First of all, credit where credit is due: while this is something I've toyed with on and off over the past 12 years, that it has finally now resulted in something concrete is through inspiration by MerricksDad, OldTimeRadio and others' experiments with various form of overlay textures and environment maps, e.g. like it's been discussed here: http://forum.bioware...yet-discovered/
This package isn't featuring bumpmapping, but it does something slightly similar by using two separate textures for ambient and diffuse lighting, allowing increased shadowing and highlights on the diffuse map (that is directional) as well as more realistic ambient lighting (non-directional).
In addition, it utilizes a custom specular-mimicking environment map to further enhance the highlights on the diffuse map.
The main drawback is that it doubles the amount of polygons on the model and relies on additive blending, which inadvertently has a performance impact. However, this is minimized by the fact that the overlaying polygons are not shadow casting.
The effect is subtle though, so whether the improvement warrants the performance hit is up to the individual user to decide. The main purpose of releasing this package though is to get opinions on this to help assess if this method is worth utilizing more.
I really recommend checking it out in game yourself (preferably as a non-elf PC for optimal lighting conditions) to get a proper feel of it.
After that, feedback is much appreciated, as well as any comments in general.
Download the package here: http://neverwinterva...d-lighting-demo
