Originally Posted by CannibalShogun
Nice to see people talking about this, it's been something that has been bothering me since launch. I've seen some really nice looking tracks in the decoration and drive line department that i just can't justify giving a good rating because the lighting was completely flat. In my eyes it's a balance. A really good track pays attention to every aspect of track creation and lighting is a very important one. Imagine going to the movies and seeing one with a great story and acting but the cinematography has had no thought put into it all, 99 times out of 100 that's going to be considered a bad movie.
That being said I do think it is possible to create dynamic lighting looks without using dynamic lights. Shadows are good because they are a great way to create depth in a track, but you can also create that depth with other lighting options when the dynamic lights just aren't going to work. Flyer's track Lost Future is a great example of this. The track uses background action, static lights, colors and effects to create a great sense of depth throught the whole track to the point where I never really noticed that there weren't any shadows. And that's the main thing about lighting, it's not really that you have to have dynamic lights, it's just that you need to spend some time on lighting to make it look good, if that means dynamic lghts than great, but if you come up with other ways to do it that's all good as well. The worst thing you can do is spend a long time creating a nice track then just use only the ground and sky environment lights to light it (which i've seen many times now).
For me I try to always use at least the sunlight in some way so that there are some shadows cast from that. If interiors are too complex for dynamic lights (which is often) than the point light is great. Light the background differently from the drive line, find ways to make the rider or certain obstacles/scenery stand out. But whatever you do, if your track is having performance issues don't just sacrifice lighting to save your decorrations.