Lighting Test for a Horror Game

[JC Bailey]

These are some test images I made up with the help of Verdite for a Horror-RPG I plan on developing. The first image's foggy ambiance was inspired by Silent Hill, and the second image shows how light can reflect off enemy models in a dark cave. One of the problems I had in Return to Melanat was the visibility of map tile seams due to the lack of lighting effects, and I think this does a good job at hiding that. So what do you all think, would you like to see a horror game like this made with the Sword of Moonlight tool?

PS: The zombie's name is Robert.

[HwitVlf]

I would really like it. I'm big on ambiance; it doesn't have to be scary just poignant. Silent Hill has a great spooky ambiance and I'd love to see such a thing in a SoM game. I think sounds do a lot for ambiance too.

About seams being visible in RtM, when making custom Pieces, SoM discards most "material" settings from source X file. But one setting ("diffuse" if I remember right) is retained in the MSM. Metasequoia's default diffuse is 0.8 and it appears that SoM's default Pieces use 1.0. If you don't standardize that setting when making custom Pieces, they will respond to SoM's lights differently and make light or dark tiles. There's a post about it here somewhere. It looks to me like that is part of what is happening in RtM.

P.S. Nice to meet you Robert! Shake hands? Hey!!! Ow!! What are you doing!? Spit that out! ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

[Verdite]

John, the seams are visible in the first screenshot in this post, too. While I mean utmost respect to From's art department and the department that made the SoM assets, there are tons of problems with the tiling system and how the outdoor sets have been made. I can see vindictive forum ghosts grimacing at that , but the fact is... If you dont use grass around the edges of a model, or some other form of cover to blend the seams together, then when you rotate a map piece the seams will be visible when fitting into existing pieces at different degrees.

The extra 4 faces affect performance , but since we arent living in the early 2000's anymore, most peoples computers can handle that.

Having walls set in the centre of a model is just asking for seam problems. The outdoor set is a prime example, and more noticable due to its light textures.

[JC Bailey]

I didn't use a whole lot of custom resources in RtM actually, just the house sets, the stairs I made, and the railway set you made. To be fair, the grid is also clearly visible in King's Field 1-3, so I guess you can't expect too much, especially considering KF was among the first fully 3D games during it's time. I've got to say though, SOM has a really robust lighting engine for 2000 standards.

[HwitVlf]

Ah, I get what you guys mean. Yeah, the seams in the screen shots above look great.  I must have been wrong about the cause of the RtM tiling effect. I really only noticed it in a couple places and didn't think it was a big deal- just lost in the game!

The house set's seams are my fault. I built it  in an ancient tool called XStuidio (before we knew about Metasequoia) which barely had any features.

[Verdite]

By outdoor sets I was more pointing towards the green cliff set. I didnt know you had made both houses! I thought it was just the blue one. They fit the SoM assets really well

[HwitVlf]

Yeah, I made the house set and a pier for Martin (of Kings-field.com) way back before som.com even existed.  I was just happy to get something custom to actually appear ingame! I think the house has tiny gaps between polys in the mesh. XStudio didn't have numerical adjustments. I had to "eye-ball" everything.