Me Being Picky: Dynamic Shadows & Spell Lights
NodeStone
Member
Disclaimer: This is just me wondering about something and curious if some people agree and if it's worth AoC's consideration, no disrespect or criticism from me, just an observation and opinionated idea.
Was watching the November stream vid and one of the things I really liked to see was spells casting a genuine light and reflecting off of other objects and players. Many games may make you cast a lightning bolt but it never actually lights up the ground, let alone a room, or worse someone sets fire on the earth and it produces no actual light. There's several reasons for this I'm sure, one, it could be an epileptic nightmare of flashing lights in an MMO, and two, I imagine it would cause a lot of dynamic shadows that could cause a lot of computation stress on the computer.
All that said, after watching the video I was curious about AoC's stance on how they wish to use dynamic shadows with spells. To me, spell effects don't seem to create a shadow across the ground, but some do create the contrast across the character models. Here's some examples...
This example here has a spell go off but it neither creates a light nor does it create a shadow among anybody. This is typical in virtually every MMO and understandably it's probably goina hurt one's eyes if half a dozen people have healing light glare them every 2 seconds.
In this image however, the spell on the ground is clearly lit up because of the chained spell and those near it have a harsh light reflecting off of it and a dark contrasting shadow on the opposite side of their model, but there doesn't seem to be a shadow stretching across the ground in response. Sure with multiple light sources maybe there's a zero-shadow situation, but I'm just saying I'm curious if there's a practical way to make dynamic shadows be produced from spell effects and if it would enhance the experience or distract from it.
And yes, I'm fully aware this is still very much in the game's infancy and there will be many many changes going forward, but I just wanted to draw attention to shadows and the potential for spells/abilities to be their own authentic light source. Could open up discussions about glowy bits on armor also producing a modicum of lumins that reflect off of the environment and players as well, but that's a different discussion at a different time. In the end, it would require testing and some health/safety consideration, but even if it's the more persistent spells (ones that linger for several seconds and not an instant effect) I think it would be cool to see more spells that legitimately light up a battlefield, especially if spells like a meteor create harmless light-producing flames that linger across scorched earth for a few seconds before fading away. What are your thoughts? More light? Less Light? Stronger darker shadows? Dynamic lighting effects? Should every little light of a spell produce lumins or just the center of the spell? Either way, I won't mind if AoC goes on doing whatever they plan on doing, I just think with Unreal Engine 5 being as good as it is, it wouldn't hurt to experiment at the very least, or ideally be able to provide players with the option to turn on and off such dynamic shadows and light producing effects.
Was watching the November stream vid and one of the things I really liked to see was spells casting a genuine light and reflecting off of other objects and players. Many games may make you cast a lightning bolt but it never actually lights up the ground, let alone a room, or worse someone sets fire on the earth and it produces no actual light. There's several reasons for this I'm sure, one, it could be an epileptic nightmare of flashing lights in an MMO, and two, I imagine it would cause a lot of dynamic shadows that could cause a lot of computation stress on the computer.
All that said, after watching the video I was curious about AoC's stance on how they wish to use dynamic shadows with spells. To me, spell effects don't seem to create a shadow across the ground, but some do create the contrast across the character models. Here's some examples...
This example here has a spell go off but it neither creates a light nor does it create a shadow among anybody. This is typical in virtually every MMO and understandably it's probably goina hurt one's eyes if half a dozen people have healing light glare them every 2 seconds.
In this image however, the spell on the ground is clearly lit up because of the chained spell and those near it have a harsh light reflecting off of it and a dark contrasting shadow on the opposite side of their model, but there doesn't seem to be a shadow stretching across the ground in response. Sure with multiple light sources maybe there's a zero-shadow situation, but I'm just saying I'm curious if there's a practical way to make dynamic shadows be produced from spell effects and if it would enhance the experience or distract from it.
And yes, I'm fully aware this is still very much in the game's infancy and there will be many many changes going forward, but I just wanted to draw attention to shadows and the potential for spells/abilities to be their own authentic light source. Could open up discussions about glowy bits on armor also producing a modicum of lumins that reflect off of the environment and players as well, but that's a different discussion at a different time. In the end, it would require testing and some health/safety consideration, but even if it's the more persistent spells (ones that linger for several seconds and not an instant effect) I think it would be cool to see more spells that legitimately light up a battlefield, especially if spells like a meteor create harmless light-producing flames that linger across scorched earth for a few seconds before fading away. What are your thoughts? More light? Less Light? Stronger darker shadows? Dynamic lighting effects? Should every little light of a spell produce lumins or just the center of the spell? Either way, I won't mind if AoC goes on doing whatever they plan on doing, I just think with Unreal Engine 5 being as good as it is, it wouldn't hurt to experiment at the very least, or ideally be able to provide players with the option to turn on and off such dynamic shadows and light producing effects.
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