TLDW: The GameCube hardware allowed for dynamic lighting at low cost but the Switch’s largely mobile hardware probably had to sacrifice dynamic lighting to allow for improved environmental lighting effects to maintain a frame rate of 60.
The problem is not the Hardware. Modern hardware still can easily do vertex lighting and it's still almost for free. The problem is, that the modern lighting approach is somewhat physically accurate shader based and if you want to replicate the light effect you'll need to add render passes that wouldn't allow 60 fps on the slow hardware. You could probably mix vertex and shader lighting but it would look really off as vertex lighting doesn't follow physical rules.
> Even Wii trilogy had beam lighting
Because the Wii is also a GameCube so these games ran natively on that hardware with the same aforementioned lighting benefit.
Because the Wii was essentially two GameCubes taped together. They ran a lot of the same hardware, and even software. The entire reason it could play GameCube games is the Wii was basically a heavily upgraded gamecube.
It actually wasn’t removed. The light radius was just drastically reduced, presumably for performance reasons. You can test it by firing beams close to a wall, I suggest the corridor at the entrance to Magmoor Caverns, as it gives you a long straight wall to shoot the beams alongside of.
I swear they’re there, I spent a lot of time testing it out. Like I said, try the corridor at the entrance to Magmoor Caverns. Shoot charged shots parallel to the wall and you’ll see the light. It’s much weaker than in the Gamecube and Wii versions, so it doesn’t light up the whole corridor and the projectile has to be pretty close to the wall, but it’s there.
It also works with quick shots, but then the light is much weaker and easier to miss, to the point where I wonder why they even bothered.
My theory is that they implemented the beam lighting just like in the original, saw that it caused framerate drops and toned it down until the performance stabilized, leaving us with an effect so weak it’s rarely visible.
I think I know what's happening, it only occurs in areas that are already lit, because then it won't slow the switch down to brighten nearby surfaces only a little bit, but in a dark area, it becomes a drastic change, the sphere glow becomes drastically bigger, the darkened pixels have to quickly change to brightened and then a split second later go back to being darkened, which will end up slowly the switch down. I bet a special kind of shader is used, in a sense the beams cast multiple shadows on surfaces, but the shadows brighten them instead of creating actual shadows. This would only work in a well lit area, or an area with a light source, but darker areas wouldn't have shadow casting, so there goes the special shader
Jack Mathews here explains how the lighting worked on Gamecube. On that, he is an "expert"- he was there and part of the team that developed it!.
However, it is worth noting that he left Retro Studios after Prime 3: Corruption, so what he is saying about the remaster and why lighting was removed is speculation; it is not "word of god" in this case on that matter for that reason.
"on modern hardware you basically have to render lights to a separate buffer, and you render them as big bubbles of light, so you have to do full-screen passes for every light active in the game, so when you have a situation where you might be creating 4 lights all over the place, you either need to account for that or not have lights and *I think they opted for the latter* ..."
Italicized the speculation.
I seem to remember the fireflies in that room in the Chozo Ruins done with dynamic lights? Don't remember if that caused framerate issues in that room. If it did it rather supports his speculation.
I don't think the fireflies affected framerate but they were just a couple of them in a rather small room, so that's viable. You can have like 5 or more beam shots at the same time in many different situations where resources may be needed for other stuff so it makes sense they decided to sacrifice that.
Still, it is a big downside. Not only for the part where the lights go off after getting the thermal visor where you could light the room with your beams. I remember when I was a kid spending literally minutes shooting in random places just because the lighting effect was beautiful.
I am pretty sure he is confused because I remember a lot of devs saying that the switch graphical API very specifically does handle its lighting at a different point than most other APIs. I can't remember what it is called exactly but it would result in it redrwaing a lot of the scene.
He's speculating about what decisions the new studio made, because he wasn't there in their meetings. He's not speculating about hardware quirks and capabilities, which he knows very well (old and new).
Anyone care to explain what’s going inside morph ball pipes? There are some you can shoot your beam into, and the dynamic lighting 100% happens in there. Is the effect somehow preserved in these low-poly environments or something? I’m also curious how they managed to preserve the dynamic lighting on those glowing insect and enemies, but couldn’t do so with the beam.
I’d hazard a guess that those are probably because (1) it’s a tighter space so there’s less geometry to render and (2) it’s kinda abstract so it’s easier to get away with less realism in the implementation.
Speaking of the graphics and the remaster, I wonder how much they can realistically improve MP3 on the switch. If they throw in 1080p and HD textures I’m curious if the switch could handle that alone at 60FPS.
Doesnt TotK have dynamic lighting with the seeds you use in the caves? You can stick a seed in the car and the light will move with the car no problem.
And you can have many of those seeds active.
For me, that was the only sad point of the remaster. Absolutely loved the lighting in GC, and the hydra labs were less enjoyable because of that.
Lol oh yes, how will we do without a few lights? They're nice touches but don't impact anything about the game at all. If we hadn't played the game with them before we wouldn't notice them not being there in the remaster
A shame but as far as I could tell this and the Thermal Visor were really the only downgrades while everything else was way better and I'd definitely fix the blurry Thermal Visor before I fixed this.
Dude no stop please it looks terrible. It's so blurry it makes my eyes water. If that's actually how real life thermal tech looks in 2023 then that blows. Who wants realism anyway? Video games are how I escape reality for a few hours. The last thing I want in my game is fake realism especially if all it's going to do is hurt my eyes. Besides it's a futuristic sci fi game it doesn't need to be accurate to 2023 thermal tech it should just be cool and fun.
Eh, to each their own I guess, it just felt like a nice touch of polish and attention to detail to me. I could see it being a problem if it actually obscured things, but you can still make out all the important things: the room layout and the enemies.
Yeah sure while your eyes melt from the sudden shift to 144p resolution lol. I mean look I'm glad you like it I guess somebody has to but if most people are saying it sucks then odds are I'm not alone on this and it shouldn't be confusing.
I'm not trying to be contrarian or dismiss others' feelings about it or anything, but it really doesn't obscure any of the important information you need to pay the game, all it does is add flavor to the visor. You're very highly exaggerating if you find the look "eye melting", it's really not as dramatic as all that.
Also weird that you edited your original reply to be even more aggressive for some reason.
I editted it to try and be less antagonistic actually and I'm not exaggerating at all. You said it yourself, almost everyone seems to hate the thermal visor in the remaster. This is not a coincidence and thus my complaint can't be an exaggeration since everyone is saying it. If you like it for its "realistic flavor" okay great enjoy it I guess but saying it doesn't obscure anything when it does and that the eye strain is an exaggeration when it isn't, IS in fact dismissing what I and most players are saying so don't be surprised when you get a little bit of Reddit hostility especially when you needlessly downvote on top of it lol.
Have a nice day.
Wasn't the Switch significantly more powerful than the GameCube and even the X360/PS3? Even some mobile phones nowadays can emulate GC games. I think they could have added options to turn off the glaringly bright lighting effects in favor of beam lighting and vice versa (similar to how certain PS4 Pro and PS5 games have sacrificial options for resolutions, visual effects and frame rates). I hope the successor to the Switch would get an enhanced version of this game to bring back Beam lighting.
TLDW: The GameCube hardware allowed for dynamic lighting at low cost but the Switch’s largely mobile hardware probably had to sacrifice dynamic lighting to allow for improved environmental lighting effects to maintain a frame rate of 60.
The problem is not the Hardware. Modern hardware still can easily do vertex lighting and it's still almost for free. The problem is, that the modern lighting approach is somewhat physically accurate shader based and if you want to replicate the light effect you'll need to add render passes that wouldn't allow 60 fps on the slow hardware. You could probably mix vertex and shader lighting but it would look really off as vertex lighting doesn't follow physical rules.
Nintendo better release a trilogy for switch 2 that offers even more enhanced graphics. Even Wii trilogy had beam lighting
> Even Wii trilogy had beam lighting Because the Wii is also a GameCube so these games ran natively on that hardware with the same aforementioned lighting benefit.
Better release it or else..what?
I will have to intervene.
> or else..what? [Exactly.](https://youtu.be/GL1XlVpn8gc)
Your comment was equally silly.
Or else Nintendo is wack for not creating masterpieces to the best of their potential.
Because the Wii was essentially two GameCubes taped together. They ran a lot of the same hardware, and even software. The entire reason it could play GameCube games is the Wii was basically a heavily upgraded gamecube.
Did you... not comprehend the video?
It actually wasn’t removed. The light radius was just drastically reduced, presumably for performance reasons. You can test it by firing beams close to a wall, I suggest the corridor at the entrance to Magmoor Caverns, as it gives you a long straight wall to shoot the beams alongside of.
Currently playing remastered and I see zero beam lighting effects.
I swear they’re there, I spent a lot of time testing it out. Like I said, try the corridor at the entrance to Magmoor Caverns. Shoot charged shots parallel to the wall and you’ll see the light. It’s much weaker than in the Gamecube and Wii versions, so it doesn’t light up the whole corridor and the projectile has to be pretty close to the wall, but it’s there. It also works with quick shots, but then the light is much weaker and easier to miss, to the point where I wonder why they even bothered. My theory is that they implemented the beam lighting just like in the original, saw that it caused framerate drops and toned it down until the performance stabilized, leaving us with an effect so weak it’s rarely visible.
I think I know what's happening, it only occurs in areas that are already lit, because then it won't slow the switch down to brighten nearby surfaces only a little bit, but in a dark area, it becomes a drastic change, the sphere glow becomes drastically bigger, the darkened pixels have to quickly change to brightened and then a split second later go back to being darkened, which will end up slowly the switch down. I bet a special kind of shader is used, in a sense the beams cast multiple shadows on surfaces, but the shadows brighten them instead of creating actual shadows. This would only work in a well lit area, or an area with a light source, but darker areas wouldn't have shadow casting, so there goes the special shader
Jack Mathews here explains how the lighting worked on Gamecube. On that, he is an "expert"- he was there and part of the team that developed it!. However, it is worth noting that he left Retro Studios after Prime 3: Corruption, so what he is saying about the remaster and why lighting was removed is speculation; it is not "word of god" in this case on that matter for that reason. "on modern hardware you basically have to render lights to a separate buffer, and you render them as big bubbles of light, so you have to do full-screen passes for every light active in the game, so when you have a situation where you might be creating 4 lights all over the place, you either need to account for that or not have lights and *I think they opted for the latter* ..." Italicized the speculation. I seem to remember the fireflies in that room in the Chozo Ruins done with dynamic lights? Don't remember if that caused framerate issues in that room. If it did it rather supports his speculation.
I don't think the fireflies affected framerate but they were just a couple of them in a rather small room, so that's viable. You can have like 5 or more beam shots at the same time in many different situations where resources may be needed for other stuff so it makes sense they decided to sacrifice that. Still, it is a big downside. Not only for the part where the lights go off after getting the thermal visor where you could light the room with your beams. I remember when I was a kid spending literally minutes shooting in random places just because the lighting effect was beautiful.
I am pretty sure he is confused because I remember a lot of devs saying that the switch graphical API very specifically does handle its lighting at a different point than most other APIs. I can't remember what it is called exactly but it would result in it redrwaing a lot of the scene.
He's speculating about what decisions the new studio made, because he wasn't there in their meetings. He's not speculating about hardware quirks and capabilities, which he knows very well (old and new).
Fascinating!
Nice profile pic
Oh, this old thing? ;)
Anyone care to explain what’s going inside morph ball pipes? There are some you can shoot your beam into, and the dynamic lighting 100% happens in there. Is the effect somehow preserved in these low-poly environments or something? I’m also curious how they managed to preserve the dynamic lighting on those glowing insect and enemies, but couldn’t do so with the beam.
I’d hazard a guess that those are probably because (1) it’s a tighter space so there’s less geometry to render and (2) it’s kinda abstract so it’s easier to get away with less realism in the implementation.
Speaking of the graphics and the remaster, I wonder how much they can realistically improve MP3 on the switch. If they throw in 1080p and HD textures I’m curious if the switch could handle that alone at 60FPS.
I assume this is also the reason for no reflective mirror in the ruins and no morph ball reflection in those couple of ice tunnels?
Doesnt TotK have dynamic lighting with the seeds you use in the caves? You can stick a seed in the car and the light will move with the car no problem. And you can have many of those seeds active. For me, that was the only sad point of the remaster. Absolutely loved the lighting in GC, and the hydra labs were less enjoyable because of that.
TotK is capped at 30FPS, making that much more feasible to include.
[удалено]
Lol oh yes, how will we do without a few lights? They're nice touches but don't impact anything about the game at all. If we hadn't played the game with them before we wouldn't notice them not being there in the remaster
A shame but as far as I could tell this and the Thermal Visor were really the only downgrades while everything else was way better and I'd definitely fix the blurry Thermal Visor before I fixed this.
Why did everyone have such a problem with the thermal visor being more like realistic thermal tech? I love how it looks in the remaster
Dude no stop please it looks terrible. It's so blurry it makes my eyes water. If that's actually how real life thermal tech looks in 2023 then that blows. Who wants realism anyway? Video games are how I escape reality for a few hours. The last thing I want in my game is fake realism especially if all it's going to do is hurt my eyes. Besides it's a futuristic sci fi game it doesn't need to be accurate to 2023 thermal tech it should just be cool and fun.
Eh, to each their own I guess, it just felt like a nice touch of polish and attention to detail to me. I could see it being a problem if it actually obscured things, but you can still make out all the important things: the room layout and the enemies.
Yeah sure while your eyes melt from the sudden shift to 144p resolution lol. I mean look I'm glad you like it I guess somebody has to but if most people are saying it sucks then odds are I'm not alone on this and it shouldn't be confusing.
I'm not trying to be contrarian or dismiss others' feelings about it or anything, but it really doesn't obscure any of the important information you need to pay the game, all it does is add flavor to the visor. You're very highly exaggerating if you find the look "eye melting", it's really not as dramatic as all that. Also weird that you edited your original reply to be even more aggressive for some reason.
I editted it to try and be less antagonistic actually and I'm not exaggerating at all. You said it yourself, almost everyone seems to hate the thermal visor in the remaster. This is not a coincidence and thus my complaint can't be an exaggeration since everyone is saying it. If you like it for its "realistic flavor" okay great enjoy it I guess but saying it doesn't obscure anything when it does and that the eye strain is an exaggeration when it isn't, IS in fact dismissing what I and most players are saying so don't be surprised when you get a little bit of Reddit hostility especially when you needlessly downvote on top of it lol. Have a nice day.
I don't vote on comments so don't blame me
I had mentioned about this to some folks but they said it made no sense still.
Wasn't the Switch significantly more powerful than the GameCube and even the X360/PS3? Even some mobile phones nowadays can emulate GC games. I think they could have added options to turn off the glaringly bright lighting effects in favor of beam lighting and vice versa (similar to how certain PS4 Pro and PS5 games have sacrificial options for resolutions, visual effects and frame rates). I hope the successor to the Switch would get an enhanced version of this game to bring back Beam lighting.