ChiefDada
Gold Member
I know many of us love hearing how a game's tech works straight from the developers who create them so I wanted to share this tech talk discussing the lighting in RC Rift Apart. The indirect lighting in Rift Apart is very convincing, considering the lack of RTGI.
Video: https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1027792/Recalibrating-Our-Limits-Lighting-on
Slide Presentation: https://ubm-twvideo01.s3.amazonaws....lides/RecalibratingOurLimits_Mullen_Brian.pdf
The entire talk is 50min but is very engaging and not dry at all.
Interesting points:
1. The speakers discuss how keeping a minimalist and disciplined approach to their PBR based rendering workflow was key to final look; excess light probes that were inserted to mitigate avoidable deficiencies tanked performance and caused scenes to look washed out (I personally think this might be the case for certain spots in Forbidden West).
2. Even with the disciplined workflow approach, lighting render budget was often blown due to ambitions for the next gen title from other departments; higher fidelity characters, environments, etc. results in increased lighting computation. They credited the Insomniac Core Technology team for being able to implement ray traced reflections in such a performant and super-efficient manner, as well as the Environment team for their LOD management, which allowed them to stay within budget.
3. Post Processing was the final step to achieving the cinematic art style of the game ("We wanted lens flare that would make Star Trek jealous").
Video: https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1027792/Recalibrating-Our-Limits-Lighting-on
Slide Presentation: https://ubm-twvideo01.s3.amazonaws....lides/RecalibratingOurLimits_Mullen_Brian.pdf
The entire talk is 50min but is very engaging and not dry at all.
Interesting points:
1. The speakers discuss how keeping a minimalist and disciplined approach to their PBR based rendering workflow was key to final look; excess light probes that were inserted to mitigate avoidable deficiencies tanked performance and caused scenes to look washed out (I personally think this might be the case for certain spots in Forbidden West).
2. Even with the disciplined workflow approach, lighting render budget was often blown due to ambitions for the next gen title from other departments; higher fidelity characters, environments, etc. results in increased lighting computation. They credited the Insomniac Core Technology team for being able to implement ray traced reflections in such a performant and super-efficient manner, as well as the Environment team for their LOD management, which allowed them to stay within budget.
3. Post Processing was the final step to achieving the cinematic art style of the game ("We wanted lens flare that would make Star Trek jealous").
