1. In-Game Lighting
Ian Ford

2. A Typical ‘Look’ at Lighting
The basic ideas on lighting in a 3D gaming environment state that lighting is there to make the environment feel more ‘3D’ to the player…
buildnewgames.com/lighting

3. Though today it’s more than just making it feel ‘3D,’ it is making the environment feel more real, making the game feel more immersive, making some areas feel like you either need to “run like hell because what’s behind that wall” or feel the need to go “Wow, look at the view, I think I’m going to put the story on pause and just walk around.” Of course there are also mixes of the two since not everything is perfect and not everything is a scary cave where you have to kill a one-thousand year old skeletal dragon to continue.

4. Lighting Explained
Lighting is found to be a major part in any of todays big games, it helps set the mood the creator wants to invoke. It help create the feeling the game maker wants you to feel just when entering a certain area of the game. It can even change how the player interacts with the game in some cases.
TV ENB -

5. Difference in Lighting Across Genre
Since lighting is used to set a sort of mood or emotion, lets look at some examples in difference in lighting across different genres of games:
Dead Space 2 – egmr.net
Bioshock 2 – citizengame.co.uk
Star Ocean 4 – gamehulu.com

6. Time of Day
One can be in the same exact area at different times of the day and experience a whole new set of emotions and reactions to the environment. While at one point of the day everything looks clear to you since the ‘sun’ is in the sky, twelve hours later it’s pitch black and may even require you to use a torch, you won’t know what’s coming your way. You interact differently because of this as you would in real life, there are different expectations in your head of what you need, of what you need to watch out for and of what might happen.
Skyrim – Self
Skyrim – Self

7. Other Examples of Environmental Lighting
The Path:
Braid:

8. (Image: nerdbacon.com)
Importance?
You have in your hands the ability to control what the user sees, what the user doesn’t see, and the importance of why they can only see certain things. If you want to invoke a mood, if you want to tell a story, if you want to bring the user into the experience you create through immersion… different lighting is of utmost importance for your project!
(Image: nerdbacon.com)

9. Helpful Links