Valve's Randy Lundeen updates the official Left 4 Dead blog with an inside look at the zombie shooters lighting design. The most amazing reveal? That Left 4 Dead's lighting is really fascinating.
Call me a Left 4 Dead fanboy if you must — I did stay up until 1:30 AM last night plugging through "No Mercy" yet again — but Lundeen's insight into the game's evolution, from a light source perspective, says a lot about the visual impact of police car headlights.
It may all seem like "duh" kind of stuff — players move toward well lit areas, a brightly lit apartment complex doesn't exactly scream "ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!" — but there's a lot to be learned here for budding game designers. There's also a lot of knowledge from Valve and Turtle Rock packed into this brief post, which gets a Kotaku editor's choice gold foil stamp. We're still figuring out where to put it.
L4D Art Direction, Part 2: Stylized Darkness [Left 4 Dead Blog]