Unified lighting and shadowing

Unified shadow and lighting is the lighting model used in the Doom 3 game developed by id Software.

Previous 3D games like Quake III Arena, used separate lighting models for determining how a light would illuminate a character or a map. Lighting and shadow information for maps would be static, pre-generated and stored, whereas lighting and shadowing information for characters would be determined at run-time.

Doom 3 uses a unified model that generates the lighting and shadows for everything at run-time. This means that any lights will affect the whole Scene and not only certain parts. This may include self-shadowing via shadow volumes, where characters can cast shadows on themselves, for example the shadow cast by the marine's chin onto his neck.

See also

• Shadow volume, a technique for dynamic shadows used in Doom 3