Global Illumination Research Pt 3
Entry posted by Josh ·
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The environment probe feature is coming along nicely, spawning a whole new system I am tentatively calling "Deferred Image-Based Lighting". This adds image-based lighting to your scenes that accentuates the existing deferred renderer and makes for higher quality screenshots with lots of next-gen detail. The probes handle both image-based ambient lighting and reflections.
Shadmar helped by implementing parallax cubemap correction. This provides an approximate volume the cubemap is rendered to and gives us a closer approximation of reflections. You can see a good side-by-side comparison of it vs. conventional cubemaps in Half-Life 2
Once probes are placed you will select a menu item to build global illumination. GI will be built for all probes and the results are instantly visible. The shot below is only using an environment probe for lighting, together with an SSAO post-processing effect. Because the ambient lighting and reflections are image-based, any bright surface can act as a light even though it isn't really.
When combined with our direct deferred lighting, shadowed areas become much more complex and interesting. Note the light bouncing off the floor and illuminating the ceiling.
The new feature works seamlessly with all existing materials and shaders, since it is rendered in a deferred step. It can be combined with a conventional ambient light level, or you can set the ambient light to black and just rely on probes to provide indirect lighting.
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