What happened to lighting effects of weapon fires in FPS?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

I just found out that in recent first person shooters, weapon fires no
longer light up the surrounding environments.
Go back to older games like Unreal, Quake 2 or Half life. Fire a
weapon, throw a grenade, shoot a rocket down a hall way. You will find
that the surrounding environments will be lit. Now Start up Doom 3,
Half life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 and do the same. You will find
weapon fires have absolutely no lighting effects on the environments!
This seems a step backward and it really bothers me. What happened with
all these "new" 3D engines?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

Thusly sj543210@yahoo.com Spake Unto All:

>I just found out that in recent first person shooters, weapon fires no
>longer light up the surrounding environments.
....
>Now Start up Doom 3,
>Half life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 and do the same. You will find
>weapon fires have absolutely no lighting effects

Actually it does in Doom3, but the effect is a) only visible at high
gfx quality and b) understated. The reason being that it eats CPU
cycles; if you have a weak machine you do not want the dynamic
lighting system of doom3 calaculating the light from 20 fireballs.

There are plenty of mods which pumps up the lighting effect from the
muzzle flashes, and I have a vague memory one can also do it by
editing a config file?

 

[rms]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

> Actually it does in Doom3, but the effect is a) only visible at high
> gfx quality and b) understated.

Some graphics guru from beyond3d.com made a shader tweak for doom3 that
enabled weapon glow for plasmaballs and rockets, which works very well, as
long as you have a fast pc.

I put it up on my site along with some pics of it in action:
http://home.flash.net/~rsquires/Doom3pics/

rms

 

[Andrew]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On 27 Feb 2005 07:07:10 -0800, sj543210@yahoo.com wrote:

>I just found out that in recent first person shooters, weapon fires no
>longer light up the surrounding environments.
>Go back to older games like Unreal, Quake 2 or Half life. Fire a
>weapon, throw a grenade, shoot a rocket down a hall way. You will find
>that the surrounding environments will be lit. Now Start up Doom 3,
>Half life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 and do the same. You will find
>weapon fires have absolutely no lighting effects on the environments!
>This seems a step backward and it really bothers me. What happened with
>all these "new" 3D engines?

I just tried it in UT2004 and the rockets do light up the environment.
I think you noticed it more in Unreal because of the dispersion pistol
shot moved so slowly.
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.

 

[Toby]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On 2005-02-27, rms <rsquires@flashREMOVE.net> wrote:
>> Actually it does in Doom3, but the effect is a) only visible at high
>> gfx quality and b) understated.
>
> Some graphics guru from beyond3d.com made a shader tweak for doom3 that
> enabled weapon glow for plasmaballs and rockets, which works very well, as
> long as you have a fast pc.
>
> I put it up on my site along with some pics of it in action:
> http://home.flash.net/~rsquires/Doom3pics/

It's a good mod, and doesn't destroy my mid-upper spec PC. It means
that, in the dark, you don't have to switch to torch but can just let
off a spray of plasma in the general direction of the enemy.

--
Toby.
FT: 250 DK Bongo Stars
FT: 500 GBA SP Stars

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

sj543210@yahoo.com wrote:
> I just found out that in recent first person shooters, weapon fires no
> longer light up the surrounding environments.
> Go back to older games like Unreal, Quake 2 or Half life. Fire a
> weapon, throw a grenade, shoot a rocket down a hall way. You will find
> that the surrounding environments will be lit. Now Start up Doom 3,
> Half life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 and do the same. You will find
> weapon fires have absolutely no lighting effects on the environments!
> This seems a step backward and it really bothers me. What happened with
> all these "new" 3D engines?
>

Curious thing I noticed regarding the Source engine:

* In Half-Life 2, shoot a gun and you'll see nearby object light up (eg.
NPCs, boxes), but not surfaces like walls or floors.

* In Counter-Strike Source, shoot a gun and you'll see EVERYTHING light
up, including surfaces. This is probably deliberate to help show where a
person is hiding from.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005, Mean_Chlorine wrote:

> Thusly sj543210@yahoo.com Spake Unto All:
>
> >I just found out that in recent first person shooters, weapon fires no
> >longer light up the surrounding environments.
> ...
> >Now Start up Doom 3, Half life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 and do the
> >same. You will find weapon fires have absolutely no lighting effects
>
> Actually it does in Doom3, but the effect is a) only visible at high
> ...
> editing a config file?

You are right. Dynamic lights in Doom 3 can be enabled regardless of the
graphics settings via the config file. Another item that like the gamma
value belongs to the menus and not hidden! I don't know about UT 2004 but
HL2 shows no dynamic lights which is another HL2 dissappointment to me.

--
Werner Spahl (spahl@cup.uni-muenchen.de) Freedom for
"The meaning of my life is to make me crazy" Vorlonships

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

Werner Spahl wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Feb 2005, Mean_Chlorine wrote:
>
>
>>Thusly sj543210@yahoo.com Spake Unto All:
>>
>>
>>>I just found out that in recent first person shooters, weapon fires no
>>>longer light up the surrounding environments.
>>
>>...
>>
>>>Now Start up Doom 3, Half life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 and do the
>>>same. You will find weapon fires have absolutely no lighting effects
>>
>>Actually it does in Doom3, but the effect is a) only visible at high
>>...
>>editing a config file?
>
>
> You are right. Dynamic lights in Doom 3 can be enabled regardless of the
> graphics settings via the config file. Another item that like the gamma
> value belongs to the menus and not hidden! I don't know about UT 2004 but
> HL2 shows no dynamic lights which is another HL2 dissappointment to me.
>

So you have said on multiple occasions...

Personally, I'd disagree on the gamma setting being on the menu. People
smart enough to know what they want can find out how to enable it.
People who don't know & just twiddle will be moaning about poor
performance.

--
Walter Mitty
-
Useless, waste of money research of the day : http://tinyurl.com/3tdeu
" Format wars could 'confuse users'"
http://www.tinyurl.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

Hi,

<sj543210@yahoo.com> wrote:
#I just found out that in recent first person shooters, weapon fires no
#longer light up the surrounding environments.
#Go back to older games like Unreal, Quake 2 or Half life. Fire a
#weapon, throw a grenade, shoot a rocket down a hall way. You will find
#that the surrounding environments will be lit. Now Start up Doom 3,
#Half life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 and do the same.

No problems in D3 here. Things light-up nicely.

Ken.
--
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