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Lights and LODs

by Stefan Rampp · in Artist Corner · 01/14/2004 (1:00 pm) · 3 replies

I'm currently working on some LODs for several interior maps. Does anybody know if the presence of (static) lights influence the performance? I'd guess the number of lights doesn't make a difference except for the relight process. After that, there shouldn't be a speed decrease, since the lightmaps, once they are calculated, don't care about the number of lights. Is this assumption correct?

Thanks,

Stefan.
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Associate Kyle Carter
#1
01/14/2004 (1:32 pm)
As I recall, DIFs are partially prelit. Meaning that if you have a large complex level and relight it, most of the calculation is already done... You just have to calculate the bits that involve both the interior and the outside world.

Torque 3D Owner Stefan Rampp
#2
01/14/2004 (1:43 pm)
This is what you see, when you place an interior for the first time: the outside is black and the inside is already lit. This missing information is calculated during relight. So, I think, the number of lights in the dif might influence this calculation, but nothing after that? Like that, I could keep some lights in lower detail LODs to smooth the transition. Sometimes this actually helps...

Torque Owner J. Alan Atherton
#3
01/16/2004 (8:27 pm)
The number of lights should not matter, as the lighting info is "baked" into the texture to put it simply. Lightmaps are used, so regardless of the number of lights you should get the same performance. The only time you'll see slowdown is when converting using map2dif, but not in the engine. Correct me if I'm wrong.