News Post

MLB 09 The Show Blog - Lighting Explained (Playstation Blog)

06:43 PM - February 19, 2009 by Russell_SCEA

Playstation.Blog has posted another MLB 09 The Show blog. This one talks about the lighting in the game.

Quote:


	"Lighting was a major focus for us this year, and we implemented a Global Lighting model. What does that mean? It means that objects are lit by their surroundings. It means that when players are in shadow, they can still get light from the sunlight hitting the dirt just beyond the shadow�s edge, or a bright wall behind them. It means that in stadiums, red floors cast red light on neighboring objects. It is another step towards that realism we all want in our baseball game. How do we do all this? Well, I can�t give away our secrets, but I can give you an overview of our lighting model. There are several steps we take to make each image, and we make 60 of these images every second."

Game: MLB '09: The ShowReader Score: 9/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS2 / PS3 / PSPVotes for game: 90 - View All

MLB '09: The Show Videos

Member Comments

# 21 Senor_Herbatron @ 02/19/09 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by srudoff


	kinda confused by the very first pic with the coke bottle they highlight a small shadow on the light yet none of the light poles and none of the fans cast any shadows whatsoever how's that happen?

I thought they we're trying to show how the sun reflecting off the red would cast a "red tone" shadow on another object. I could be completely wrong tho.

# 22 EnigmaNemesis @ 02/19/09 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by houtz


	I thought they we're trying to show how the sun reflecting off the red would cast a "red tone" shadow on another object. I could be completely wrong tho.

You are completely right.

# 23 hukasmokincaterpillar @ 02/19/09 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by houtz


	I thought they we're trying to show how the sun reflecting off the red would cast a "red tone" shadow on another object. I could be completely wrong tho.

You're exactly right. They're doing some kind of ambient occlusion/global illumination approximation. These are lighting techniques that have been used in pre-rendered CG for years but are just now finding their way into real time rendering. As the blog said, it goes a long way towards making everything look like it "belongs" to the world being lit around them. Light in the real world doesn't just cast directly; it also bounces, reflects, scatters etc.

As for the shadows, 50,000 models casting real-time shadows would look great... but I think I'd rather play the game above 3 fps.

(were just not there yet folks)

# 24 scott209 @ 02/20/09 02:48 AM

Looks great.

# 25 JoeRyan33 @ 02/20/09 03:44 AM

Interesting. Visual Concepts might be reading this and thinking the same thing.

# 26 Blzer @ 02/20/09 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeRyan33


	Interesting. Visual Concepts might be reading this and thinking the same thing.

Thinking what?

The 2K games have had progressive lighting since 2K7. In fact, they had it built around all 24 hours of the day. I'll admit that the lighting didn't look as phenomenal as this game (and still doesn't), but I'm sure they took a similar approach.

# 27 nemesis04 @ 02/20/09 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blzer


	Thinking what? The 2K games have had progressive lighting since 2K7. In fact, they had it built around all 24 hours of the day. I'll admit that the lighting didn't look as phenomenal as this game (and still doesn't), but I'm sure they took a similar approach.

It does not appear the level of detail with the reflective light off of different textures is taken into account with 2k's system.

# 28 Blzer @ 02/20/09 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nemesis04


	It does not appear the level of detail with the reflective light off of different textures is taken into account with 2k's system.

Well, do we really know? I mean I've been playing the demo for this game for over like 15 hours, but I didn't know that they've also taken that kind of lighting into account until they said it. It could be the same in the other game.

Then again, it might not.