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[nkarafo]

Op here is the thing, First of all its looks like you are not ready to listen or respect any other opinion, so i will not argue you

Wtf are you talking about?

Show me the post where i showed no respect for other's opinion.

And what if i don't really like this low poly art you posted? Do i have to? i mean, it looks cute but i prefer other things when it comes to games i want to explore. It's you who tries to "prove" me wrong here.

 

[icecold1983]

Lighting/materials is way ahead in first and geometry is way back in last

 

[hotcyder]

Lighting does a lot of the heavy lifting in making games look good (and in low poly/simple engine games, baked lighting on good textures adds so much more to the proceedings). But without good geometry, it's for naught.

And by good geometry I don't mean high polycounts, but smart use of modelling - which is what great low poly art gets.

It's why I love 3DS/DS titles - 20 years since the N64, developers have learnt how to turn around better and better models (bolstered by better textures, obviously) on pretty similar specs.

 

[DerZuhälter]

With no shadow of a doubt: It's lighting. Just look at the low poly look of The Tomorrow Children. It has though the most advanced lighting system in any game released thus far.

 

[LordRaptor]

I mean... this low-poly scene with a sobel filter wouldn't look hugely different from the dark souls "impressive geometry!" pictures above

 

[Crossing Eden]

Sure but in this game, the thing that impresses me the most, is the way everything is built. That's what stands out for me, in this particular game.

But the geometry is actually a shit ton flatter than the lighting work implies...so you're most impressed by the lighting first and foremost because without it the geometry would look incredibly flat and uninteresting.

I see this in other games as well. I'm more impressed by how the world is built up. I said in the OP that lighting is also important since you need to see things. but if the world isn't interesting to look at, IMO, i don't think lighting saves it. Maybe in still screenshots but i enjoy dense worlds because i like exploring every small corner of a detailed crafted world. That's my thing.

English is not my native language so i hope i make myself clear enough.

You can have something uninteresting look incredibly in depth with good lighting, like there's nothing interesting about this UE4 apartment:

 

[LordRaptor]

there's nothing interesting about this UE4 apartment:

it has a reference teapot in it, thats sort of interesting

 

[nkarafo]

I mean... this low-poly scene with a sobel filter wouldn't look hugely different from the dark souls "impressive geometry!" pictures above

Can i point out a difference without someone translating it into "i don't respect your opinion?"

The first few Dark souls pictures show a more dense environment and the camera is closer.

In the low poly picture the camera is zoomed out, showing a much larger area.

Now if i was in control of the character and explored those environments in a closer range i would only see flat surfaces in the low poly game. Sure, if it doesn't allow you to zoom in too much, it would hide that fact but it would also be a restriction.

I prefer games that are just as detailed when up close and personal as when you zoom out.

You can have something uninteresting look incredibly in depth with good lighting, like there's nothing interesting about this UE4 apartment:

This apartment is nice and all but i PERSONALLY prefer the one in the last part of Uncharted 4. It doesn't have as realistic lighting neither it's as photorealistic but it's much more dense, more detailed and feels lived in. That's what i personally look for in games graphics.

 

[The Albatross]

As an old map maker in CS / TFC / Half-Life, lighting was the #1 way to cover up shitty geometry and textures, for me. Experimenting with lighting would make an otherwise ugly map more interesting.

In terms of gameplay, I think textures make a surprisingly big difference especially when constructing a good playing multiplayer level. The value of clear 'pathing' makes a big difference. In the CS days, the gameplay value of two maps that have similar geometry was entirely how well one could establish pathing towards objectives using textures. If you create geometry that you want someone to go a certain way, it helps, but if you put a road texture where you want someone to go....... they're gonna follow your road.

 

[LordKasual]

recent generations have shown how much mileage good lighting will get you.

I feel like it absolutely trumps everything else.

No amount of geometry or textures can covey a sense of realism when using a free moving camera the same way lighting can.

 

[Dictator93]

With no shadow of a doubt: It's lighting. Just look at the low poly look of The Tomorrow Children. It has though the most advanced lighting system in any game released thus far.

on consoles*

Spoiler

The Voxel GI in CryEngine for example is more fine grain, so something like Miscreated has technically more advanaced lighting

 

[vivekTO]

Wtf are you talking about?

Show me the post where i showed no respect for other's opinion.

And what if i don't really like this low poly art you posted? Do i have to? i mean, it looks cute but i prefer other things when it comes to games i want to explore. It's you who tries to "prove" me wrong here.

I said it feels like you are not showing respect to other opinions, But again as you stated the "English is not first language thing" it might come to me like that.

Regarding the Point you made , " i don't really like this low poly art" you are not really doing any favour to your arguments , i mean that can be said to your examples as well, as people have said, where is the opinion than. but lets leave it here , no point in further engaging.

 

[LeleSocho]

It's not stupid at all that the most complicated calculations are the most expensive. Hence why games typically don't actually render millions of strands of hair.

I think we are in a loop, i say "it's stupidly taxing on the hardware" and you say "because it's the most complicated thing to render" and i say "that's why it's taxing" and you say "because it's hard for the hardware to render" and i say "that's why it's taxing" etc. etc.
We are going in a circle.

Looked as in charming? Or are you talking about the pre-rendered backgrounds?

I'm talking about textures, not pre rendered backgrounds or FMV made on render farms a la Final Fantasy, things that the PlayStation is actually rendering itself on the screen.

 

[Übermatik]

The truth is that they're all equally as important, but the critical factor is cohesion. Stylistically, a game should aim for a target 'resolution' to every aspect of it's visual appearance.

 

[VisceralBowl]

All three work together but lighting is really the most important, with textures in second place and geo in a close third.

 

[lazygecko]

In terms of gameplay, I think textures make a surprisingly big difference especially when constructing a good playing multiplayer level. The value of clear 'pathing' makes a big difference. In the CS days, the gameplay value of two maps that have similar geometry was entirely how well one could establish pathing towards objectives using textures. If you create geometry that you want someone to go a certain way, it helps, but if you put a road texture where you want someone to go....... they're gonna follow your road.

Doesn't that kind design fall apart when hyper competitive players will essentially just destroy the textures with picmip console values?

 

[RedSwirl]

The souls games bring up the argument that you could count art direction too, if that is indeed a separate thing. It's kind of a combination of how the designers conceive the textures, lighting, and geometry to look before they actually make it all. The Souls games benefit from really inspired visions which makes up for their modest tech. Though I would only say "modest" because the Souls games seem to approach graphics in an older way reminiscent of earlier 3D games.

I think one reason we're all saying lighting is the most important thing in this thread is because lighting has been where the major advancements have been over the last decade. The biggest immediately recognizable difference between PS2-era and PS3-era games has been lighting -- shaders, more dynamic effects and all that. The leap from PS1 to PS2 however was mostly characterized by increased geometry. I've always thought the Souls games felt like they took a PS2-era approach to graphics. They tend to have more static lighting than western AAA games, chosen to evoke a very specific mood in each area. Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne mostly use the power of current-gen machines to drop a lot more geometry on everything. It's as if those games are asking the question "what if game designers just kept adding more geometry instead of focusing so much on lighting?"

Still, there's a strong case for lighting being the most important. Personally, when I play a game from the late 90's, if it has art direction and lighting that still hold up, the whole thing still looks aesthetically pleasing to my eyes. I still like the look of games like Vagrant Story and Gran Turismo 2. Lighting mods like GTA IV look like a completely different game.

 

[shandy706]

Thing is, DS3 isn't very high-poly. there's nothing high-poly about the scenes, they're just using their budget to enhance decorative objects. They're still working within or under what the systems can push.

Lots of "square/sharp cornered" low-poly objects that wouldn't be in real life. Ropes, poles, metal rods, etc..are all low poly.

Using the poly-count on environmental detail is a cool way to do things though, and looks cool when viewing vistas.

 

[nkarafo]

The souls games bring up the argument that you could count art direction too, if that is indeed a separate thing. It's kind of a combination of how the designers conceive the textures, lighting, and geometry to look before they actually make it all. The Souls games benefit from really inspired visions which makes up for their modest tech. Though I would only say "modest" because the Souls games seem to approach graphics in an older way reminiscent of earlier 3D games.

I think one reason we're all saying lighting is the most important thing in this thread is because lighting has been where the major advancements have been over the last decade. The biggest immediately recognizable difference between PS2-era and PS3-era games has been lighting -- shaders, more dynamic effects and all that. The leap from PS1 to PS2 however was mostly characterized by increased geometry. I've always thought the Souls games felt like they took a PS2-era approach to graphics. They tend to have more static lighting than western AAA games, chosen to evoke a very specific mood in each area. Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne mostly use the power of current-gen machines to drop a lot more geometry on everything. It's as if those games are asking the question "what if game designers just kept adding more geometry instead of focusing so much on lighting?"

Still, there's a strong case for lighting being the most important. Personally, when I play a game from the late 90's, if it has art direction and lighting that still hold up, the whole thing still looks aesthetically pleasing to my eyes. I still like the look of games like Vagrant Story and Gran Turismo 2. Lighting mods like GTA IV look like a completely different game.

Thank you.

 

[tuxfool]

That's just plainly wrong, look at how great some PS1 games looks despite their age of 20+ years that's all texturework and close to zero lightning.

Those textures are designed to fake lighting features we have now.

 

[Regiruler]

Lighting is what really gives games a good graphical impression.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I think we are in a loop, i say "it's stupidly taxing on the hardware" and you say "because it's the most complicated thing to render" and i say "that's why it's taxing" and you say "because it's hard for the hardware to render" and i say "that's why it's taxing" etc. etc.
We are going in a circle.



I'm talking about textures, not pre rendered backgrounds or FMV made on render farms a la Final Fantasy, things that the PlayStation is actually rendering itself on the screen.

Again good by what metric? The low standards of gaming rendering during that time period or CGI in general? A big focus of game engines this gen has been making huge improvements to the way lighting works. Including souls games, which made a bigger push towards more complex lighting compared to more complex geometry.

 

[tuxfool]

That's a very misleading way to present things - 70% or more of texture budget in modern games is spent on data that is pretty much exclusively used by lighting computations. Ie. "unlit" scene is missing most of its textures as well.

Which makes the question problematic in of itself - removing textures from the scene removes most of the high-frequency lighting detail as well.

Sure. However I'm struggling to explain how fundamental lighting is to every part of the visual output of a game. You can have a game without textures, you can't really have one without a lighting engine.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Sure. However I'm struggling to explain how fundamental lighting is to every part of the visual output of a game.

This is why I said for people to download free software like xnalara or SFM and then import the models into there. Baked lighting combined with plenty of dynamic lights is what brings Souls games to life as There's nothing basic about them. Hell since we're on the subject of Dark Souls the biggest visual sacrifice they had to make in DS2 was undoubtedly huge changes to the amount of lights in any one scene, with minimal changes to the complexity of the geometry.

 

[Black_Stride]

Lighting and Shading is the most important part. You can make a beautiful game-world with just single colored textures and a few blocks:

Lighting. By far. No contest. It affects every single aspect of the graphics and when done right it brings the whole thing up.

• Lighting

Liting has to be number 1 for me as well.
Just try looking at any modern game with AO switched off....it almost always starts to look last-gen or worse even with good textures.
Or any game with GI then turn off GI.

• Textures

Textureshave to come second cuz brilliant textures can easy fix relatively weak geometry/

• Geometry

Geometry is next cuz we dont need a billion polys to make a good looking scene.

 

[GoldenCrow]

Lighting.

With good lighting direction regardless of the overhead or style you can always make a game/iimage look good. With poor lighting direction the game will never look good. You can throw as many polygons and high quality textures you like at a scene but without light for those elements to interact with they lose impact.

To see the benefits of higher polygon count you need lighting to give shadow and thus give depth to the object, you can use AO but that only really looks good in one circumstance and looks very primitive when used outside of that. The better the quality of light the more you can show the subtleties of the object whilst giving the scene balance. Same goes for textures you need good lighting to use things like sub surface scattering, reflections, transparency, specular highlights, etc. It gives mood and atmosphere and what everything plays off.

 

[nkarafo]

Hell since we're on the subject of Dark Souls the biggest visual sacrifice they had to make in DS2 was undoubtedly huge changes to the amount of lights in any one scene, with minimal changes to the complexity of the geometry.

Are you suggesting that DS2 is close to what DS3 does in terms of geometry? Or are you comparing with the original builds of DS2?

 

[beril]

Sure. However I'm struggling to explain how fundamental lighting is to every part of the visual output of a game. You can have a game without textures, you can't really have one without a lighting engine.

Sure you can. There are tons of PS1 and Saturn and even PS2 games that use only textures. Of course you could argue that you're still simulating light to some extent, even if it's all handdrawn textures and prebaked vertex colors, but at that point it's just silly. Then you're talking more about lighting as an artistic choice than a technical feature.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

It isn't even a question of opinion.

The objectively correct answer is of course lighting.

 

[nkarafo]

DS3 doesn't have very strong lighting. Many scenes look flat and static. There's a general lack of shadows and dynamic lighting as well. It's not bad, it does it's job portraying the world, but compared to other games of it's gen it's pretty basic stuff IMO.

 

[lazygecko]

Sure you can. There are tons of PS1 and Saturn and even PS2 games that use only textures. Of course you could argue that you're still simulating light to some extent, even if it's all handdrawn textures and prebaked vertex colors, but at that point it's just silly. Then you're talking more about lighting as an artistic choice than a technical feature.

There doesn't really seem to be a consensus on what constitutes "true" lighting. Some might only consider modern dynamic lighting to really count, while there have been various tools and implementation methods to convey baked or "fake" lighting since... Doom, pretty much. Carefully dividing up sub-sectors and setting up their light values is an art in itself when it comes to designing visuals in Doom levels.

 

[tuxfool]

Sure you can. There are tons of PS1 and Saturn and even PS2 games that use only textures. Of course you could argue that you're still simulating light to some extent, even if it's all handdrawn textures and prebaked vertex colors, but at that point it's just silly. Then you're talking more about lighting as an artistic choice than a technical feature.

If they have no lighting then they are all black. You still need lighting in order to have vertex colours.

Moreover with the primitive lighting in those games they attempt to fake a lot effects we would take for granted today.For example, they would bake occlusion into the or specular effects into what would just be diffuse these days. By virtue of that fact the artistic effects of lighting are accounted for even in the earliest games.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Are you suggesting that DS2 is close to what DS3 does in terms of geometry?

I'm saying that the biggest improvement and focus of their engine was the lighting first and foremost. When you watch the before and after comparisons of DS2, the biggest sacrifice they had to make for the sake of performance was the lighting. Said lighting made HUGE differences in how the scenes looked in the demo compared to the final game. Much more so than the slight texture and geometry changes.

 

[2+2=5]

There's no most important feature, it depends on the artstyle.

Showing examples of games without a feature or another to prove anything is wrong because if that game was made with that feature in mind it will obviously look worse, if you want to compare games then compare games made without a feature or the other.

Imo textures are the ones that improve/ruin the image the most, low polys with high textures and good light is ok, simple lights with high poly and textures is ok too, but low textures in a game with high poly and good lighting can really ruin it, no texture is ok, low textures aren't, let's not forget that textures are also used for many effects and to fake geometry and light.

 

[pixelpatr0n]

Lighting by far.

Then textures then Geometry

Been an environment artist for almost 20 years. This is the correct answer. Don't believe me? Lighting for sure beats out geo/textures; no contest. lack of any scene lighting means you don't see the other two. God said "Let there be light" and it was good for gamers everywhere....Yet the debate over textures vs.geo could go either way. The best example I could think of is Half Life 2:

http://www.gamershell.com/screenpop.php?id=2025

I mean look at that image other than the polys on the character the scene has a very low geo count; saved by excellent texture work and a convincing lighting model.

Though few examples exist in my mind, but the conclusion is textures ace geo. Case in point, why the bother of normal maps if geo is king? Normal maps add detail to low poly geo....what kind of detail you ask? Lighting information detail. See the progression here? Lighting > Textures > Geometry

 

[The Lamonster]

I max textures first and then tweak lighting because lighting has a much bigger impact on performance than textures.

 

[Crossing Eden]

DS3 doesn't have very strong lighting. Many scenes look flat and static. There's a general lack of shadows and dynamic lighting as well. It's not bad, it does it's job portraying the world, but compared to other games of it's gen it's pretty basic stuff IMO.

Strong lighting is exactly why the environments in Souls look the way they do despite using lower polycounts on objects and characters than other games.

 

[Coreda]

I want to say lighting but then I think about the low res textures in something like the original Dishonored which looked like balls when near anything despite having impressive art direction. So long as the textures aren't distracting I'd say lighting.

 

[LeleSocho]

Again good by what metric? The low standards of gaming rendering during that time period or CGI in general? A big focus of game engines this gen has been making huge improvements to the way lighting works. Including souls games, which made a bigger push towards more complex lighting compared to more complex geometry.

Good as in pleasant to look at.
I chose PlayStation because had a massive texture advantage compared to its rival the N64 that could push more poly, had texture filtering an didn't have warping but despite that on average PS1 games to this day and age are more pleasant to look at because they had better textures... that being said it really applies to any console that came after that, a game that has great textures (and possibly good geometries) with subpar or not cutting edge lightning still looks great.. the opposite isn't true though.
Do you think applying realtime raytracing lightning to Super Mario 64 it would gain anything at all? Would you rather do that or do a complete makeover in textures and/or geometries?

The fact that rendering engines are focusing on real time lightning is irrelevant as in ad hoc baked lightning does the job just as well at a fraction of the performance needed.
The focus on real time rendering is because it takes less men power to make lightning look good and decided that the performance cost was worth it.

In fact i would add that before this generation the lightning problem was never tackled on heavily because the other drawbacks were much more important in order to make a game look good or realistic... now that everything has reached a certain standard of quality developers can concentrate on the last thing remaining and that's lightning which before had much lower priority.

 

[beril]

If they have no lighting then they are all black. You still need lighting in order to have vertex colours.

Moreover with the primitive lighting in those games they attempt to fake a lot effects we would take for granted today.For example, they would bake occlusion into the or specular effects into what would just be diffuse these days. By virtue of that fact the artistic effects of lighting are accounted for even in the earliest games.

Well, without light everything is black, that doesn't make it a meaningful technical term.
There are plenty of ways to use vertex colors that doesn't necessarily qualify as a lighting system, and games that simply doesn't use vertex colors.

Considering the actual topic is to compare the importance of lighting vs textures, it becomes somewhat silly to talk about lighting in games where all 'light' is hand painted directly into the textures.

 

[nkarafo]

I'm saying that the biggest improvement and focus of their engine was the lighting first and foremost. When you watch the before and after comparisons of DS2, the biggest sacrifice they had to make for the sake of performance was the lighting. Said lighting made HUGE differences in how the scenes looked in the demo compared to the final game. Much more so than the slight texture and geometry changes.

Oh ok, thanks for clarifying.

Strong lighting is exactly why the environments in Souls look the way they do despite using lower polycounts on objects and characters than other games.

I disagree about the lower polycounts, to me it looks like it's using a lot more geometry for the environments than most other games of it's era (not sure about characters or other objects though). Of course there is no way to prove this without counting the polys of many other games and compare them to it. But to me it looks this way. So let's just agree to disagree here.

 

[laxu]

Lighting does a lot of the heavy lifting in making games look good (and in low poly/simple engine games, baked lighting on good textures adds so much more to the proceedings). But without good geometry, it's for naught.

And by good geometry I don't mean high polycounts, but smart use of modelling - which is what great low poly art gets.

Exactly. With low poly you have to carefully consider every surface. For example you can make a face (two polygon surface) that starts from any corner of a square but how you divide it also determines where the center line between two vertices lies. This can be important in showing folds in clothing or to define a tree or something.

Then you have lighting which also needs to work with the models so they look more defined than they really are. Lighting is the area where games still have a ways to go even though current games do a lot there already.

With textures you not only have the size of the texture and how well it is mapped on surfaces but also how it is filtered in the game engine. The reason why old PS1 era games nowadays look like shit is not only because of the low texture size but because the filtering they used on textures which made them look smoother but at the same time blurry. This was fine for the low resolutions they ran in originally but now on emulators can look pretty horrid. By comparison games that opted for no filtering look pixelated but maybe more pleasing to the eye.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Lighting

 

[Kitsune Sama]

Lighting > Textures > Geometry, no doubts.

 

[tuxfool]

Well, without light everything is black, that doesn't make it a meaningful technical term.
There are plenty of ways to use vertex colors that doesn't necessarily qualify as a lighting system, and games that simply doesn't use vertex colors.

Considering the actual topic is to compare the importance of lighting vs textures, it becomes somewhat silly to talk about lighting in games where all 'light' is hand painted directly into the textures.

My answer also considered the artistic contribution of lighting and how they attempted to emulate that in game with more primitive lighting models.

 

[KKRT00]

Lighting > Shading >> Textures > Geometry

 

[bounchfx]

animation>lighting>geo=textures

in that order imo
but that's also because I'm a whore for stylized

 

[nOoblet16]

Can i point out a difference without someone translating it into "i don't respect your opinion?"

The first few Dark souls pictures show a more dense environment and the camera is closer.

In the low poly picture the camera is zoomed out, showing a much larger area.

Now if i was in control of the character and explored those environments in a closer range i would only see flat surfaces in the low poly game. Sure, if it doesn't allow you to zoom in too much, it would hide that fact but it would also be a restriction.

I prefer games that are just as detailed when up close and personal as when you zoom out.



This apartment is nice and all but i PERSONALLY prefer the one in the last part of Uncharted 4. It doesn't have as realistic lighting neither it's as photorealistic but it's much more dense, more detailed and feels lived in. That's what i personally look for in games graphics.

That bit about it looking "lived in" comes down to art, and the entire reason the apartment in UC4 looks as good as it does compared to the rest of the game IS due to lighting. It uses baked GI lighting far more effectively than any part of the game and hence it looks impressive. Without it, there's nothing in that apartment that is particularly impressive in terms of geometry or texture when compared to the rest of the game.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Oh ok, thanks for clarifying.



I disagree about the lower polycounts, to me it looks like it's using a lot more geometry for the environments than most other games of it's era (not sure about characters or other objects though). Of course there is no way to prove this without counting the polys of many other games and compare them to it. But to me it looks this way. So let's just agree to disagree here.

The assets in souls games use way lower poly assets than other current gen games but the diifference is that FS fills each scene with more of them. You can always quite clearly see the polygonal edges on any given object or character in a Souls game.

Which is why they use such specific lighting to make everything shine as much as possible. The lighting in Souls is genuinely doing the major legwork for the visuals.

 

[JP]

As with anything to do with games, it's more to do with balance and using the limited resources available on all platforms to the best for that particular project. Each of these things will be more important on some projects but the best projects shine because they've utilised all of them to the utmost for that particular project.