In the context of a modern RPG? It causes a lot of technical issues and I suppose games like Batman got away with not bothering… Although they’re generally set over the course of a night (gotta admit, a very long night at that)…
I understand the technicals, I’m interested in the player impact.
Tarts of Doom? Telemetry Over Divination? Ticks on Diazepam? I think that acronym isn’t obvious enough that everybody knows - I certainly don’t 
Time of day :p… Lol “Tarts of doom”…
Ah, that would be ToD then 
Yeah, that really depends on your game. If using complete systems like UniStorm you have it all covered, including the hooks needed for NPC schedules. Very handy in a complex open world RPG, not so hot in a shooter or ARPG.
The biggest problem with a schedule is when shops close. It’s basically the reason I end up being the biggest thief in Cyrodiil when playing Elder Scrolls games. I just can’t sit around waiting for shops to open when there are damsels to fight and orcs to rescue.
The biggest argument FOR, in my opinion, is that it’s really nice seeing the game world in different lighting. If day and night really is like day and night it looks much better, doesn’t it? Fights change vastly when you literally trip over things in the dark (when ambushed), or you have time to sneak to a high point and rain pointy death on the enemies (for particularly homicidal archers).
This of course requires a non-lame lighting system where the enemy can’t see you from a mile away in pitch dark.
I’m neutral to time-based puzzles. They can work without being annoying, but other times I’m distracted by shiny enemies in shiny armour and have to wait another $(annoying time period).
Meh. It’s nice for immersion, but it’s so rare for time to matter that it’s just not important.
Honestly, I think the main reason for day/night cycles is so that you can have a well lit and highly visible environment during the day, while also having cool and moody lighting at night. When have you ever seen a scene that looked better in daylight?
@orb , probably the best way to describe it is a mix between fallout / Mass effect… Thing is it’s set on a planet in another galaxy that could have two suns, or anything really… So I’m trying to weigh up the pro’s and con’s of the technical headache it induces vs. being able to mix static and realtime lighting…
Also something to consider is it may or may not be Unity the game ultimatley gets released in, at the moment I’m dual crafting… One engine makes it much harder to achieve whilst even in Unity I have to be aware of the GI cache constantly.
It’s a very large game for sure, but it’s set out in a way that can be constantly segmented… It isn’t a terrain based mega mammoth, it’s set within an outpost that contains a city (not a small one) but again it’s split up. It’s at a point where lightmaps COULD be used (at a push)… Which of course means I could potentially get it to run on a potato.
Sounds good, do you think it would “break” immersion? Though, I gather all I’m asking is is it worth the effort? I understand you said it’s not that important… I might just need a bit more swaying :)…
You can’t break what isn’t there. People always appreciate it when it’s there (as long as it doesn’t start dragging out gameplay), but it’s unlikely you’ll hear people clamor for it if it’s not.
There’s the age-old trick of fake time passage if you have a nights as a thing
In some open world games the main world map is daytime, always. Occasionally there are missions/quests which happen at night, and then it switches to the one night version of the map. Cheap but effective.
Choose before it costs development time
Yeah, potatoes are still the most common gaming computer. But I think it’s more modern potatoes these days: Low-spec systems with modern shader model availability and at least 2GB VRAM.
If you go with dynamic lights you might rule out the potato without reducing scene sizes drastically - also known as consoleitis. Even modern consoles don’t need that anymore! For the tuber-based systems you might sink to disabling some lighting fanciness.
What’s the hardest part in it? I have yet to implement one but I’m thinking about it all the time, especially since one of my goal is to achieve “local procedural generation of complex NPC schedule with long distance travelling”
You know I thought about it a lot and basically it’s not important if there’s loading between scenes. If there isn’t then unfortunately it’s now an expected thing so we have to deal with it. But KISS I think.
The implementation bit is really easy, I created a noisemask material for clouds applied to a plane that shifts in the direction of the camera somewhat but still rotates as the skybox does (like in UE’s MP demo)… I updated reflection probes at a specific interval (let’s say every four to six hours (in game time)), I used the atmospheric scattering system from the BS demo and then for transitions I just created a shader that blended some “cube maps” at certain points of the day…
Then it’s just a matter of rotating / dimming the directional and raising the ambient intensity of said cube maps so it’s not pitch black at night… There’s lots more you could do but that’s a basic one…
The real issue is ambient lighting / directional lighting can’t be static… What you generally do in static games is blend short distance shadow cascade maps with baked shadows, so it saves tons of resources from long shadow casters / dynamic reflection probes… There’s more to it and a performance guide Unity gives you in their optimisation section of the docs…
But in short, convincing long distance dynamic lighting / shadows are very heavy. So then you have to start optimising every part of your game to compromise… Also dynamic lighting just doesn’t look as good, especially as you have the option to bake area lights etc…
Not really much of an issue in a small game, in a large one you fight for every 0.1ms…
Aye, I’m splitting the City into 4 segments and then having sub levels under the water which will all require loading screens… It’s marketed as a “semi” openworld RPG so I might be able to get away with it… Still looking forward to seeing yours (the game that is (just in case knowing you 
))…
Hopefully doing all of this will make development far more manageable…
I’ll show you mine before you show me yours. But if you try harder you can show me yours before I show you mine.
It has pretty much become the norm in open world games these days. Although now I’m curious how long it would take players to notice there wasn’t a D/N cycle. I would expect at least an hour of unbroken play time.
I think it’s totally a style issue. You can set a great looking scene with static lighting and no one will care, or you can use dynamic lighting and no one will care … so long as it looks great and doesn’t get in the way of game play.
“Modern RPG”
“Batman”
Does not compute…
Some of us notice and make noise about it before games are even out - it’s pretty obvious. Exhibit A, Mass Effect Andromeda.
As for myself, I vastly prefer ToD systems because they better invoke the passage of time. Even if your game doesn’t do hardly anything with it, such as Sleeping Dogs, it still helps a world feel more alive.
Of course it’s far, far better if you can make use of it, through things like NPC schedules and monsters only coming out at night, etc. I imagine that’s a ton of work, though.
UniStorm is a fantastic asset.
Did Horizon had TOD?
If you’re talking about Horizon:Zero Dawn, yes. Also really short days. Damn this apocalypse.
Of course once you decide to do a ToD system it will involve plenty of decisions such as the length of days, which is an interesting topic. I know some games have a full day blow by in an hour or less, which seems crazy and antithetical to the whole purpose of a ToD system - of making time meaningful.
I have one game planned which will involve things like growing crops, and will have all four seasons. I’m thinking I’ll have each day (day + night) be around 4 or 6 hours (probably 6, with 4h days + 2h nights), where each “day” is equivalent to a month. So after three “days,” or 18 hours of play, the season will change.
Not something I’ve finalized, just trying to illustrate that it can dramatically affect the design of your game. I’d imagine it would be far more significant (and difficult to do well) for a story-heavy game.
I would spin this question on its head. Does your game have any mechanics which would benefit from a ToD system?
Skyrim has the stealing/buying system, which is enhanced by not having people around at night. Kerball and Factorio have solar panels, which make the amount of light important. On the other hand time of day in Cities:Skylines brought nothing to the game, and just made it harder to see the game for arbitrary periods of time.
Don’t do ToD just because everyone else is. Only do it if it actually adds something useful to your gameplay.