VaM 1.x Lighting large scenery

[Aipas]

My previous scene had pretty terrible lighting, so I'm trying to improve that.

What I'm looking for:
- a way to achive ok lighting - as much as possible - without users having to mess around with non scene settings (user prefs), since it's a scene meant to be released
- semi-realistically lighting the scenario, not just the the focus of the action / built-in cinematic camera, so that users can freely explore angles (without wandering too much - it's a big scenario)

What I have:
- bad lighting
- stretched performance "budget": 4 person atoms for a few seconds, then just 3 and a big scenario (big as it is, the scenario doesn't seem to impact performance much)
- around 30 fps with 4 person atoms and current lighting; in tests with other lights, performance was around that number as well
- something resembling color banding (2nd screenshot bellow); caused by spot lights with max angle or large range? Tests with other lights get rid if it.

What I don't mind:
- doing some work on it, as long as it's not too intensive, like 2-3 days intensive; macgruber's sky magic springs to mind, but I'd like to know if it's appropriate for this case before diving in.
- accepting the limitations of what can be achieved in vam, with a big scenario and 4 characters (3 mostly), for a scene targeted at the average user with average hardware and settings.
- accepting there's no magic answer, especially when people attempting to help don't have the scene to test it.

My settings:
- user prefs > pixel light count 4; high quality shader
- scene > default skyaustria
- lights > 2 spot with 1.7 int, max range and near max angle (ceiling 1 and 2); 1 spot with 4 int, max range and near max angle (outside light for building's glass facade); medium shadow quality and force pixel for all 3

Scene so far (3 spot lights - causes "banding"):

The color / shadow "banding" problem:

point light test (too bright I know - no "banding")

directional light test (no "banding")

scenario:

Any help appreciated.
Sorry for all the screenshots, but words don't help much on a light troubleshoot.

 

[hazmhox]

What you're showing on the shorts is not banding. It's bad normals.
It's always there, you're just seeing it more with specific lighting orientation.

But your problem is not light. 4 characters is hitting hard VAM's CPU bottleneck. Not matter what you'll do with the lighting, you will have poor performances as you're pretty much already with bad performances at 3 (no matter who you are, no matter what gear you have).

But to answer more on the light subject : you will not be able to pull off a proper lighting with VAM's real time lights in that sort of enviro.
Most games rely on several systems to get insanely good looking light :

• Baked lightmaps
• Baked probes
• Realtime lights
• Skylights and HDRIs

Since we're not on deferred path, the number of realtime lights is extremely limited. So the only solution to your problem is : bake your lights, then light your specific "moment" with realtime lights.
For instance, WIP enviro to be released at some point (which is quite big), last shot is "realtime lit" to fit the situation, but if you go far (let's says in the room or at the exterior) the VAM char would be almost in darkness :

VAM was thought for small enviros and short range situations. There is nothing that will allow you to get to an actual high quality lighting without considering baking. @Damarmau has some cool exterior shots but they are... exterior. So in this situation you could fake a somewhat "ok" realtime light. But interiors and spaces like yours, you expect a very specific feeling and generally a bunch of artifical lighting, indirect bounces and shadow casting to make it feel right... which is probably impossible with only realtime lights.

You have to make sacrifices if you want to have proper lighting

 

[Aipas]

VAM was thought for small enviros and short range situations.

That's the feeling I've got.

Not sure I'll mess with this scene then. Maybe the next one. Or maybe I'll have a look at baking with sky magic.

I had some nice ideas for larger scenes, now I can only see"comic strip" in those scenes' future, if anything. At least I won't have to worry about walk cycles

Anyway, thanks for the quick reply. Appreciate it.

 

[hazmhox]

Or maybe I'll have a look at baking with sky magic.

Sky magic is not gonna "light up" your scene. It's gonna produce some kind of overexposure/GI on your enviro and characters.
You cannot hope getting a very good result for your scene by only relying on that, the goal of it is mostly to produce proper reflections, slight GI and proper (slight) GI for characters.

 

[Aipas]

So unity, correct?
I'll give it a go if I have time for it.

At any rate, I've learned my lesson. Night scenes from now on.

Cheers.

 

[hazmhox]

So unity, correct?
I'll give it a go if I have time for it.

I think you can do GI for Skymagic inside of Unity, but myself I'm doing everything in Unity to get more control and better quality ^^

 

[Damarmau]

Without knowing specifics about scene you can sometimes get away with 2 directional lights plus a single spot for close in lighting. One directional should have shadows on for simulating sunlight, the other with shadows off and probably a bluish tone at lower strength in a different direction to simulate light bounces. Then there use a single spot to highlight whatever is going on.

Exact setups will vary from environment to environment but realistically vam wasn’t designed for large environments.

 

[Aipas]

2 directional lights plus a single spot for close in lighting

That's what I presently have in mind for this scene, If I can "afford" that extra spot light and don't have time to figure out baking. Given the huge open interior space, not sure the spot light will make a difference. Have to try it out.

Incidentally, thanks for your Bella, which is in this scene. Way back when I started looking at Vam, your models were the first that made my jaw drop. Bella is an older model, but I still like her looks very much