Lighting Wizardry
Trine 2's developers are wizards of light(ing).
The lighting is so gorgeous that while moving along or against light sources, you'd often just stop to appreciate and play with the lights and shadows.
Trine 2's environment is equally pretty: radiant backdrops (wet jungles, cascading waterfalls, molten lava and pipes gushing steams, underwater areas) and varied beasts (giant snakes, frogs, snails) feature heavily in its fairy-tale narrative.
Some technical comments from the developer:
PCGH: We assume your engine features a Deferred Renderer, could you confirm this and could you please list some advanced rendering techniques you are using?
Juha Hiekkamäki, Frozenbyte: Our rendering is indeed based on deferred rendering, and our typical scene has somewhere between 50 and 100 dynamic lights visible. Compared to some AAA games our feature list is obviously smaller. We are using Depth of Field, screen space reflections, wrap lights (approximation of translucency), bloom and color corrections. We also support native stereoscopic rendering on PC.
PCGH: The lighting and art design of Trine 2 is just amazing - so what is your secret?
Juha Hiekkamäki, Frozenbyte: Our renderer allows artists to use a lot of dynamic lights for each frame. We also try to work together and add some features that would benefit the art. Beyond that, the secret is just our talented art team and the art direction they've chosen.