How would XCOM 2's map pieces have been lit?
polycounter lvl 6
XCOM 2 uses a fairly modified version of UE3. It procedurally generates the maps your guys fight in by arranging random, modular map segements in a pre-defined arrangement. I'm curious about how the lighting for a level would therefore be achieved. I'm more familiar with UE4 than UE3, but the technical limitations of working with modular pieces in UE4 would probably still apply.
Namely, that you can't build lighting on runtime, and you can't import pre-built lightmaps to apply to a piece. Having said that, I guess it's possible their engine was modified to accomodate this- Indeed I suspect that is the case.
I think the map pieces don't include any actual static lights, at least outside of buildings and whatnot. Rather, the lighting seems fairly ambient- this would probably help the technical implementation if the map pieces were individually baked, because you wouldn't get lights in one map piece abrubtly cutting off on the transition to another segment.
All I can think of is that the map pieces had their lighting pre-built and then those lightmaps were simply applied when the map piece is dragged into the level. Does anyone else have any intuition/experience about how the lighting in this game would have been achieved?
Namely, that you can't build lighting on runtime, and you can't import pre-built lightmaps to apply to a piece. Having said that, I guess it's possible their engine was modified to accomodate this- Indeed I suspect that is the case.
I think the map pieces don't include any actual static lights, at least outside of buildings and whatnot. Rather, the lighting seems fairly ambient- this would probably help the technical implementation if the map pieces were individually baked, because you wouldn't get lights in one map piece abrubtly cutting off on the transition to another segment.
All I can think of is that the map pieces had their lighting pre-built and then those lightmaps were simply applied when the map piece is dragged into the level. Does anyone else have any intuition/experience about how the lighting in this game would have been achieved?
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