Project_Light (Gamedev blog)

So I've come up with a new solution, and have begun programming it in: 1. There are two basic modes. The first, is the standard mode. This is when the player can walk around and look around freely. The second mode is the view mode. Here, the player's screen is focused on the document he wishes to view. 2. The player enters view mode by clicking on the document. The camera will then interpolate to a position that allows the player to easily read or examine whatever caught his interest. 3. Another click, and the player is free again. With this, the flow of the game isn't interrupted, and the suspension of disbelief is strongly preserved. 

One of the challenges of using baked shadows and lights, is that they can not be dynamic. But I do want the player to be able to toggle lights on and off. After some thinking, I've concieved this idea: The player interacts with the light switch, which will toggle the "state" of the light to be either on or off. Every single light's state is recorded and kept by the "Lightmap manager". There are baked lightmaps for every combination of lights that can be on and off at a given time. When a light is toggled, it calls the "Update Lightmaps" function, which will run through and see which lights are on, and which ones are off, so it can pick the right lightmap to load up. Therefore allowing you to turn lights on and off, and see realistic changes in shadowing and lighting.