Chapter 8. Then There Was Light!—Manipulating Level Light and Shadows

After a level is created, its look can be moderated by an art director to have a certain color tint, blur, bloom, or intensity. This is conducted through simple post-process filtration. We will be discussing the features of PostProcess and we'll also discuss lighting approaches and their features, including custom lens flares, types of shadows, ambient occlusion, God Rays and light types, and their settings for achieving nice illumination under different conditions.

In this chapter, we'll cover the following topics:

• Emissive lighting

• Comparison of static and dynamic lighting

• Light exclusivity using channels and levels

• Adjusting shadows through light environments

• Distance field shadows

• Penumbras and hotspots

• Accessing the main PostProcessChain

• Ambient occlusion

• Depth of field

• Ensuring shadows work with translucent or alpha based materials

• Enabling and controlling light shafts

• Enhancing sunrays using lens flares

• Creating caustics using...