Final phase of the project means working until you fall asleep head down on your desk, then having someone from production come and give you a shot of caffeine to keep you going a bit longer. It is a crazy, chaotic and fun experience that leaves room for little else. Still, there’s always time to write about bacon in Bulletstorm.
Hi, my name is Tomas Lidström and I am a lighting artist at People Can Fly. My duties here involve making sure that you as the player can see everything you need to see, like bad guys and where to go after you blow their heads off. It also involves ensuring that you don´t see what we don´t want you to see, like sneaky Ninjas that leap out from the shadows and blow your head off.
Lighting artists also endeavor to implement as many of those “wow” moments as humanly possible. You know; when you can’t help but stand and stare in awe at the pretty graphics while some low life bad guy sneaks up from behind and kicks you in the back. You could sum it up as finding that perfect balance between visual flare and readability. You could sum it up even more by simply calling me “Mr. Godray”.
No bacon
Bulletstorm is all about the god rays, light beams, light shafts. Call them what you want, but they are the divine beams of light from the heavens that reach towards the ground in an impressive and alluring way, so I find godrays to be the best word. And we got them. A lot of them. We have godrays everywhere! We have godrays where it normally would not make sense to have godrays, but the setting in Bulletstorm lends itself to having them.
Let me elaborate. The planet where the game takes place has two suns and that means twice the amount of god rays compared to our boring, lone wolf of a sun here on Earth. The game takes place in a former paradise turned apocalypse, so imagine a mean-drinking Godzilla going to Dubai; she gets wasted and goes nuts and leaves the city in ruin. The air would be filled with dust particles and smoke that the sun would illuminate and that’s what godrays are: particles in the air that is caught between the sun and the eye of the beholder. We have a lot of godrays in Bulletstorm because it makes sense. Plus, it looks look very, very sweet.
So what does this mean? What effect does this have and why should you, dear reader, care about godrays?
To understand the profound impact that godrays has on Bulletstorm, I am going to write about something completely different, yet weirdly fitting. Think of the game as a hamburger. It has cheese, tomato, maybe some BBQ-sauce. Its juicy, has a nice texture to it and you can use the leash to make people fly across the room and kick them in the… wait, I messed up. Anyway, it is a nice burger, right? Now imagine that same burger, but with bacon. The glorious meat of pig behinds squeezed in between the layers of bread, meat and cheese. You will never want to eat a burger without it. Yes, in this metaphor godrays are bacon.
If someone bursts out “Wait a minute! That doesn’t make sense! There are godrays everywhere! It is too much!” The rest of us just smile, shake our heads and reminds this someone “Two suns, my dear and respected co-worker. Two suns.” Then all of us look at each other, nod in a profound and deep understanding that godrays are not only good, they are awesome. They are bacon.
Bacon
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Wait, wait… you have in team people who’s only responsibilty is making light? I thought that every environment artist/level designer make them on their own.
Is it caused by lightmass, which is harder to work with than ordinary (pre lightmass) lighting?
And by the way. On UE3 placing bacon… wait a moment.. light shafts aren’t that hard. But still effect which can be acheived is really nice.
At people can fly, we like multitalent and people with a wide skill set, so my primary responsibility is lighting but I try to help out wherever I can.
Lightmass and the recently added lightshaft feature in UE3 is not more complicated than previous tech. It is just better tools for us to work with that gets better results than the previous tools.
heh
for my self lightmass is more easier.. at least i doest have to place 1000 pointlight bulbs around to fake GI
Just add that godrays in UDK looks somehow cheap compared to CryEngine 2, same i can say about HDR.
I bet whoever came up with the “binary star system” idea had exactly this in mind
Wow..this has truelyopened my eyes to the wonders of godrays if you dont mind me using it…but wow that refrence was beautiful. it maks o much sence. thank you for sharing it withus all.
You sir… are my new hero! Light shafts are glorious and make the world go ground. Whether my world may only have one son unlike your two, I find myself incredibly motivated to include many more godrays on my UDK maps. =]
But hey! Thanks for motivating me to continue my goal to become a lighter! I’ve been in doubt for about that companies would only need some lighters but you’ve proven me wroooong! Hahaha! Yippee!
…I apologize if this message makes little to no sense. I’m currently running on very little sleep and I’ve just been motivated to do more work…which isn’t a very good combination.