Today I’ll be talking about a few more techniques we that really help objects look like they are a part of the scene.  This will probably be my last post about lighting and shading techniques for a while.

To determine what the surface an object looks like, we are using a diffuse(color) map that defines the color and subtle shadows of an object, and a specular map that defines which parts of it are reflective. By multiplying the diffuse map with the diffuse lighting, and the specular map with the specular lighting, and then adding them both together, we get the following result for our stylish backpack.

One of David’s biggest goals for the Overgrowth graphics technology is to reduce the ’cgi look’ common to many games and movie special effects, where scenes don’t quite look like they fit together.  This effect can be reduced by simulating ambient and indirect lighting (how each object reflects the color of the sky and nearby surfaces, remember we touched on ambient lighting for terrain last week). Most games approximate this by just adding a flat ’ambient light’ value to the shadows, but David wants to go a step farther by using blurred cube maps to simulate the true ambient light colors in every direction.

For more Overgrowth development news, check out the Wolfire Blog.