After working with everything having bump mapping, I decided to flip the switch to optimize the no shader gameplay. It looks like my models are lit with paint. I've been trying to mess around with d3d_pointlightfalloff but with no success. Even with diffuse values at 1 - the inner range of the dynamic lights are still just destroying the textures. Does anyone know of a method to tame these friggin lights?





edit: I just realized I posted this in the shader forum when it's more of an engine thread. SO I GUESS my question is: is there a fixed function shader that normalizes lighting or something?

I'm sorry I don't get it, what exactly do you want to do?

Your title says 'light bleeding' which is something completely different (belongs to that global/indirect illumination stuff)

Edit: I think I understood now
if you're trying to get a similar look without normalmapping:

make a copy of your shader -> rip out the normalmapping part -> profit

Edit#2: and I misunderstood again, I thought you were looking for an actual shader...

I haven't seen a fixed function shader with 'good' lighting.
(The default lighting has an ugly falloff, doesn't support high dynamic range lighting, is vertex based and looks like it is from 1999)
However, why don't you use just a "normal" shader (I'm not a fan of that fixed function stuff)?

decrease light strength, or modify the light response in the shaders use.

Probably the best solution is not to offer shaderless visuals. Just implement different shaders/ effects without normal maps and the like then. (Btw. in my understanding there really isn't a fixed function pipeline anymore for a long time (on a hardware basis), it's just shader based all the time.)

What shader do you guys think I should use? I jumped back to the game studio specBump.fx the normal mapping shader 2 in the wiki has no specular control so... I had a quick peak in the specBump file and there is no value to adjust that controls the intensity of the lights. If I could adjust the lights to compliment the non shaded geometry, and adjust the bump mapping to be more responsive to lights everything would be dandy.

I mean, just applying a base shader to tame the lights would be good. But without any shaders the frame rate triples (for me). Computer gaming is not cheap. In general, more people then not will have computers that are not built for GPU demanding games. I don't want to leave those potential players out.

Also, I need honest opinions for this question. I think that it adds a disturbing value to the gameplay in my opinion but... Should the demon woman be nude? Or.. A "unick" (no nipples or anything, just a genderless humanoid), or clothed.

"More people than not will not have computers that are not built for GPU demanding games" - well, these aren't really potential players, anybody who plays any games will have at least a, say, 5 to 7 years old graphics card, which should have not too many problems running basic surface shaders, at least when these shaders are optimized.
Also, it's true, shaderless pipelines are practically dead. Newer graphics APIs like OpenGL 3+ don't even support fixed function pipelines anymore.

If you run into problems like these - no shaders that fulfill your needs - there's always the option to write your own or modify existing ones. I'm pretty sure the specBump shader could easily modified to be adjustable.

I wish there was a shader manual like c-scripts. A help doc with all commands, etc and examples.

read the shader tutorial
http://www.conitec.net/shaders/

, it depends a bit on what your target group is. The advantage of making her nude is that more teenagers want to play it and it makes it a bit more serious/realistic I quess (/less fantasy). Some people dislike it, but my quess is that this is a small group but I don't know for sure. If you want to take the horror to the next level while keeping her goodies hidden, you can add some disfigurements to those places. Its your choice, but I personally would let her be like this ( leave her alone! ).

Well how about this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb509638(v=vs.85).aspx

I haven't looked into it too deeply because I didn't need to use HLSL for a long time, but I guess it's pretty much what you need.