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Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 09 Feb 2019, 16:44
by w_laenger
I noticed that in New Super Mario Bros Wii (and DS), the characters are shaded differently in some levels.
In the castle, it looks like light comes from the bottom (see the toad's chin):
Image
For comparison, another level (see the yellow toad):
Image

I think that something like this could be added to supertux, too.
The current lighting could be called Ambient Light and the directional light can be denoted as Directional Light.
For each level, the ratio between Ambient and Directional Light can be set, e.g. low Directional Light in foggy levels. The sun light vector is another additional setting which is used for the Directional Light.
To calculate the Directional Light, for each texture (also tiles, not only Tux and enemies) a normalmap defines the normal vectors. If the normalmap is missing, the texture is simply assumed to be flat. Since supertux is 2D, light sources (e.g. a lamp) are modelled approximately as a stripe which goes in -z direction. When calculating the Directional Light for a pixel, the minimum angle between the normal (from the normalmap) and a vector to the light source (which directs to the stripe) is used. (directional light similar to Gouraud shading)
Much of the lighting does not need to be calculated dynamically in every frame; for non-moving light sources, it can be calculated when loading the level or combining the tiles. Directional Light for moving light sources can be disabled so that light calculation is not needed for every frame (for performance).
Image

Many current textures are already lighted directionally (with fixed direction), so when enabling Directional Light, different ones need to be used.
Image

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 10 Feb 2019, 13:23
by Oliver_Buo
supter tux is not super mario......maybe u at the wrong place here !?

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 10 Feb 2019, 19:34
by WeLuvGoatz
Oliver_Buo {l Wrote}:supter tux is not super mario......maybe u at the wrong place here !?


Lol :D :D

But this is an interesting idea.

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 11 Feb 2019, 00:34
by Alzter
So what you're saying is we get 3D lighting for the game so we can light anything from whatever direction with any colour? The only way I can see that working is if we made every art asset in the game shadeless and then gave them a bump map to represent where light would hit them, like the enemies in Super Mario Maker (NSMBU) for example. That sounds really cool in theory but way to hard to make in practice. It would be cool though.

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 11 Feb 2019, 03:30
by ProTux
Can the team make a supertux 3d option in the menu?

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 11 Feb 2019, 11:46
by w_laenger
Alzter {l Wrote}:So what you're saying is we get 3D lighting for the game so we can light anything from whatever direction with any colour? The only way I can see that working is if we made every art asset in the game shadeless and then gave them a bump map to represent where light would hit them, like the enemies in Super Mario Maker (NSMBU) for example. That sounds really cool in theory but way to hard to make in practice. It would be cool though.


I'd like to have it combined with the current 2d lighting, which suits better for foggy/cloudy levels.
Making every art asset shadeless at once is too much work and may cause compatibility problems. The Directional Light feature could be made an optional setting. If it's disabled, the current shaded textures are used, and if it is enabled, either shadeless textures with their normalmap or a simple copy-paste duplicate of the shaded texture with flat normalmap is used.
In time, the duplicates can be changed to be shadeless and have a normalmap. By still using the shaded textures, it's possible to add and test a new texture before creating the normalmap, and it shouldn't be hard to implement in practice I think.

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 16 Feb 2019, 01:16
by ProTux
there should be a 3d supertux settings option.

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 16 Feb 2019, 15:53
by w_laenger
ProTux {l Wrote}:there should be a 3d supertux settings option.

Do you mean a setting to enable Directional Lighting?

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 16 Feb 2019, 19:20
by ProTux
yes and making supertux 3d and putting an option to where it is 3D.

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 08 Mar 2019, 00:07
by Alzter
ProTux {l Wrote}:yes and making supertux 3d and putting an option to where it is 3D.

I'll have 10000 more worlds, 50 more characters, a VR mode, ten sequels, and a large soda.

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 08 Mar 2019, 10:18
by manuel
ProTux {l Wrote}:yes and making supertux 3d and putting an option to where it is 3D.


ST in 3D would be a completely new game and cannot be done with the current engine. With good textures a 2.5D game like the new Donkey Kong games might be possible but not more.

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 29 Aug 2019, 08:18
by w_laenger
I think this can be done in SuperTux (except that the walls are not slant).
Image

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 30 Aug 2019, 00:02
by drummyfish
It definitely could if the engine allows you to write shaders (which I suppose it does if it's based on OpenGL). Best way to prove your point is to do a mockup/prove of concept.

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 03 Sep 2019, 06:45
by Alzter
Godot has normal maps, although adding a normal map to everything seems like too much effort.

Re: Directional Lighting

PostPosted: 22 Feb 2020, 14:02
by w_laenger
Alzter {l Wrote}:Godot has normal maps, although adding a normal map to everything seems like too much effort.


I think we don't need a normal map for everything; we can simply use a flat dummy normalmap for textures whose normalmap is not (yet) available.

drummyfish {l Wrote}:It definitely could if the engine allows you to write shaders (which I suppose it does if it's based on OpenGL). Best way to prove your point is to do a mockup/prove of concept.


SuperTux already has shaders. The game is horribly slow in my opinion; so I'm not going to implement a POC of this or any other fancy graphics feature as long as the game takes so much GPU and CPU.

The demonstration video of https://azagaya.itch.io/laigter shows how a skull can be lighted by a moving flame when there is a normalmap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJRqupAr9kY&t=39
In SuperTux, for one flame (or another light source) I'd use two point light sources in the calculation: one at height zero and one at the height which is half of the tile width.

manuel {l Wrote}:
ProTux {l Wrote}:yes and making supertux 3d and putting an option to where it is 3D.


ST in 3D would be a completely new game and cannot be done with the current engine. With good textures a 2.5D game like the new Donkey Kong games might be possible but not more.


I would add bumpmapping but not parallax occlusion or other 3D surface methods because in my opinion it is difficult and annoying to think about the collision boxes during playing when stuff is drawn in 3D in a 2D game.