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[DustyDrake]

B!

[SoHaunted]

I would choose B but add in one more darker shade of gray before the black so it blends in a little smoother.

[wademcgillis]

B or C.

But B needs an extra level of shading before going to the darkest level.

[rek]

The correct answer is D. Because the blockiness of the game is already apparent, it doesn't need an arrow pointing at it saying "look, they're blocks!" when shading is applied.

[namragog]

maybe D but a lot darker...

[IndieGamesDig]

I'd vote C personally, seems like the happy medium, but go with B if that's your fav.

[eigenbom]

Wow, lots of discussion to see when I wake up, thx :D

You've all got some good comments, and @rek I do agree with you about the double blockiness happening with a-c.  The main problem with (d) is its a lot more expensive to do, so if I could find a non-blurred solution then that'd be better. I guess I'm fine with it being blocky, as long as I can blend the shading with the tiles better, so as not to reinforce their blockiness more than necessary.

The main problem I see with (a) and (c) is that you get those annoying banding artifacts from pixel art when you have gradients of pixels/blocks lined up next to each other.. In (c) I tried to reduce it by blurring the lighting together a bit and then re-blocking it, but the diagonals are especially annoying to me.

As long as I can achieve some semblance of Mood and Discovery with the lighting then I'll be happy. I might go with a variant of (b) for now until a better idea comes along.

[:^)]

to B, or not to B, that is the question.

[emacs]

to B, that is the answer

[mokesmoe]

I think having [the darkest colour] pitch black would help for the sake of discovering things.
                                  edit

[Franklin's Ghost]

I'd go B

[kamac]

C. Go C.

[eigenbom]

oh my, its like voices in my head, C! No B! No A! What?! D?! Argh!

[Theophilus]

fuse A and B

B, except with the same values as A. Like, make more colors.

[eigenbom]

Update: more experiments with lighting, this time i'm recording the direction the light comes from so i can attentuate light that travels around corners more.
 

[SoulBlade]

Update: more experiments with lighting, this time i'm recording the direction the light comes from so i can attentuate light that travels around corners more.
 

Hey man, I really like the work you're doing.  I was just messing with lighting on my own game; you might benefit from what I was doing. 

I remember you saying you're using SFML; I am as well.  For dealing with the shadows on the tiles, what I did was create a shadow render texture based on the tile world on screen.  So...I'm not sure how you're managing your tiles, but if you use a single render texture for them, you could put the texture onto a sprite, recolor the sprite to black, and draw it to a new shadow render texture. 
Apply a radial blur shader to it, and it creates a convincing "gradiant" effect that I think you're looking for.  If you want to get it more blocky, apply a shadow that pixelates the shadows and it would produce the same effect you're making there, very, very, very fast and without storage in individual tiles.

Not sure what your method is, but I'm sure it works really well, too.  Just thought I'd help out a little -- really like your style .

[eigenbom]

hey soulblade, thx for the tip. how does your method cope with very large worlds? and if it's just image-based lighting, how do you factor in lighting that comes in from off-screen?

[SoulBlade]

hey soulblade, thx for the tip. how does your method cope with very large worlds? and if it's just image-based lighting, how do you factor in lighting that comes in from off-screen?

Well my world is infinitely-sized and it works really well.  It's updated every frame using the same image that the tiles use.

So, for lighting the comes in from off-screen, all you need to do is manage a "null map" (I'm sure it has a real name, I just made that up).  The null map is all white, and where there are holes, you make that part transparent.  You multiply this map against the shadow map, and it creates holes in the shadow map that you can see through.  This can be done pretty easily using the SFML blend mode MULT.

If you manage the null map properly, you can create all the lighting holes in the shadow map you need from offscreen and on screen sources.

[eigenbom]

well it sounds cool, but i'm not quite following you. in any case, do you have any screenshots of it in action? cheers

[eigenbom]

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.