I am mostly staying out of this discussion, but I would like to point out that next-gen engines are easier to use than old technology, in terms of programming and content creation. No lightmap or vis compiling is required, so you can just load a mesh, create a light, and it just instantly works. Occlusion culling is performed on the GPU, so there is no need for portal systems or BSP trees. The materials system works the same on everything, so you don't have to worry about bumpmapping lightmapped surfaces or baked vertex colors...the engine doesn't know or care if it is rendering a wall, a car, or a person, it's all just triangles running through the same render and lighting path.
Now that I have been working with this system for a while, I could never go back to a system of baked low-res textures that sort of look like blurry shadows. I feel like I have forgotten that lightmaps ever existed...they just seem so silly to use. It's so much easier when you can just have colored lighting with realtime soft shadows on everything.
Now that I have been working with this system for a while, I could never go back to a system of baked low-res textures that sort of look like blurry shadows. I feel like I have forgotten that lightmaps ever existed...they just seem so silly to use. It's so much easier when you can just have colored lighting with realtime soft shadows on everything.