I didn't look further than your profile to see if you were a developer with a grievance or
a gamer just hating on something you didn't understand. I didn't go so far as to check
out your work, nor would I go on to suggest you need to be of a high enough calibre before
you have the right to bad mouth someone elses work... there'd be no point in that right?
I really don't sit here with a set of artistic scales, honest!
I do think its important to rendering from hipoly to lowpoly, I could only achieve minimal
quality rendering with the nvidia filters when I tried that at the start of UT3.
But they've done a great job with that workflow on DeadSpace and proved me wrong so I'm
impressed as much by that as by the art direction they conveyed as a whole.
See, I don't really think that because we do something a certain way at Epic that it is the right
way for all games. I found it really refreshing to see something that wasn't pushing super
deep detail in every spot, it reminded me that sometimes less truly is more and that by
going that route, you end up painting a clearer environment to navigate through.
When the style is pure genericana scifi like this, keeping visibility is a big deal to pull off
and so I respect them for managing that.
I suppose for me in general, in game art, I respect discipline and control more than I appreciate
detail intensity because I find detail intensity pretty easy to pull off, easier than the less is
more approach which requires a greater restraint.
I respect what Bethesda do with their environments for the same reason, a lot of the work
doesn't hold up on its own, but as a whole its magnificient and the resuse of texture work
is impressive.
Art direction trumps individual skill 9 times out of 10 for me, I suppose thats why some of the
things I admire, in relation to what kind of art I produce myself, might seem weird aye?
So please, don't be looking at my comments as an attack on you as an artist, I'm not
judging your artistic quality at all in this. The only attack, if you want to call it that, that I
considered myself as intentionally having made was the aggressive way in which you launched
into deconstructing the merit's of anything they accomplished.
You never know when someone who you are attacking might be reading and thats karmic
death, I mean, you might end up working with those people some day, or worse they
might be someone helping decide if you get a job you really want and deserve later.
That stuff just aint right, I've been guilty of it myself in the past and I paid a heavy price
and I bet all the people here who knew me a decade ago still assume most of my posts
start out from a position of arrogance because first impressions last and I was an arrogant
sod a decade ago.
I certainly own the game Vig, why would I lie about that? Just beat the third chapter last night (note to self: dont play the game with drunk friends over, never used so many health packs in my whole life...couldn't hear ANYTHING haha)
I said I planned on playing the rest of the game, I never said I hated it, just that I was disappointed. I still love the genre and there's no way I'll let some weak assets and a little goofy gameplay ruin a horror shooter on a space station, it'd have to be pretty embarrassing to achieve that...
As for careful dont offend the devs, I would hope that my critiques would be taken as an act of care, and not of malice. I dont think I would want to work with or under anyone who doesn't understand or value critique.
I dont hold anything against you of course, you're entitled to your thoughts as I am mine, honestly I love a healthy debate and would have loved a careful destruction of my own points from you or anyone else.
Regardless of the techniques used, I thought the environment art and how it was applied came out on top. Would it have looked better with beveled edges (that is the complaint, right?) likely. Maybe not. In the end, I think it looks better than 90% of the titles out there or coming out.
Also - the effects in the game. Maaaaaaan, I wanted to have sex with my friends TV while watching him play a few parts. One part particular is where you
have to toss these 4 asteroid looking things into what looks to be a rocket blast?
Would it have looked better with beveled edges (that is the complaint, right?) likely.
Adam, please tell me you're really not that big of an idiot and that was just a troll post. The argument was that the game has poor material definition(ie everything feels like the same, flat material.) The metal looks more like mat concrete than something with reflective properties, etc etc etc.
I really like the way they seem to have used various metals in the construction of the environments.
There is a pretty decent range of oxidized matte surfaces contrasted with some more shiny/reflective ones but none of them seem to be overpowering and actually feel more realistic to me than something with super bright wear and tear on all the edges.
Seeing as the environments are 80-90% metal I think if everything was shiny it would just create a huge mass of visual noise and be distracting. that said there have been a couple areas where it seems kinda like the well of the souls, gotta stand at the right place at the right time for the light to hit the perfect spot and it wows you, while other viewpoints of the area might look a bit flat.
overall I would agree with the less is more comments and feel they really nailed the look of their inspirational material ala alien and event horizon, those lived in worlds, and that is what makes it so cool I think, it feels well used and previously inhabited.
MAN! just beat the game yesterday and I have to say.... I LOVED IT! Fantastic game! 9/10 from me!
I thought all the art looked really awesome as a whole. The main character grew on me and I sorta got into the story towards the end. It had some really nice puzzles and the atmosphere was amazing in zero gravity and in certain airlocks! Loved this game! ^^
adam: hahah, I actually clicked Sandbag's profile to see what game company he worked at
because my first thought was 'wow, if he thinks Dead Space sucks , his stuff must be amazing!'.
The thing about hating on other developers so strongly, in a public forum. is that it always
comes back to bite you on the ass later.
[offtopic]
imho even a guy who never did art can critizise everybody.
Most/all art critics can't paint as good as the painter they critizise..
[/offtopic]
never played the game, but judging all the media I saw it looks ok/good, not amazing.
"I really dont see what is so bad about sandbag's posts"
The bad is that he has a different opinion about the game, that's all , and some ppl here seems to get offended because they like the game and they don't tolerate other with different taste.
No doubt is a good game, but not all of us have the same preferences. Doom3 for me was was a joke (with great art), i didn't felt terror... all was very predictable. Imps made me laugh.
The feedback of ppl helps developers to improve their games. Why don't criticize? we can't?
As artists, is very good for us to take criticism in the right way. We are improving constantly and if we think what we make is "perfect", "superb" (when ppl don't think the same..), then we have an EGO problem. Why the hell Sandbag can't criticize? why to do a personal attack to him? why looking at his portfolio?
Man, this make me feel sick. You are trolling him... A bit of respect, we are not teenagers from schools ¬¬
If you want to crit what I said to him, and his reaction, best to read my explanation perhaps?
I dont know how much clearer I can make it than "nor would I go on to suggest you need to
be of a high enough calibre before you have the right to bad mouth someone elses work...
there'd be no point in that right?"
The metal looks more like mat concrete than something with reflective properties, etc etc etc.
I'm thinking Performance? Gotta sacrifice a little to keep FPS up. But if you compare the same argument to games like Gears, (and this is of course Conjecture on my Part Kevin) then maybe it breaks down to layout and design?
Yeah if you guys read Kevin's response it clears everything up, you see, he is scottish.
Fixed.
Was interested in this but wasn't planning on picking it up due to Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 soon (and still gotta finish Stalker). But the reviews are forcing my hand and I'll have to get it.
Anyone played it on the PC? I'm hoping the PC port came out well.
Granted I have no knowledge behind the tech used in this other than what I've seen in forums posts and guessing? but IF they did use a type of deferred rendering it COULD explain why a lot of the materials share the same qualities. Depending on the type of deferred rendering they used all of the lighting/specular/reflection calculations would be done as a post process to everything or groups of everything at once. This really helps the speed of rendering with a lot of lights BUT you don't have nearly the flexibility that you would have if each object had it's own shader or groups of objects had their own shader.
Granted this is all my speculation so who knows what kind of rendering they used. I beat the game last night and I think it really kicked ass. The story was OK but I Think what sold a lot of the visuals was their use of glows, flares, fog, mist and anything that just added thickness and atmosphere to the game.
As a gamer one complaint I would have is I would have liked to have seen more varied locations. I know it's one ship but it would have been cool if each section had a stronger more distinct visual identity.
See, I don't really think that because we do something a certain way at Epic that it is the right
way for all games. I found it really refreshing to see something that wasn't pushing super
deep detail in every spot, it reminded me that sometimes less truly is more and that by
going that route, you end up painting a clearer environment to navigate through.
QFT
So, is this game fun to play? Controls? Combat? I'm finding it difficult to dig through all the bickering in this thread to find out. Really, it's been under the radar for me. I hear about it, watched some videos, but nothing about it has grabbed my attention. Perhaps best to wait for it to be bargained priced before checking it out.
Granted I have no knowledge behind the tech used in this other than what I've seen in forums posts and guessing? but IF they did use a type of deferred rendering it COULD explain why a lot of the materials share the same qualities. Depending on the type of deferred rendering they used all of the lighting/specular/reflection calculations would be done as a post process to everything or groups of everything at once. This really helps the speed of rendering with a lot of lights BUT you don't have nearly the flexibility that you would have if each object had it's own shader or groups of objects had their own shader.
Granted this is all my speculation so who knows what kind of rendering they used. I beat the game last night and I think it really kicked ass. The story was OK but I Think what sold a lot of the visuals was their use of glows, flares, fog, mist and anything that just added thickness and atmosphere to the game.
As a gamer one complaint I would have is I would have liked to have seen more varied locations. I know it's one ship but it would have been cool if each section had a stronger more distinct visual identity.
Actually this makes buttloads of sense, i was talking to one of our programmers the other day about the advantages/disadvantages and he basically said what you're saying here. Also someone mentioned earlier that it was using deferred rendering.
I'm not sure how i got to this thread, i think i was searching through somebody's posts. I'm glad i did though, who doesn't love a bit of banter. Although it seems that there's a fair bit of err "constructive argumentation" going on on this forum.
maybe i should spend more time here, seems like fun...
So, is this game fun to play? Controls? Combat? I'm finding it difficult to dig through all the bickering in this thread to find out. Really, it's been under the radar for me. I hear about it, watched some videos, but nothing about it has grabbed my attention. Perhaps best to wait for it to be bargained priced before checking it out.
this game was tough... till i switched to medium from hard. then it became a breeze to play with just a few 'omugawd' moments. not sayin i completed it.. but wat took me 5 hours on hard took me only 2 on medium.
Kinda' a bummer, cuz i love playing games on hard mode. this one, on hard mode, just bored / annoyed me
once i went into medium, howveer, i TRULY began to enjoy it
the experience is very 'real'. the main thing that adds 'scary' to the game are the sounds.
i have a 5.1, so hearing the alien walk behind me / sneak up on me is so frightening. i remember at one point, i did NOT want to turn around, just hoping that it'd go the hell away.... it didnt lol
overall, im super impressed by the art in the game. obviously! i have no complaints except that i didnt quite love the main character's armour. or at least 'lvl 1' of it.
i the props like the store and the workstation. even the save spots. lol i love those animations.
not much to say really... other than 'lovin it... even though im scared shitless to play it.
I think the art for this game is pretty great. I thought the material definition was good, the assets were good, the art direction is great, awesome core game mechanic. Story is terrible, but I don't expect much from video games in that regard.
I think the main character design, especially early on, is great. It is a guy in a rubber jump suit, which is more or less what I expect from a space engineer. I guess some people expected to see their favorite pro wrestler tarred and dropped into a pit of greeble. Don't worry guys, Gears 2 is coming out soon!
Basically, yes, every material is the same in the game. I don't think they can adjust the spec power, unless they piggybacked it with the spec value channel.
can i just sorta slide in here and mention that this little tiff between kevin j and sandbag is a perfect example of what's wrong with arguing on the internet? this:
"adam: hahah, I actually clicked Sandbag's profile to see what game company he worked at
because my first thought was 'wow, if he thinks Dead Space sucks , his stuff must be amazing!'"
could easily be taken as a cute expression of an honest and respectful reaction that he had, and could be taken on face value. seriously, we should give each other the benefit of the doubt a little bit more than we do.
Just started chapter 6. If anyone is a Resident Evil fan I highly recommend that you pick up the game. Whoever art directed this game is a badass in my book. Sound and just general pacing kicks ass. *goes back to playing*
I picked it up yesterday. Just played the first couple of chapters today. I was impressed. Considering I'm generally not a RE, Doom, Bioshock type player I was pretty stressed/tense throughout the playing. It looks pretty good, a couple things to me look a little flat and/or obviously drawn and filtered through cb. But it certainly has not detracted from the experience of the game.
I like the HUD, but I find the controls a bit awkward, still getting used to them.
sidenote, some of the comments and opinions in this thread though definitely make me think twice about posting work and/or critiquing others.
just a quick question
i've recently become very bothered about my setup's anti-aliasing and stuff, so i was wondering:
how aliased is your game?
i know its a bit off-topic, but im really stressin about this.
basically, the armour of the main character, especially the indents in the helmet and the edges of the belt, seem like they haven't been anti-aliased at all
no matter wat tv setting i use, its all the same, running at 720p [360 set to HD, both software wise _and_ hardware wise]
so, do you guys have similar issues?
jaggies?
thanks guys
just a bit worried that i got a shitty box... despite it being quite a while ago
Seems with the pc release if you have a 360 controller plugged in, all the menus in-game are switched to the controller mappings. unplug the controller and everything switches back to the keyboard/mouse setup.
The 360 controls feel better than the keyboard/mouse setup.
I don't play many games, but I'm really glad I bought this one. The controls are absolutely horrid on pc, though... (what's up with the mouse???). I might have broken the gamedisc in frustration without my 360 controller. Im on chapter 8 right now, and I don't know if it's just me, but I'm finding the difficulty of the game refreshing. It's not a cakewalk, but it's not outright frustrating. I wouldn't say it's one of the greatest games ever, and it's not extremely unique, but it's just a VERY good game, done right, with no flaws that I care too particularly about. I really love that the kenesis and stasis abilities are actually useful, and don't feel gimmicky at all. Can't wait to play more tomorrow!
I'm not sure why, but the game wasn't really very scary for me.
Most of the time you knew that a monster just appeared somewhere, either by some sloshing sound or a "scary music burst". Then it was just a matter of disecting what was on the other side of the gun.
What was actually scary tho was
the very last bit you see of the game
.
Overall its a really cool game tho, looks very nice and has some refreshing things to do beside just spreading limbs all over the place.
Been playing it casually for a few days now, absolutely loving it.
I was pleasantly surprised that it's a bit more than a straightforward run n gun scenario.
It's a perfect combination of Event Horizon meets The Thing (Art Direction Wise) along with Resident Evil meets System Shock 2 (Game Mechanics).
Considering all the comparisons this game acquires, it would lead you to believe it's an unoriginal rehash... Maybe.
But it's a fucking good one
I also watched that DeadSpace animation film, I thought it was pretty good. Especially when considering that I thought the animation shorts they kept releasing were unbareably horrid.
I finished it yesterday what a great game, better than Bioshock in my book at least (which wasnt scary at all unlike DS)! Nice cinematic style, fantastic visuals+sound, story is a bit predictable but still good, and many cool ideas that make it so much fun. Btw, whoever says this game isn`t scary should play it on hard lol
I heard there gonna be a DS2 as well, yay :poly142:
was handled rather clumsily. I knew it was coming so there wasn't a surprise, but I still think they could have made it much more poignant and emotional.
That's really the only thing that stuck in my craw. Deep in my second play-through, using alternative weapons. Hooray!
How can you tell how much ammo you have left? The plasma cutter shows the number of shots in the gun at that point, but I'm never sure how much I have after that.
How can you tell how much ammo you have left? The plasma cutter shows the number of shots in the gun at that point, but I'm never sure how much I have after that.
You could look in the inventory by pressing "I" ( on the PC version at least ).
Replies
I didn't look further than your profile to see if you were a developer with a grievance or
a gamer just hating on something you didn't understand. I didn't go so far as to check
out your work, nor would I go on to suggest you need to be of a high enough calibre before
you have the right to bad mouth someone elses work... there'd be no point in that right?
I really don't sit here with a set of artistic scales, honest!
I do think its important to rendering from hipoly to lowpoly, I could only achieve minimal
quality rendering with the nvidia filters when I tried that at the start of UT3.
But they've done a great job with that workflow on DeadSpace and proved me wrong so I'm
impressed as much by that as by the art direction they conveyed as a whole.
See, I don't really think that because we do something a certain way at Epic that it is the right
way for all games. I found it really refreshing to see something that wasn't pushing super
deep detail in every spot, it reminded me that sometimes less truly is more and that by
going that route, you end up painting a clearer environment to navigate through.
When the style is pure genericana scifi like this, keeping visibility is a big deal to pull off
and so I respect them for managing that.
I suppose for me in general, in game art, I respect discipline and control more than I appreciate
detail intensity because I find detail intensity pretty easy to pull off, easier than the less is
more approach which requires a greater restraint.
I respect what Bethesda do with their environments for the same reason, a lot of the work
doesn't hold up on its own, but as a whole its magnificient and the resuse of texture work
is impressive.
Art direction trumps individual skill 9 times out of 10 for me, I suppose thats why some of the
things I admire, in relation to what kind of art I produce myself, might seem weird aye?
So please, don't be looking at my comments as an attack on you as an artist, I'm not
judging your artistic quality at all in this. The only attack, if you want to call it that, that I
considered myself as intentionally having made was the aggressive way in which you launched
into deconstructing the merit's of anything they accomplished.
You never know when someone who you are attacking might be reading and thats karmic
death, I mean, you might end up working with those people some day, or worse they
might be someone helping decide if you get a job you really want and deserve later.
That stuff just aint right, I've been guilty of it myself in the past and I paid a heavy price
and I bet all the people here who knew me a decade ago still assume most of my posts
start out from a position of arrogance because first impressions last and I was an arrogant
sod a decade ago.
So, we cool ?
I said I planned on playing the rest of the game, I never said I hated it, just that I was disappointed. I still love the genre and there's no way I'll let some weak assets and a little goofy gameplay ruin a horror shooter on a space station, it'd have to be pretty embarrassing to achieve that...
As for careful dont offend the devs, I would hope that my critiques would be taken as an act of care, and not of malice. I dont think I would want to work with or under anyone who doesn't understand or value critique.
I dont hold anything against you of course, you're entitled to your thoughts as I am mine, honestly I love a healthy debate and would have loved a careful destruction of my own points from you or anyone else.
Also - the effects in the game. Maaaaaaan, I wanted to have sex with my friends TV while watching him play a few parts. One part particular is where you
Adam, please tell me you're really not that big of an idiot and that was just a troll post. The argument was that the game has poor material definition(ie everything feels like the same, flat material.) The metal looks more like mat concrete than something with reflective properties, etc etc etc.
There is a pretty decent range of oxidized matte surfaces contrasted with some more shiny/reflective ones but none of them seem to be overpowering and actually feel more realistic to me than something with super bright wear and tear on all the edges.
Seeing as the environments are 80-90% metal I think if everything was shiny it would just create a huge mass of visual noise and be distracting. that said there have been a couple areas where it seems kinda like the well of the souls, gotta stand at the right place at the right time for the light to hit the perfect spot and it wows you, while other viewpoints of the area might look a bit flat.
overall I would agree with the less is more comments and feel they really nailed the look of their inspirational material ala alien and event horizon, those lived in worlds, and that is what makes it so cool I think, it feels well used and previously inhabited.
MAN! just beat the game yesterday and I have to say.... I LOVED IT! Fantastic game! 9/10 from me!
I thought all the art looked really awesome as a whole. The main character grew on me and I sorta got into the story towards the end. It had some really nice puzzles and the atmosphere was amazing in zero gravity and in certain airlocks! Loved this game! ^^
took me about 12hrs to beat it.
[offtopic]
imho even a guy who never did art can critizise everybody.
Most/all art critics can't paint as good as the painter they critizise..
[/offtopic]
never played the game, but judging all the media I saw it looks ok/good, not amazing.
The bad is that he has a different opinion about the game, that's all
No doubt is a good game, but not all of us have the same preferences. Doom3 for me was was a joke (with great art), i didn't felt terror... all was very predictable. Imps made me laugh.
The feedback of ppl helps developers to improve their games. Why don't criticize? we can't?
As artists, is very good for us to take criticism in the right way. We are improving constantly and if we think what we make is "perfect", "superb" (when ppl don't think the same..), then we have an EGO problem. Why the hell Sandbag can't criticize? why to do a personal attack to him? why looking at his portfolio?
Man, this make me feel sick. You are trolling him... A bit of respect, we are not teenagers from schools ¬¬
I dont know how much clearer I can make it than "nor would I go on to suggest you need to
be of a high enough calibre before you have the right to bad mouth someone elses work...
there'd be no point in that right?"
I'm thinking Performance? Gotta sacrifice a little to keep FPS up. But if you compare the same argument to games like Gears, (and this is of course Conjecture on my Part Kevin) then maybe it breaks down to layout and design?
Fixed.
Was interested in this but wasn't planning on picking it up due to Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 soon (and still gotta finish Stalker). But the reviews are forcing my hand and I'll have to get it.
Anyone played it on the PC? I'm hoping the PC port came out well.
Granted this is all my speculation so who knows what kind of rendering they used. I beat the game last night and I think it really kicked ass. The story was OK but I Think what sold a lot of the visuals was their use of glows, flares, fog, mist and anything that just added thickness and atmosphere to the game.
As a gamer one complaint I would have is I would have liked to have seen more varied locations. I know it's one ship but it would have been cool if each section had a stronger more distinct visual identity.
QFT
So, is this game fun to play? Controls? Combat? I'm finding it difficult to dig through all the bickering in this thread to find out. Really, it's been under the radar for me. I hear about it, watched some videos, but nothing about it has grabbed my attention. Perhaps best to wait for it to be bargained priced before checking it out.
Actually this makes buttloads of sense, i was talking to one of our programmers the other day about the advantages/disadvantages and he basically said what you're saying here. Also someone mentioned earlier that it was using deferred rendering.
maybe i should spend more time here, seems like fun...
I couldn't even read all that cause it hurt my eyes and brain.
So I am off to pick up this game and I will let you all know my 2 cents after I play it. Until then.
Keep the peace...
resident evil 4. i enjoyed it.
Kinda' a bummer, cuz i love playing games on hard mode. this one, on hard mode, just bored / annoyed me
once i went into medium, howveer, i TRULY began to enjoy it
the experience is very 'real'. the main thing that adds 'scary' to the game are the sounds.
i have a 5.1, so hearing the alien walk behind me / sneak up on me is so frightening. i remember at one point, i did NOT want to turn around, just hoping that it'd go the hell away.... it didnt lol
overall, im super impressed by the art in the game. obviously! i have no complaints except that i didnt quite love the main character's armour. or at least 'lvl 1' of it.
i
not much to say really... other than 'lovin it... even though im scared shitless to play it.
I think the main character design, especially early on, is great. It is a guy in a rubber jump suit, which is more or less what I expect from a space engineer. I guess some people expected to see their favorite pro wrestler tarred and dropped into a pit of greeble. Don't worry guys, Gears 2 is coming out soon!
"adam: hahah, I actually clicked Sandbag's profile to see what game company he worked at
because my first thought was 'wow, if he thinks Dead Space sucks , his stuff must be amazing!'"
could easily be taken as a cute expression of an honest and respectful reaction that he had, and could be taken on face value. seriously, we should give each other the benefit of the doubt a little bit more than we do.
20 geeks in a dark room watching one guy get the crap scared out of him
Very "atmospheric" The moment it comes out for PC I'm grabbing it.
I like the HUD, but I find the controls a bit awkward, still getting used to them.
sidenote, some of the comments and opinions in this thread though definitely make me think twice about posting work and/or critiquing others.
i've recently become very bothered about my setup's anti-aliasing and stuff, so i was wondering:
how aliased is your game?
i know its a bit off-topic, but im really stressin about this.
basically, the armour of the main character, especially the indents in the helmet and the edges of the belt, seem like they haven't been anti-aliased at all
no matter wat tv setting i use, its all the same, running at 720p [360 set to HD, both software wise _and_ hardware wise]
so, do you guys have similar issues?
jaggies?
thanks guys
just a bit worried that i got a shitty box... despite it being quite a while ago
The 360 controls feel better than the keyboard/mouse setup.
i was worried
anyway, just finished chapter two. well i did a while ago. i love reading / watching / hearing those logs
the atheist in me was 'instigated' in some ways.
cool shit all around
Most of the time you knew that a monster just appeared somewhere, either by some sloshing sound or a "scary music burst". Then it was just a matter of disecting what was on the other side of the gun.
What was actually scary tho was
Overall its a really cool game tho, looks very nice and has some refreshing things to do beside just spreading limbs all over the place.
i was wanting to get it for pc a bit later...
The mouse is somewhat laggy with vsync on. Turning off vsync within the game smooths the mouse.
Only side effect is I am getting some tearing
If you like scary games, and you have the money, go for it, you wont regret
I was pleasantly surprised that it's a bit more than a straightforward run n gun scenario.
It's a perfect combination of Event Horizon meets The Thing (Art Direction Wise) along with Resident Evil meets System Shock 2 (Game Mechanics).
Considering all the comparisons this game acquires, it would lead you to believe it's an unoriginal rehash... Maybe.
But it's a fucking good one
I also watched that DeadSpace animation film, I thought it was pretty good. Especially when considering that I thought the animation shorts they kept releasing were unbareably horrid.
I heard there gonna be a DS2 as well, yay :poly142:
That's really the only thing that stuck in my craw. Deep in my second play-through, using alternative weapons. Hooray!
I think there was discussion here about the lighting which is covered in one of the video presentations by Dave Blizard.
Fantastic game all around.
You could look in the inventory by pressing "I" ( on the PC version at least ).