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To begin editing lighting and atmosphere:
- Load your map in the Mission Editor.
- Open Terrain Properties (under Scenario).
- Choose Sun Colour and Sky Lighting. Sky Lighting performs two functions:
a. It provides ambient fill lighting from all directions and replaces the Ambient Colour setting.
b. It also controls reflections.
- Choose the sun direction (Sun Orbit) and sun elevation (Sun Angle), which also dictates shadow length.
a. Rotate the Sky Rotation setting. This rotates the IBL sky lighting volume.
b. Most Sky Lighting images have a warm or bright side and a cool or darker side, which can dramatically change the look of a map.
- Choose the Sky Model you want to use for the map background (sky) and fog colour.
a. Set the Sky Radius, which defines where art and terrain are clipped for performance reasons. For example, set this to 160m.
- Edit the Fog Colour to match the lower portion of the sky model for seamless blending.
a. Set the Fog / Start Distance, which defines where fog begins rendering in the distance. For example, set this to 50m.
b. Set the Fog / End Distance, which defines where fog becomes fully opaque and obscures objects behind it. For example, set this to 140m.
Terrain Properties
(Items listed in blue are NEW)
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Lighting Configuration Sunlight Colour Controls the direct light color cast by the sun.
Ambient Colour Legacy ambient fill color.
Sky Lighting Image-Based Lighting (IBL) replaces old ambient lighting.
Available presets include examples such as:
Adds to 1.0 As before... the sun colour plus the ambient or IBL colour = 1.0.
Sky Rotation: 360º rotation for the sky lighting. Sun Orbit: 360º rotation for the sun direction. Sun Angle: sun angle, now ranges from horizon (e.g. dawn, 0º) to Zenith (e.g. noon, 90º).
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Reasonable values for the new camera are 40 to 50m for the fog start distance and 120 to 130m for foggy maps, or up to 150m for relatively clear maps. |
Fog Start Distance: Distance in meters where fog begins to appear. (0% opaque) End Distance: Distance where fog becomes fully opaque. (100% opacity) Colour: Fog colour (RGB values between 0 and 255) Colour should ideally match the lower portion of the selected Sky Model. For example, setting the fog to R:54, G:54, B:60 closely matches the sky and creates a smooth visual transition.
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Standard for our new camera |
Sky Sky Model: The drop-down shows the choices available for a sky dome model (the sky). Sky Radius: A clipping plane used by the game for performance. The sky is rendered just beyond this distance in the background. You should set your Fog End Distance lower or nearer than your Sky Radius (clip distance) so you don’t see meshes clip away. Instead, they disappear into the fog (and then are clipped away).
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Terrain Detail Repeat: How much the terrain detail texture tiles orrepeats. This does not affect decals. E.g. Detail repeat of 8 (left), default of 4 (middle) and set to 1(right)
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Water Water Set: The drop-down chooses from a list of wave "images", but only one set was ever created. Colour: Water colour (deep water specifically). Shallow water becomes more transparent depending on the sliders below. Alpha: Deep water opacity (0–255). 0 is transparent and 255 is opaque. Anim Speed: How fast the waves appear to move. 16 is the default, 0 is stopped, and 32 is quite fast. Repeat: How much the water detail texture (the waves) visually repeats. Default is 3. 1 is low repetition and results in very large waves (visually), while 8 repeats a lot and results in tiny waves. Opacity: Opacity (0.0 to 1.0) is shallow water transparency (water’s edge) where it meets land. At high values it is opaque, and at low values it is transparent.
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Persistent Bodies (this is being reworked now). Alpha: TBD Fade Time: TBD
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