Realtime radiocity in games Created 17 years ago2007-08-18 09:09:47 UTC by Lex4art

So, you can see this demo in action at http://www.geomerics.com/enlighten-media-develop06.htm - some videos.

http://www.geomerics.com/enlighten-sdk.htm - base description.

Epic games is a partner ("Enlighten will also be available for licensing for use in Unreal Engine 3") - so, maybe Source will fall after that :D. Maybe yhis technology will be used in source - anyway, looks perspective

It sort of beats the purpose of Source being able to run on almost every system. But I can't deny I'd love RAD would be done in real time, instead of waiting for it to finish.
I thought Unreal Engine 3 already had its own real-time lighting system though, as does CryEngine and the rest of modern 3D engines...

I thought they only had a few certain entities. I believe in the unreal 3 engine you can only have one dynamic light in an area or something like that. i Know i saw something about it in the torque engine.

It would be neat if Valve designed it so that RAD was compiled with the map, but the game can run completely real-time lighting too, so people with fast computers get real-time light, and people with old computers could get the performance of pre-compiled RAD.

Valve are stuck way too far back in the past to consider entirely real-time lighting. I doubt we'll be seeing anything like it in the Source engine.. at least not in it's current state. Sometime later when it's given a MAJOR overhaul, or an all-new, proper next-gen engine is (hopefully) made.

K.. someone get coding then

It seems odd to me that Valve decided to stick with Source for so long by creating so many games based on it. It's like they're digging their own graves in regard to technology. Unless they're secretly developing a new engine right now, they're going to be in a pretty tight situation when Episode Three is released and they have nowhere else to go.

Looks like its time to wrile a letter to Valve
And this feature means more, than just fast VRAD - it means that brushes can loose (finnaly!) some of shape limitations.

If they wanted to make brushes concave, they'd have a helluva lot of coding work to do because of the way BSPs work. But hell, a completely dynamic-lit game engine shouldn't be too hard. Maybe they'll make it after Episode Three. Who knows?

I send a letter, hope they answer

Ideally Valve should move away from bsp's altogether, they're very dated and simply a bitch for when it comes to large-scale maps. If you want more reason just ask Ant.

But like I said, Valve are too stuck in the past, real-time lighting and a new, improved map format are about as likely as Gabe losing 100 kg on the Subway diet.

Yep, BSP was good for 199x levels design (square blocks) but for now its kills process of creating detailed and complex geometry.