once a battle is joined, the Priest or Wizard may have a spell that can light up the battlefield for the duration of the conflict....

Rogue's with flash bombs? Lighting up an area for a little bit? Throwing torches? Shooting arrows on fire? The first arrow could be mainly to gain vision of an area. However, that would require Rangers or Bow-wielders to have some sort of "directed" targeting mechanic ("Attack Ground" type utility seen by siege weapons in RTS games).

@[Vision]; Thoughts:

Party vision, who controls the vision? The leader or.. all characters selected? I remember in Baldur's Gate that if I control the entire team, and I have someone with "Infravision" and it's night, everything gets this weird color. Imo I think the character with "Infravision" should only show "Infravision" in the area if individually selected or if that character is the leader.

Party Vision - Select All, shows a generalized vision around the party and their positions. Perhaps based on the "center point" of the party.
Individual Vision - Detailed, the guy in the back can see further than if I have everyone selected.

Concept:

Edited April 18, 2013 by Osvir

[Osvir]

Concept 2, "zoomed out":

Could be pretty annoying though.

[rjshae]

Assuming that the party members would communicate with each other, my thinking was that you'd display a union of all the FoW from each of the party members (but perhaps not some companions). Thus the FoW wouldn't be a circle, but a cloud-shaped region formed of the overlapping individual FoW. Modern PCs should be readily able to handle the necessary computation in real time as the party moves. It would shift shape based on lighting effects and party member positions.

[JFSOCC]

Rogue's with flash bombs? Lighting up an area for a little bit?

Would be cool in combination with the night-blindness idea. you quickly see all the enemies in the surrounding, and then you need time for your eyes to adjust from just the tiniest vision cone into what's normal.

 

Can be really scary for you to see you're surrounded by enemies and then not see any of them anymore.

Combine this with drugs which cause hallucinations (seeing enemies that aren't there) you could have rogues become interesting tactical utility characters for both your and the enemy side.

Edited April 20, 2013 by JFSOCC

[Frenetic Pony]

To add to this,

 

The reduced/increased fog of war vision during night/day is actually done in DOTA 2, which looks and would work very much like Project Eternity in terms of fog of war distance, camera placement, etc.

 

I've played 230 hours of this game and only noticed it yesterday. I might not have ever noticed if the very concept weren't brought up in this thread. It's definitely there too, it's not like it isn't a decently sizable change. But it's impact is so utterly little, even on such an intensely competitive game, that you barely notice it. I know it sounds sort of cool in concept, but this is nigh as close as possible of an actual game doing exactly what's proposed that's already out, and its effect is almost nothing.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Frenetic Pony

[Bhaal_Spawn]

I understand what you're saying , but that is dota 2, i don't think that game would benefit from the idea as much as Project eternity. And don't forget this isn't about your fog of war increasing/decreasing during the night, its about the transition of sight when moving from un-natural light into the darkness.