The Starry Expanse Community

Hi. I read recently that UE4 was adding a global lightning feature, or at least an experimental one. Do you plan on using global illumination if you can?

And will you add bump-mapping to some textures? I'm sure there are places where this could make a huge difference. SS3 textures, for example, are great thanks to this.

We will be utilizing normal maps and PBR textures. Bump mapping is actually a pretty old texturing style that isn't used in most games anymore.

I think the original poster probably was referring to UE4's "World Position Offset" feature which uses bump maps for dynamic realtime tessellation. It's super nifty, and I'm sure we'll end up using it in a few places, probably in the water and organic objects most notably.

As for Global Illumination, it's not something we've had a chance to experiment with yet, but we're always excited when UE4 adds new features, and we want the most realistic game possible, so we'll more than likely use it unless there's some weird and unexpected dealbreaker.

Huh. News to me!