but boy oh boy did I underestimate how much time writing that crude test framework would take.
I've got about 60% of the tests I want now, so way to go.

see, the thing that's holding me back from updating it more (apart from time ofc) is testing it in every Godot version I want to support.
Now I decided to automate the testing (integration/UI testing, not unit testing), but for that I had to come up first with another plugin to do so + CI

The difference between SSR, Reflection probes, etc. is, that they simulate reflections of light that bounces several times before hitting the camera/eye (difficult to calculate accurately). Specular lobe goes directly from light to surface to eye, so it is computed in the first render pass

Any light you always see is a reflection. You are probably familiar with diffuse and specular lighting. Specular light is light that reflects directly into the camera from specific view directions only.

You have the same for point lights, but area lights produce a much larger specular lobe

Area lights Godot Engine (Master's Thesis) by CookieBadger Academic document about area light rendering for Godot

I do compare several algorithms and investigate how we could do soft shadows without raytracing (doesn't work well), all the system integration was practically after I had finished the thesis.

You can have a look:
cookiebadger.itch.io/area-lights-...

It IS the cosine (LTC) technique! I didn't invent anything here, just some accuracy improvements and integration into GI and fog :)

less performant, if you compare one by one. Area lighting is a complex calculation, so use it only where their effect is worth it!

But if you want smooth lighting, you could either use 4+ point lights close to each other, or 1 area light, and then the area light will look better and be faster!

For those who already know me, and use my paid level design plugin (AssetPlacer): I know the last update has been a while, I'd like to confirm that a GDScript version is almost ready + more features coming - it just all takes a long long time, especially the new automated testing

CookieBadger

I contribute to the Godot engine, make gamdev tools, experiments, and sometimes little games - if you'd like to pay me a coffee, you can donate via one of my projects on itch ☕❤️🫶

cookiebadger.itch.io

Didn't expect #Godot area lights to blow up now, but this demo by @passivestar.bsky.social is beautiful!

For those new to my acc: the area light PR is my Master's Thesis, I've worked on it for more than 1 year practically fulltime without pay - now, it could be merged any day! 🥹
Support me below!

CookieBadger

I contribute to the Godot engine, make gamdev tools, experiments, and sometimes little games - if you'd like to pay me a coffee, you can donate via one of my projects on itch ☕❤️🫶
cookiebadger.itch.io

For those who already know me, and use my paid level design plugin (AssetPlacer): I know the last update has been a while, I'd like to confirm that a GDScript version is almost ready + more features coming - it just all takes a long long time, especially the new automated testing

Thanks for all the love, guys!

The bleed occurs only in rare conditions.
They do have a range parameter, just as point lights do, with which you can make them fall off at less distance, though.

Special thanks to @kenney.nl, @cookiebadger.bsky.social, @ciro.continis.io, and @blendogames.bsky.social for their amazing creations that are used as examples!

I think I've found ways to make #Godot's built-in material properties work with area lights, textured and uniform-colored. Might post some prettier pictures later. 🌞

#ScreenshotSunday #IndieDev

or shameless self-advertisements - I can now realistically light the environment with it 😂

spooky effects

So... Textured Area Lights are ready to be reviewed - I hope they can make it into #Godot 4.7 🙈

I was able to integrate
Heitz's area light texture sampling based on LTC into the forward renderer, lightmaps volumetric fog, and voxelGI.

#ScreenshotSaturday #GodotEngine #GameDev #Rendering

- moved a button you use regularly to an inconvenient location
- fixed a bug
- introduced a new bug

wouldn't make for good marketing, would it? 🙈

My talk went great, thank you to everyone for coming!

I often get questions about whether there is formal research about Tool Design, and there is!

Two bachelor thesis' I know about, by @cookiebadger.bsky.social and @thesmall001.bsky.social:
1. tinyurl.com/tooldesign1
2. tinyurl.com/tooldesign2

A middle-aged woman in Austrian TV just dropped they have massive respect for video game developers. I was surprised they know we exist, let alone think of and admire our restless work! 🥹

#GameDev #Austria

hahaha, like the idea. Not sure if it would fit though 🙈

Nice. I also think there should be an easy component for that in Godot. It's very generalizable.

prerequisites! 😉

Pixel-perfect object picking in #Godot in my new project. Can you guess how I made it?
Maybe I'll make a tutorial of it one day....

#GameDev

"Song" 😂

thanks for the summaries, I'm having a great time reading through them, and finding out what's going on at the conference that way 😄

what's your feud with NURBS? I have never used them, but the term kept coming up in various graphics classes

awesome!