Design Lighting in my game (Metroidvania)

Simon Gust

Member
I've been breaking my head over if and how I want lighting in my game.
My game being a metroidvania containing roguelike elements.

Screenshots of area with lighting, is this annoying or obnoxious?


My fear is that the gameplay visibility is getting hindered.
I want to put importance on gameplay but I also don't want the game to be ugly.
Only Graphical stuff is affected, so player, enemies and general objects are at full visibility.

What would you do?
Remove the current system in favor of gameplay visibility?
or is there a better solution?

For refrence and further information
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/eyes-of-regret-wip.35787/
 

JackTurbo

Member
Presumable the area immediately around the player is always lit?
If so I dont see any problems with the screenshot, looks good. I think lighting and such can be over done, but I think youre a long way away from that point.
 

Simon Gust

Member
Presumable the area immediately around the player is always lit?
If so I dont see any problems with the screenshot, looks good. I think lighting and such can be over done, but I think youre a long way away from that point.
The area around the player is not lit because of the player, there happens to be a hole in the wall.
This is what I mean with ugly, it could be completely dark but all game objects are at full light. And since the enemies don't need light to see the terrain, the player is at a huge disadvantage.
I could make the objects emit light, but it would end up being so much that I could just remove lighting alltogether.
 

JackTurbo

Member
Well I think keeping the area around the player could be a good option (if the lighting isnt baked in). Even when its relatively dark you can see your immediate surroundings ok-ish, so I think this approach makes sense and is a good compromise.

If you were planning on using simple static lighting however then I'd just tone down the opacity a little.
 

RangerX

Member
When you design your game, ALWAYS think "gameplay". Every single detail of a game must thought that way in my humble opinion.
This means, your lighting must accomodate and favorise your gameplay. You only knows how this translate into your actual task at hand though.
I would argue a game is not well designed if the lighting comes in conflict with the gameplay or makes it "not as it should".

Thinking like this I think will prevent alot of player's frustration like "oh sweet, I just got hit by an npc I couldn't see"
 

Simon Gust

Member
When you design your game, ALWAYS think "gameplay". Every single detail of a game must thought that way in my humble opinion.
This means, your lighting must accomodate and favorise your gameplay. You only knows how this translate into your actual task at hand though.
I would argue a game is not well designed if the lighting comes in conflict with the gameplay or makes it "not as it should".

Thinking like this I think will prevent alot of player's frustration like "oh sweet, I just got hit by an npc I couldn't see"
Only works for dark souls I suppose, though with the current system, everything gameplay related is still visible. Doesn't help if you don't see where you're going.

Well I think keeping the area around the player could be a good option (if the lighting isnt baked in). Even when its relatively dark you can see your immediate surroundings ok-ish, so I think this approach makes sense and is a good compromise.

If you were planning on using simple static lighting however then I'd just tone down the opacity a little.
That's a good point, going to remember that.

You don't have the unlit area to be pitch black
I don't know how good that would look, I have to balance out gameplay and visuals. But that point surely stands for when I decide to make day and night cycles.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
The only think that irks me is that "the inside of walls" and "background elements" both have exactly the same color, pitch black. I'd make either the walls be dark gold-colored or the background zone have a blue brick pattern, so they'll stand out more from each other. (Maybe do both, for maximal contrast?). And you should consider making the holes in the background wall blueish as well, so they stick out less - right now, it's easy to mistake them for platforms.
 

Bingdom

Googledom
I'd say, when it comes to lighting in a game, you need to give a sense of mood.

What I see so far with your lighting system, is that it looks like it's just white light. Neutral.

Ask yourself, what mood do you want to give to your players? A slight tint of purple/blue for eeriness? Orange for a warm feeling? Examples, of course. It may not match well with your palette. Experiment with the colours until you feel what's right with your direction.

The dark areas in your game are too dark in my opinion. If they don't take part in a major role like Terraria's (concealment of treasure), then I don't think it needs to be as dark as it.

Currently, I'm in favour of not having the lighting system, as I haven't heard any convincing arguments to leave it.

To improve visuals, I'm sure there are many ways to do it. It could require several iterations of redrawing the tiles! I think the main problem with the tiles is that it's easily seen as repeating.
Small details like decals, cracks and erosion help a lot in terms of visuals.
 

pixeltroid

Member
i actually like the lighting efftect actually. but overall the place looks pretty bland imho. being lost in a level like that would really frustrate the player.

throw in some props and eye candy here and there: lamps, chandeliers, statues, pillars, doors, broken pottery etc.
 

The-any-Key

Member
You can increase the ambient light by blending the black areas to black and white instead (no colors). The light should make the area show colors. The room will appear dark but you can still see good enough.
 

Juju

Member
Bloom out the lighting and change your ambient colour away from a simple black. Dark purple is my go-to, but with your palette I'd try a dark, saturated turquoise.
 
D

Deleted member 13992

Guest
My fear is that the gameplay visibility is getting hindered.
I want to put importance on gameplay but I also don't want the game to be ugly.
These are valid concerns. But there's more to lighting that either there is or there isn't. All your lights are white.

Consider defining the tone of your different areas. I see you have an exterior area and an interior (a cave?). What should your cave feel like? Is it wet and murky? Then maybe some greyish-blue/green tone to the lights there. Are there torches? Maybe orangish would be better then. Outdoors, is it only lit by the moon-stars? Greyish-purple might be nice. Stuff like that. Your light falloffs seem to be very large as well, which diminish the claustrophobic feeling of interiors/caves/dungeons. I would try more lights covering the same area but with smaller falloff, if your engine can handle it.

Tile style/palette also has an impact on lighting. Not changing the color exactly, but the brightness curve of the midtones of your tileset. With your current lighting, I would see the midtone slightly darker, but the hilights just as bright. But that's only my personal preference.

Consider lighting direction not in your lights but in your tiles as well. I see some of your tiles are being lit from above, others from the left, and others just generally from the front. I find for caves what works best is to have the tiles lit from "behind", from the background, where the foreground tiles are mostly dark except for a highlight lit from "inward" (I have an example at home Ill try to upload later), and the background tiles lit from the front slightly. But outdoors you may want it lit more generally from above. But you do you!

Often in stylized games, shadows are cold colors in tone, purple/blue, and highlights are white/orange. It's not law though, and you are free to experiment. But it can be interesting to have shadows a different tone from the light, whichever you chose.

An old demo of mine where I experiment with warm light and cold shadows, then shifting into the opposite.

 
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D

Deleted member 13992

Guest
Some more on how tiles are pixeled/lit. I'm looking at your floor tile specifically. On the floor tile, the bottom-most bricks are being lit from the left somehow. But there's really no reason to light them this way. There's no light source in the blackest "filled in" parts of the ground. In theory light sources could be torches, phosphorescent mushrooms, electronics, fireflies, but these would all be above the floor brick tiles, not beneath or to the left of them. I hope I'm making sense.

Here's a cave tileset I made some years back. The blue rock on the left specifically, see how the rocks are lit? They imply that the cave is being lit from the things in the tunnels. Not from the filled-in ground.

 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Often in stylized games, shadows are cold colors in tone, purple/blue, and warm are white/orange. It's not law though, and you are free to experiment. But it can be interesting to have shadows a different tone from the light, whichever you chose.

An old demo of mine where I experiment with warm light and cold shadows, then shifting into the opposite.

I saw a guide a while ago which pointed out that IRL, shadows have the opposite color of light (yellow light has blue shadows, red light has green shadows and so on), so I wouldn't say it's just "interesting" to have shadows have a different tone from the light, it's more or less guaranteed to look more natural :)
 

sylvain_l

Member
I saw a guide a while ago which pointed out that IRL, shadows have the opposite color of light (yellow light has blue shadows, red light has green shadows and so on), so I wouldn't say it's just "interesting" to have shadows have a different tone from the light, it's more or less guaranteed to look more natural
It depend from the author/artist.
Often suggested to use effectivelly the complementary color of lightning. (<- easy way, and play well enough with human relative perception)
I read also some different variant. where you need to take into account the ambiant light, what are the color&texture of the surfaces and what color light going to be reflected, scatered around and specifically in the shadow zone. (<-more realistic complicated way)
 
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