Thomas, 2008-06-18, "Character version 2.0"

[starstutter]

HPL2 uses deferred shading

My main reasons for using deferred shading is because it makes it easier to maintain shader combinations, is faster when rendering many small (as in screen coverage) lights and makes it easier for the artist to optimize.

ahhhh, you're a step ahead of me

Personally I think forward rendering is simply becoming a thing of the past. It's complicates scene management and it's slower in practically all next-gen scenerios.

Just curious, I "came up" with a technique called deferred shadowing and with it I've been able to almost double my shadow map resolution and sample count with almost no real fps impact compared to forward shadow rendering. I've looked everywhere for any other game or engine that uses the techniqe but so far I simply havent found anything. I say "came up" because usually I dream up something and then later find out it's already made =/