Lighting and Shaders!

Lighting and Shaders!

  

    Well, last week we were talking about lighting and shaders, as well as the different texture maps which you can use (bump maps, displacement maps, etc.).  I went and played CS: GO, looking for these within the game (as per requested).  Below are some screenshots that I took, showing some of the many places within the game that these effects and maps are used.

                                                                 (Dat bloom...)

    Here, we are at the starting position on one of the maps (Vertigo).  The most obvious thing here is the use of the bloom lighting effect.  This brightens up the concrete where the sun is shining, and you can see softer shadows, as well as colour seepage around the counter-terrorists and the various objects on the building.  You can also see the shadows of the other counter-terrorists.  I would assume this affect would be done through shadow mapping.

   This is another example of shadow mapping, but this time the shadows seem to have a harder edge compared to the shadows which were being cast from the picture above.  We can also see a great wooden texture on the wood plank in the upper left part of the screen.  The detail with the darker knots and the wooden grains really pop out.

   This is a great example of some bump mapping being exhibited.  Here, you can see a great texture on the barrels and the garbage bin.  Even though we are a good distance away, you can still see the dark knots in the wooden planks in the top right, re-iterating my point about how much detail goes into these bump maps.  There is also some soft lighting on the ground in the top left, indicating that there is another light source (in this case, a ceiling light).

    These simple processes add so much feeling to a game and I look forward to implementing them within ours!

Shaders: Stylizing Beat Dragon!

Stylizing Beat Dragon!

    Our game is called Beat Dragon, which is an aerial-rhythm game.  You play as Jiggy, the musically enchanted dragon, who collects symbols representing different attacks (wings, your tail and clapping).  Each attack creates different sounds, which in total create a song.  You want to hit these attacks, which keep up your flow (health) and reach the end of the level.  At the end of each level, you combat a boss.

Before:

    At the end of last semester, our game currently looked like the following:

    As you can see, this is a basic prototype of the game, with not much in the way of shaders or special effects.  It has flat colours, and a pure black background.  

After:

After some work in photoshop, I managed to turn another screenshot of the game into what you see below:

    The first thing I did was put water and clouds into the background.  After that I started adding some special effects.  I burned in some texture to the canyon walls on either side, to give the walls more of a rocky feeling.  I then created shadows for Jiggy, the giant dragon, the canyon walls, and the clouds in the water's surface.  After that, I added some shadows on the giant dragon to accentuate and make it pop.  I then added a film grain to the entire screenshot, to give it a lighter feel.  Finally, I added a lens flare, for the reflection of the sun in the water and it's light bouncing off of the surface and catching the player's eye.  All in all, I felt this gave the game a much lighter and joyful feel to it, something which is what we are aiming for in our finished game.