Technology · Light and rendering
Light that behaves like light.
Light is what makes a scene read as real. Arcwright lights every frame the way light actually travels: from the sun and the sky, bouncing off walls and floors, reflecting in chrome and wet ground, passing through glass, and hanging in the haze.
123456- 1Neon that lights the wall and the ceiling around it.
- 2Rain running down the windows, the street blurred behind.
- 3Pendant lamps pooling warm light on the counter.
- 4Chrome stools reflecting the room.
- 5The checker floor picking up the lamps.
- 6Glass on the pie case you can see straight through.
- Sun and skyA physical sky, worked out from altitude
- ShadowsFrom the sun and from every lamp
- Bounced lightLight off walls and floors, colour and all
- ReflectionsChrome, wet ground, glass, water
- Glass and waterSee-through, with refraction
- Haze and beamsLight you can see in the air
- The lookExposure and one of six looks
01 · Bounced light
One lamp lights the whole room.
Light doesn't stop where it lands. A candle lights the table, the table throws warm light back onto the wall, moonlight through a boarded window lands on the floor and lifts the dark around it. Arcwright works out that bounce every frame, so a room lit by one lamp looks lit by one lamp.
On Windows, Linux and the Steam Deck the bounce is ray-traced on Vulkan; on a Mac it runs on Metal.
The Ashgrove foyer: candles, moonlight through the boards, the chandelier.
02 · Haze
Light you can see in the air.
Fill a hallway with haze and hang one bare bulb, and the light becomes a cone you could walk through. Fog thickens low to the ground, lamps and spotlights glow through it as visible beams, and the same works in our 3D browser games.
Ashgrove's hall, played on a Steam Deck.
03 · Reflections
Chrome, paint and wet ground.
Every surface reflects as much as it should: chrome mirrors the room, car paint holds long highlights along its curves, a wet road turns into a mirror for the sun. Glossy and rough surfaces sit side by side, each by its own finish.
12345- 1The work lamp: the only light in the bay.
- 2Chrome on the air cleaner, mirroring the lamp.
- 3Paint holding a long highlight along the fender.
- 4The windscreen reflecting the garage lights.
- 5Grime on the engine block, which barely reflects at all.
The sun on the wet road at the launch pad.
04 · Glass and rain
Glass you see through, rain you see on it.
Glass in Arcwright is see-through and bends what's behind it. Rain runs down a window in real time, drop by drop, with the neon outside blurred behind it. Glass with liquid inside, like these coffee pots, shows both.
Rain on the diner window.
Coffee pots: glass with liquid inside.
05 · Neon
Things that glow light up what's around them.
A neon sign isn't a sticker: it's a light. It glows through the window blinds, tints the frame and lights the room behind it.
An OPEN sign in a garage office window.
06 · The lens
A working Fresnel lens.
The lighthouse's lens is built ring by ring and lit from inside, so you can see the lamp through it and the sea through the windows behind.
07 · Six looks
Change the whole world in one click.
Every game starts with six looks you can switch in one click, and fine-tune from there: Golden Hour, Day, Storybook, Night, Noir and War-Torn. The sun, the sky, the fog, the colour and the exposure all change together.
One island, six looks.
08 · Fast enough to play
All of this, at a frame rate you can play.
Good light is no use at 12 frames a second. The engine measures what each frame spends its time on, fixes the exact cost instead of switching features off, and while you play it steps the least-visible settings first to hold the frame rate. Rooms you can't see aren't drawn at all.
How that works is on Proof and performance.
See it for yourself.
Download Arcwright free and open Ashgrove or Hollowreach to see the light for yourself.
Start building today.
Arcwright is free. Download it, describe your game, and watch Claude Opus 5.5 build it in front of you.
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