Forge: Lighting & Shadows

Hi there!

Having seen the presentation on Forge, I got to say that I’m most pleased with the lighting effects. The ability for all Forge objects to block lighting and cast their own shadows will make our maps come to life so much more!

This new addition, however, raised multiple questions. I hope these can and will be answered in the near future. Via Bulletin or a ViDoc or just a simple forum post, I don’t care. Just want them answered! For the time being, I’d love to see your thoughts and ideas on the subject.

So, here are my questions:

  • If we create a room with all sides being walls (no windows or any openings), how dark will it be in there?

  • In case it will be so dark that we need lights to be placed. How many lights will the game allow us to be placed? (approximately, I do understand this is subject to change)

  • Will the forgable lights have the same mechanics to them as the main light source of the map? (shadows to be cast in different directions according to the placement of the forge light)

  • How strong are the forgable lights? will the radius be larger? smaller? Or ours to edit?

  • Many Forged maps in Reach would lose their textures and ligthing during splitscreen sessions. Will all the lighting and shadow effects remain intact during splitscreen sessions in Halo 4?

These are most of the questions that popped into my mind. Again, I would really like to see your thoughts on the subject. You might even share some ideas you have for new Forge projects that will be enhanced because of these new mechanics!

Icy

The Dynamic Lighting feature is AMAZING!!! I loved the way it looked. Now we can make dark tunnels and play Infection on them and I imagine people will come up with all sorts of ideas. Sorry but I have no answers to your questions. But I would imagine that there will be more than 2 lights that can be placed. Maybe Lamps or more realistic lights instead of the light balls we got in Halo 3 and Reach. The only dislike I have with the Lighting is the short pause you get each time you go into Player Mode. But hopefully it isn’t as long as we think.