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Torque 3D Development - Advanced Lighting

by Brett Seyler · 03/04/2009 (12:59 am) · 44 comments

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Time's getting short...so it's time to start rolling out some big guns. This week we're looking at a major update to Torque's lighting and rendering system. This all started with a man name Pat Wilson who, months ago, began working on a side project to implement a new partial deferred renderer for Torque. This is the kind of thing Pat does when he's bored :)

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Pat's Bio

"Early last year I started experimenting with a new lighting model for Torque in my spare time. I started applying it to Rokkitball development post-launch and now with Brian and Tom, we're rolling out a unified advanted lighting / rendering / shadowing model for Torque 3D."

"I interned at GG back in 2003 and joined 2004. In the time since then I've worked on games, tech, and just about everything GG does. I worked on Marble Blast Ultra, Torque 360, Rokkitball, and pretty much every other Torque product out there."

Pat's work to replace Torque's existing lighting model started with some pretty high-level theoretical stuff, but it paid off. We now have a very flexible, performant lighting model for the future of Torque. Traditional lighting, like that currently in TGEA, comes in single-pass and multi-pass varieties. Multi-pass lighting has been used well in Torque before, but as a general concept, is scales poorly with objects and lights (n objects and m lights --> n * m object draws in some scenarios).

Deferred shading also has it's drawbacks (requires multiple render targets, doesn't perform well w/ multiple materials), so Pat was looking at hybrid models that would really serve our needs with Torque better than the simple low end compatibility of forward rendering (pass limited) or the commonly used next-gen deferred shading model (a hardware hog in many common use cases.)

Long-story short, we ended up with a unique hybrid approach called "Light Pre-Pass Rendering." He wrote a brief, if unfinished outline of journey to this model in this presentation here (warning...be prepared to math it up.)

So, remember this blog way back when (March 2008)? Well, Pat's experimentation, and eventual use of this lighting model is the perfect example of Studios experimentation with a branch of Torque that's probably not stable enough for widespread licensing, but if proven out (as Pat's lighting model was on Rokkitball and other projects) can be rolled into Torque for the public. That's where these guys come in...

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Tom's Bio

"I'm currently working on a nearly complete rewrite of TerrainBlock, improving the art pipeline with live asset updates, putting the finishing touches on the Forest Kit, and various general improvements to the Torque codebase. Still by far the most exciting thing i'm doing is helping Pat Wilson and Brian Richardson integrate the new advanced lighting system into Torque 3D."

"I'm a programmer and co-owner of Sickhead Games, LLC a small indie game studio in Dallas, Texas. I guide our technological direction and deal with important business operations. Prior to founding Sickhead i was the Lead Programmer on the Core Technology Team at Motorsports Simulations, Inc, where i worked on the hit NHRA drag racing series."

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Brian's Bio

"I spent the first part of 2008, and some more time in the past couple months working on the new shadowing system that is going to ship in Torque 3D. Other projects I'm currently on include kicking the tires on our componentization refactor of Torque (not in Torque 3D) in R&D by prototyping a kart racing game. I'm having a lot of fun with it because a kart racing game was the first little project I attempted with TGE years ago."

"I've been hacking since he was a little boy. I've shipped lots of different kinds of software so far and one of my projects won a Technical Emmy. I'm noping to to create more trippy things in the future. "

Quite a rogue's gallery of talent, no? HUGE thanks to these three for really stepping it up and putting the finishing touches on the new system. Between these three, there's a good chance that Torque 3D will have one of the best lighting systems in the industry, right on par with the lighting models in games like Fable 2. Here's a quick look at what we're doing right now inside of Torque 3D...

The shadows in Advanced Lighting are infinity customizeable. You can achieve just about any look and tune things to perfectly match your scene. Cool stuff huh? I realize lots of you out there are thirsty for a close look at new tools and UI. That's coming soon...getting very close now, so be patient :)

More development blogs to come. This is post #12.