Below is a link to an interesting article about Killzone 2’s lighting engine. Some of it, obviously, you have to take with a grain a salt. Like the fact that “The closer to the nozzle the wood fragments are – the brighter the light will be“. Well, duh! Even the very first lighting models invented 3 decades ago did that.

But what I found most interesting is that it said that none of the lighting effects are baked in. That is, if you turn off all the lights in a scene, you’ll get complete darkness because no lighting effects are in the textures. I wonder if this is indeed the case (given the somewhat sensationalistic nature of this article). But if it is true, I have to wonder if the developers will make proper use of this. Can I shoot out lights to make a room darker? If I shoot out a light above me before the enemy arrives, will the enemy see me? All sorts of possibilities open up…

» Killzone 2’s Lighting Engine: Overview