Week 9 - Lighting Design

Unreal Tournament 3
The lighting found in Unreal 3 is setup to give a cinematic experience. While most games are colourful, Unreal 3 actually desaturates some of the colour from the game to give a more dark and film like look. The lighting usually gives off some sort of tint to indicate team bases (red or blue). In regular maps however the lighting is mostly image based from the beautiful and panoramic sky textures. There are some maps where the sky is present in a day time setting. Other times the sky is red on a desert planet. Also some levels are set in space where light comes from the planet below and glowing items found on the space station. Although it is a dark game, there is no real dramatic or overly moody lighting found in games such as F.E.A.R where you are literally lurking in the shadows. Since custom maps are aplenty for this game, it entirely depends on how people want their levels to look. Many maps are created to resemble worlds from other games such as Halo or Quake III. In addition to main lighting, light is also emitted from weapons. A shot with an energy weapon can easily light up a room, or at least a good surrounding perimeter around the character. Items that glow, such as health, or boosts can add illumination to parts of the level. The guide arrows in the game are also semi-transparent and glow so that its easily noticeable. Through the use of lighting, the overall look for this game is designed to be a cinematic experience.

Guitar Hero II
The lighting in Guitar Hero II is used quite heavily. The lighting experience provided coincides with a typical arcade game with super bright lights and colours. In fact, it's so bright that playing for extended periods of time causes eye fatigue. In any case, the very bright colours represent the notes coming towards you that you must hit. When the notes are successfully hit and held, they will glow and get even brighter. Not only do the notes glow, but so does the background stage lighting as well as the various meters found in the HUD. That about covers it for the in game experience. In game menus, the lighting is quite different. It looks like the low level lighting found in dingy backstage bathroom found in concert venues.