3D lighting

I would like to briefly discuss 3D lighting because we will be approximating it with 2D lighting effects. The Phong lighting model is the standard for three-dimensional lighting models in computer graphics. It was a model for lighting created by Bui Tuong Phong at the University of Utah in 1975, but it was not until the late 1990s that desktop computers became fast enough to implement the model in games. Since then, the lighting model has become the standard for 3D game development. It combines ambient, diffuse, and specular lighting to render geometry. We won't be able to implement a proper version of the lighting model because we aren't writing a 3D game. However, we can implement an approximation of the model by using 2D sprites and normal maps to go along with those sprites.

...