Lighting in games...

It's all in the atmosphere

Ever since I picked up Dead Space a few years ago, I knew I was in for the kind of ride that comes once in a lifetime. This game performed in ways I'd never thought possible for games of its genre. It managed to set a dark and ominous tone, a chilling supernatural atmosphere and an action-packed thrilling adventure as the player takes control of Isaac Clarke, an engineer aboard the space shuttle USG Ishimura that finds far more than he and his crew bargained for. The first game in a trilogy, dead space sets the bar for the horror/sci-fi genre of games in the 20th Century.

My name is Isaac Clarke...

Set in the year 2507, Dead Space follows a story that begins at the end of the Earth. Following the complete absorption of all of Earth's natural resources, corporations have moved on to new ways of abstracting vital new resources from stars through a process known as 'Planetcracking.' A leader in this form of abstraction is the USG Ishimura. After a multitude of success in the planetcracking, the Ishimura gets shut down on an alien planet preceding Issac Clarke's boarding of the ship for the purpose of repairing the shuttle. But Isaac bites off more than he can chew and gets trapped in a terrible game of survival as he is forced to fight off alien species that have taken shelter within the Ishimura's former crew whose bodies are now nothing more than hosts for the creatures. As Isaac makes his way from one area of the ship to the next, he must successfully repair the Ishimura with help from Kendra Daniels a technologist who guides the player through the ship's interior. Isaac soon discovers a greater truth involving the Church of Unitology, the Government and a realm of possibilities. 

More information, including the plot of Dead Space can be found here.

Shedding some light...

So let's move on to the real meat of this post, lighting in Dead Space. With a fantastic atmosphere and eerie mood set from the get go, it's easy to see where this game excels at drawing the player's attention and holding it till you jump out of your seat afraid to keep playing. 

"Lighting, right up there with the sound, is one of our key tools of the trade when it comes to getting a really great horror atmosphere."

- Ian Milham, Art Director Dead Space 2

When Dead Space was being developed, EA Games would have just as many people working on the lighting as people working on character design within the game. This is because from day one they believed lighting to be almost like a character, in essence, making sure it had some kind of unique characteristic that draws the attention of the player. The lighting is meant to be a tool in discovering the world of Dead Space and as such is used heavily to either aid or hinder the player throughout their experience. On my first playthough, it was definitely challenging contending with the light because it was new and different and most certainly took me by surprise. In time, however, I learned to get used to flickering, frizzing and fading, furthermore enjoying the unique experience that the game had to offer. 

Light plays as important a role as shadow does as enemies often pop out of areas you may be least expecting or crawl through lighted vents projecting their silhouettes on the wall beside you. Depending on the room the player is currently in, there could be anywhere from 10 to 100 lights that switch between being off and on based on trigger spots all around the room. There are moments when enemies are simply lit by a dangling bulb that swings from left to right causing the alien to be lit only when the light passes over them. Lights are used to highlight areas all over the floor, ceiling and especially on the blood-spattered walls to draw the player's attention or even to distract them while an enemy creeps up from behind. 

One of the most unique effects created in Dead Space is the player's light and how it influences the manner in which the game is played. When the scene or level is being rendered, the environment may be dull and possibly dark and dreary. However, once the player steps in, the light they shine illuminated everything around them depending on where they may be looking. The player chooses to shine their flashlight where they please. Should their light happen to shine down on an alien, they may just find themselves engaged in fierce battle with a species that was previously laying on the floor immobile. 

This concept leads to neat ideas such as the player picking up on hints for progression by shining their light on objects with reflective properties that glean and glimmer in the light. These objects may be pulleys, handles or buttons needed to activate a part of the level previously locked. This gives the player a sense of power and dread at the same time. It also adds to the ominous feeling that someone may be watching and stresses the importance of exploring room you are in for hidden weapons/power-ups/ammunition. 

Light years ahead

Considering the time period Dead Space is set in, light does a lot to extenuate the sci-fi mood of the game. Whether it be red and green lights flashing above doorways or the faint glow of a control panel, it is always apparent that the light present on the USG Ishimura is far ahead of its time. Panels pop up here and there as does the player's inventory maintaining the theme of live-action and the feeling of urgency within the game. The player's health bar is on his back and is constantly glowing and changing colors based on the level of health left. Ammo is displayed when aiming the current weapon in any direction and ammo crates on the floor contain a glowing light that alerts the player to their whereabouts. 

The high-tech design of the Ishimura is inventive and very creative and looking close gives you a good idea of the amount of work that went into the baking of lights within the scenes. The palette of lights includes white and yellow and variations of brown and red which gives off a more realistic and conservative feel fit for the genre. It is strange to see the lighting and how different it must be from the Ishimura's original design. The level designers took special care in the design of every level to ensure that the player feels like they understand the carnage afoot a technologically advance ship that has been overthrown by an alien race. 

Till the lights go out

Dead Space makes use of dynamic lighting to really impress its players and create some stunning visuals that'll have you questioning your sight. With static light, there is a set light source, limiting the number of lights that may be placed within a scene. Another approach was to bake lights into the textures but then again, shadows cannot move once bakes into a texture. So the answer was a dynamic lighting system that would allow the designers to place as many lights as they required within a given environment. At this state, they were only limited by rendering speed. Any given scene within Dead Space may have spot lights, cone lights, directional lights and the lighting and shadow situations that accompany this variety. But in order to maintain the game at a smooth 30 to 60 frames per second, the designers had to keep the resources of the GPU tightly allocated. 

To fix this issue, Dead Space makes use of 'Deferred Lighting Mesh,' as is explained in this article. To break it down, one pass over one frame may only allow 7.5 milliseconds of processing power dedicated to the deferred lighting buffer. In addition, 4 milliseconds for the shadow buffer and 2 milliseconds of cycle time for 'post' effects, such as bloom, are taken. This leads to the GPU calculating the proper application of shadows and post effects at a marginally quicker speed. The dynamic lighting mesh can further generate ambient occlusion throughout the environment. All in all this makes every lighting effect within the world of Dead Space far more convincing to the eye. Furthermore, the dynamic lighting system aided in the development of the game by preventing time wasted on all the models being created before the lighting could be rigged. This enabled lighters, modelers, level designers and artists to work side by side at the same time rigging lights and creating models.

If you are really interested in the technical nitty gritty of the lighting in Dead Space, you can always go here to watch a presentation on lighting by David Blizard, the man in charge of the lighting effects for the game itself. 

Here is a video demonstrating the amazing dynamic lighting system in place for Dead Space.

In Conclusion

Dead Space is not just a game but a unique experience for any fan of the horror/survival genre. At the core of its stunning atmosphere and eerie mood is a fascinating dynamic lighting system that drives the gameplay maintains momentum throughout the game only getting better and better as the player progresses. The lighting system is a remarkable achievement and incorporates everything necessary for the success of a survival game. Dead Space 2 carries on the tradition and improves on its predecessor's formula in keeping the world of Dead Space crisp and captivating...that is until the lights go out...