That top one is awesome, seriously.

Thanks!

Wow, these look amazing SOTL! :)

@Bacterius: Thank you!

@ShaneC: Thanks for the feedback! I'm not sure how I'll exactly calculate it in-game (but I do have a software-based shader system implemented with several algorithms). I was thinking maybe using additive blending to draw the cast light.

I probably need to just sit down and spend a few days looking at photos of real stain-glass windows (and photos of games that look good), and then tweak the artwork in Paint Shop Pro.

I wonder if some colored lighting softly surrounding the windows themselves on the wall would improve the appearance... ("color bleeding"?) Is that what you mean by a 'glow'? Do you mean a colored glow around the wall around the glass itself, or a blurrier/smoother light cast on the floor?

It definitely needs to be tweaked alot once the game editor is completely and once I can finally actually see them in-game. When I get around to it (months from now), and if I remember, I'll post my attempts on GameDev's art subforum to get even more suggestions! I've only posted there a few times in the past, but it's always gotten me very good feedback.

I appreciate the input!

Come to think about it, looking at the cast light and the benches' cast shadows, the light directions don't line up.

I'm not too bothered by that, but I should maybe mirror the shadows of the benches on the left, so on both columns of benches the shadows are cast away from the window (and the bench shadows should be softer and weaker as well).

In general, I was going to go with all shadows falling to the North-East when outdoors, and all shadows falling to the North-West when indoors, but with areas with stain glass windows, I might manually do something different, since there would likely be more player attention-to-details on the lighting/shadowing in those areas.

Something kind of like this: http://i43.tinypic.com/nx0rj4.jpg

I think I get what you're showing.

Here's a few rapid tests:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Light coming through stain glass windows is distinctly colored, but not quite as bright as I'm making it here - I definitely need to tone it down some... Sometime in a few months, I need to devote a good week to it, since one of these stainglass windows will take place in an area where the player shelters during a siege and needs to look good as plot dialog unfolds.

I really need to look at actual pictures and tweak this in the future; thanks for the comments!

I think the problem here is that the reflection has a brighter halo than the window, which is rather jarring. I think switching around the two halos would make it look a bit better (so that the window has the bright, thin one and the reflection has the blurred version). And maybe reduce the brightness of the reflection by 15-20%.

Though this is just guesswork, really, I agree looking at real pictures would probably be a better guide.

Oh yeah, hmm. I think that's what Shane C was pointing out in his mock-up as well, which makes sense.

Here's four more mock-ups: [10] [11] [12] [13]

I also realized that in some of these, the frame of the stainglass window is getting over-brightened, and I corrected this in the last two images.