Geomerics Enlighten GDC 2008 Demonstration

[veeableful]

Unreal Engine 3 adopted it and will make use of this in real-time, according to Siggraph. Woo! :D

@Below - I think Radiosity is just a technique of doing Global Illumination. I believe this one uses Radiosity to do the Global Illumination.

[octavianmihailescu]

@veeableful Radiosity is GI, but computing just Diffuse and Shadows (no Reflections, no Refraction). A complete GI solution calculates all of the above.

[dimebagplan]

Does this lighting system have a name ?

I often see this kind of lighting with a kind of bloom effect.

Is it Radiosity ? Global Illumination ? Deferred Lighting ? HDR Lighting ?

I am confuse with all those world....

[octavianmihailescu]

@dimebagplan

Google. Wikipedia. ;)

[WhiteDragon103]

This lighting method looks great but it lacks the local, small scale lighting provided by methods like screen space global illumination. Screen space methods on the other hand lack the large scale lighting which this technique provides.

Use them together!

[marcotenshi]

@WhiteDragon103 Theres technically no such thing as screen space global illumination. There is screen space 'ambient occlusion', but ambient occlusion isnt global illumination its just a form of direct lighting. In global illumination all surfaces can (re)emit light as well as receive it giving rise to indirect lighting. That cant really be done in screen space. SSAO exploits the idea that the data in the z-buffer can be used to do AO and get similar results to if real 3D data were used.

[WhiteDragon103]

@marcotenshi Well, you can create global illumination using screen space but it won't be as accurate on a large scale. A depth buffer and diffuse lighting buffer has a lot of information that could be used to calculate light bounces. Of course, it would only consider on-screen content (IE, if you are looking into a corner of a room, light from the opposite corner won't be considered) but it will provide some of the smaller scale lighting that can't be done using other methods in real time.

[marcotenshi]

@WhiteDragon103 You can't have local global illumination. It doesn't make sense.

Also using a depth buffer as if it represented a 3D space would mean, for example, that a lamp post in front of you would have the same lighting effect as a wall stretching out to infinity in front of you.

[WhiteDragon103]

@marcotenshi Yes. You. Can.

watch?v=8bRkyG3R-eI

Look for yourself.

[marcotenshi]

@WhiteDragon103 No, think about it. You can't have *local* *global* illumination. That tech demo seems to be doing very local surface to surface light transfer as an extra stage in SSAO. It's basically like doing self-shadowing in bump maps.

[octavianmihailescu]

@marcotenshi yes, you can have *local* *global* illumination. this is exactly what cry engine does.

[marcotenshi]

@octavianmihailescu Mate, you aren't grasping what those words mean. Global MEANS not local. Local MEANS not global.

[octavianmihailescu]

@marcotenshi Nope. GI means just computing secondary illumination. You can compute secondary illumination locally in much more detail than globally, I think this is what I meant to say. You can compute secondary illumination for a large area, or any area you want, not all the environment, and also add detail[ed lighting] only locally. The entire environment might never be loaded nor lit at the same time for ex.

[marcotenshi]

@octavianmihailescu Sure you can be more or less global, but the more local you are...the less global you are. A lighting system constrained to a small area of the screen is local by anyones standard. Light is intrinsically global. It goes everywhere from everywhere effectively instantly. 'Global' Illumination in screen space just isnt global. A z-buffer throws away almost all of the 3d data. Screen space AO is to indirect lighting what bump maps are to direct lighting.

[marcotenshi]

@WhiteDragon103 "This lighting method looks great but it lacks the local, small scale lighting provided by methods like screen space global illumination" I suspect that is because it segments the geometry into chunks and can't make the chunks too small else it would sky-rocket rendering times.

[hitachi654]

cryengine 3 will have similar

[LouSaydus]

My nerd sense is tingling! tingling so good...

[gigertron]

Temple, girl walking. Shadows.

thumb down for copyrighted music,

thumb up for new effects.

What, no exe? Piggie.

[Croc235]

LOL,imagine the math behind this,the tons of knowledge needed,to make something most people won't really notice when playing games...makes me sad somehow.

[Sugardude]

@Croc235 The thing is, they will notice, on a subliminal level. The artist will place lights and cause shadows that will make the player feel fear, warmth, joy or loneliness. When they talk about the game, they'll mention the cool story, or the awesome shootout scene, but what made them understand the depth of the story or the intensity of the shootout will have been the artist's use of this technology.

[hardstyle905]

@Croc235 yep. 

[tdragonxp]

@Croc235 oh they'll notice it. In fact most people have with the release of previews for bad company 3

[puttefnask]

@tdragonxp BATTLEFIELD 3. NOT BAD COMPANY. Just correcting you.

And yes BF3 will look great with this engine

[DLotet]

i saw this at GDC in germany, awezome stuff.

[DanFrederiksen]

quite impressive. and yes GI is definitely needed. more precisely all of photorealism. and there's a long way yet even though this looks good

[abenoit722]

Yeah... There is a difference between "realtime radiosity" and "overdrive HDR"

[mat967]

as you can see in the workflow video of enlighten (in 2:34), HDR effect can be set.

[elio83110]

Maybe too much HDR.

But can't wait.

[Tankn00b]

Hate to burst your bubble, but this isn't completely real time. It requires a precomputation step - a small one compared to lightmaps, but still precomputation nonetheless, making it useless for highly dynamic or procedural scenes.

[shletten]

Great news everybody, CryEngine3 will feature Real-Time Dynamic Global Illumination. Unreal Engine 3 just adopted it but it's not real-time, sadly.

[hoffm263]

Yeah I wish video game designers would stop making better games. Lets go back to the pong days.

[snahfu]

what a stupid thing to say... "I wish video game designers would stop making better games." Thats like saying, i wish the human race would stop evolving and just go back to being apes. Go get an education.

[dessertmonkeyjk]

YEAH!!! ...just kidding. Why go back now? If technology is advancing faster than you can keep up with it, a true fact I don't like that much, then lay off a little. Not everything is made for everybody. It's like choosing a book from a library. If it interests you then give it a go. If not, move on. Simple as that.

[theDisto]

You should be asking game developers to move back to the gameplay, but you can't measure gameplay like you can measure graphics.

[Wiilovewii]

actually subjectively you can...even if the games have cutting edge, photorealistic graphics (technically) one can say a game looks ugly. I for one am not a huge fan of how Crysis looked eventhough technically it was stunning, it lacked great deal of style...do you know what I mean?

[theDisto]

Well that is more of a lack artistic direction and style rather than a problem with the graphics or the engine. The engine only hands potential to the artists behind it. You'll find some games from the turn of the millennium are beautiful games but are only prerendered 2D which has it's own limits. However yes I know what you mean.

[EmilyFalcon]

guys i'm pretty sure he's being sarcastic. 9_9

[handicappedhero]

Shut up and burn the heretic!

[sir3ntropy]

Actually, this engine will run quite prettily on current gaming machines. If it didn't, CCP wouldn't be using it in their MMO.

[MDHmodder]

those video cards aren't meant for realtime rendering unless said realtime rendering happens to feature a lot of the kind of computations that CG typically uses, like raytracing, etc

[MDHmodder]

I'd prefer games optimized to look their best on minimal hardware... look at what the PS2 still does. Imagine what even PC hardware from 2001 should still be doing, had its potential been maximized

[Pawel84Pawel]

Do someone know what song is this?

[Ulysses182]

@ Pawel84Pawel

2:31

[LaJin9292]

I got a PS3, but I dont have the money to spend on my PC so that it won't be needing any upgrades for the next 10 years or so.

[LaJin9292]

Yes, I wish games would stop seeking next gen every day, and stay back every once in a while.

Just updated my PC to play Orange Box a year ago, now I almost need a brand new Graphics card. I need a rest, dammit, Im not made out of gold.

[Argoon1981]

PC GPU's are very cheap this day's, you can buy a ATI HD 4830 for 100€ or less and it will play Crysis at High settings.

[Halo3fan012]

1:41

*Cries of joy*

[DisturbedRocks111]

interesting song

[Nintendo2295]

Y CANT IT BE 4 THE WII??!!

[dgomesman]

because wii has the graphics power f a PS1

[St1kyFinguz]

And Wii is for infants, fat chicks, old geezers and 30 year old thumb suckers.

[rammsteinrules4ever]

looks lovely. hopefully all them games they always shamelessly delay will know come out just that month quicker.

:DDDD

[sp33kz]

Enlighten, Endorphin, ZBrush... making games is going to be so much faster and easier in the future!

[undivided809]

truly revolutionary!!!

[beclamide]

Nice! Looking forward to this showing up in games and 3D anim apps. It'd definately make rendering a hell of a lot quicker.

[Hatalles]

What is this categorized as? A game engine -- a lighting engine, if there ever is such a thing?

[meuhey]

this will be a lighting engine.

[Darksora46]

Why does this feel like a Tomb Raider sequal...

[DALLAS19KD]

WOW! that looks REALLY great! the amazing graphics and just how everthing is set up.. just perfect!

[W3prodigy]

Battleifled Bad Company utilizes this mechanism.

[EikC]

Too bad it's a console game...

[MantendoNews]

its not a game. its software used to make games.

[EikC]

I was responding to the account about Battlefield Bad Company, don't know why it doesn't show up under that specific one.

[MantendoNews]

my bad. That is weird that it showed up at the top though.

[Argoon1981]

No it don't, theres no game out or in the near future that uses REAL TIME RADIOSITY as the Lighting system. Nor even Crysis as this.

[EmptyNutShells]

Absolutely amazing... I really hope this is the direction games begin to go in the next few years, because that is truly brilliant quality.

[Exestenz]

thats amazing. is there another step up for the next next gen now? O_O

[ss4cypher]

meh crysis on max settings is better

[Strike86]

The lighting technology in Crysis is utter crap.

[ss4cypher]

it is not

[Strike86]

Not only have you missed the point entirely (this is a lighting technology demo, not a full game), but the technology used for Crysis's lighting is just realtime soft shading - a technology which has been around for some time and looks just as crap in Crysis as it did when it first became the next-gen standard. Global illumination is the way forward. Even Half-Life 2 looks better than Crysis in terms of lighting.

[HyDr0x2]

@Strike86 So Crysis looks like crap? I doent think so and Half Life doesnt have global illumination right?

youtube.com/watch?v=B-_pnqXLIg­4&feature=PlayList&p=806BA7515­A01CC13&playnext_from=PL&playn­ext=1&index=58

[Strike86]

@HyDr0x2 From a technology standpoint, yes. Sure, it looks impressive at first glance but it's all just ancient tecnniques ramped up and up-res'd to look like new methods, which is also why it runs like crap and needs a supercomputer to play.

Half-Life does have global illumination, it's just pre-baked rather than calculated in real time. A lot of games have been doing it for a very long time.

Also, that's the CryEngine 3. I was talking about the CE2.

[marcotenshi]

@Strike86 Yeah this reminds me of when HDR lighting became doable. Everyone thought (and still think) that HRD = bloom effect... not what it really is: a fundamentally new form of lighting pipeline that has the potential to give rise to *significantly* more realistic lighting, fogging, depth of field, reflectivity and motion blur. Its the fault of the games media writing explanations of what HDR is and having no fukcing idea and making everyone think its a waste of cash and slowing the tech.

[farter1a2b3c]

yes it is the lighting could be alot better

[BinaryReader]

you totally missed the point.

[aaron0811]

Anyone know the name of the song ? It's lovely.

[stephan3007]

Hidden Sky from Jami Sieber.

If you watched the whole video, you would have known.

[Rice2Rice]

lighting at its finest.

[forthenguyen]

that was very impressive, imagine that kind of lighting for horror games like RE5, that would be sweet.

[PartyPenguinx426x]

Wow thats sick

[marvinmoise]

wow i hope Sony gets on board with this

[plat4mer]

What song is this?

[shmookins]

it is mentioned at the credits...

[ahgamiet]

Nice! I sincerely hope you get enough developers onboard - this looks very impressive!  Good luck at GDC!

[doverman2]

ray tracing and this awesome