Today’s edition of our devblog will discuss how the updated Dagor Engine 5.0 render will add volume to the War Thunder world. It’s all about light and shade!

Global Illumination

Several lighting and shading algorithms are used when rendering each frame in War Thunder. In the updated Dagor Engine 5.0 render, we are improving the lighting model with Realtime Global Illumination. Global Illumination is the common term for lighting algorithms, this includes not only direct illumination, but also reflected and scattered light from surfaces and area lights (such as sky and clouds). Our game will have shadows that objects cast from ambient illumination and the sky making the visuals more volumetric and detailed in shadows. Global Illumination will also introduce light reflected from other objects and the environment. All of it will be implemented in real time for large scale locations (the average WT location is 32x32 km) for destructible and dynamic objects

Like other upgrades to the game’s visuals, Global Illumination will be available as an option in the graphic settings menu and will be enabled by default for high graphical settings.

Global Illumination - is a complex mix of algorithms, a very difficult and high-technology task. It’s enough to say that at the moment there is no game or game engine that has a fully fledged dynamic GI for large-scale locations. Algorithms where the objects are supposed to be static or require preliminary calculations won’t work in War Thunder: dozens of large-scale location will require excessive memory and hard drive space while destructible environment affects the whole geometry very significantly. That is why some of algorithms and improvements will, perhaps, become available after switching on some personal settings after update 1.77 is released. Meanwhile, a general list of changes is already available.