Source metadata
- Type: Web article (Medium, MY.GAMES publication)
- Author: Alexander Sharov, Senior Environment Artist, War Robots: Frontiers
- Published: 30 January 2024
- URL: https://medium.com/my-games-company/using-light-and-color-in-game-development-a-beginners-guide-400edf4a7ae0
Key takeaways
- Light and colour are functional game design tools, not just aesthetic polish — they direct the player’s eye, communicate direction, mark points of interest, and set emotional tone.
- Warm/cool colour contrast is a repeated practical lever for separating foreground from background, highlighting gameplay objects, and keeping the eye moving.
- Tone (value/lightness) matters more than hue for readability. A well-toned black-and-white image reads clearly; a badly toned coloured image does not.
- Composition rules — rule of thirds, golden triangles, dividing the frame into planes — transfer from classical painting and film into 3D scene layout.
- Colour relationships from Itten’s colour wheel (complementary, analogous, split-complementary, monochromatic) give artists a structured vocabulary for harmony and accent.
- Realism and stylisation demand different colour and lighting strategies: realism tends to neutral/cool shades with subtle accents; stylisation uses saturated accents and simplified shapes.
- Gurney’s Color and Light is named as recommended further reading.
Notable claims
- “Without good lighting, a game is only half ready.”
- “In terms of perception, tone is always more important than color. It’s tone that primarily creates volume and visually divides a picture.”
- “A higher color key can create an atmosphere of calmness and hope, while a lower one conveys an atmosphere of tension, intrigue, danger.”
- “The player doesn’t thoroughly analyze what they’re seeing — they do everything on a subconscious level.” — on how directed light and contrast guide the eye.
- On God of War Ragnarök gate scene: moonlight marks the door as the brightest spot; red foliage attracts extra attention against moonlight and green vegetation; two foreground lamps set the light/shadow contrast; mountains suggest space beyond.
Examples referenced
- God of War (2018) — warm/cool contrast directs player along the road; light separates foreground/middle/background.
- God of War: Ragnarök — lantern contrast against dark surroundings; gate scene analysed with “Golden Triangles” composition.
- Horizon Forbidden West and Burning Shores — warm-lit entrance against cold environment; slanted tree line directs the eye to a lone building; fog isolates silhouette from background.
- Diablo IV — red health / blue-violet mana, historically coded to blood/vitality and magic/mystery.
- Firewatch — analogous colours for warm atmosphere.
- Dunkirk (film) and Call of Duty: WWII — neutral, cool, realism-oriented palette.
- Fortnite and Overwatch — saturated, stylised colour with strong accents.
Relevance
Informs pages on general lighting, composition, tonality, and colour theory for game art. Relates to player guidance, environmental storytelling, UI conventions (ally/enemy colour coding, resource bars), and the realism-versus-stylisation decision in art direction.
Open questions raised
- How do the principles generalise to Unity’s lighting stack specifically (URP/HDRP lights, probes, Volumes)?
- How do colour-coded UI conventions interact with accessibility (colour-blindness, contrast ratios)?
- How do these 3D composition rules change for top-down, isometric, and 2D platformer framings where the camera has less freedom?