We (on behalf of Scroll) wanted to have some advanced effects that could be accessed either via SEXP or scripting.
The envisioned features are as following:
-Adjusting further Post processing values in-mission than currently possible, in particular the bloom and blur values; at best fluently. Currently this can only be done by closing the game and modifying the config files, what is pretty much the opposite.
-Adjusting the rendering of maps in-mission. This is something similar to what you can do in the F3 techroom where you can adjust the rendering of the available maps such as base map, glow map etc. This could be used for 2 effects:
1. For a cutscene effect it would be cool if models could be semi-transparent at first and later faded out. There was such an effect in the old F3 lab before The_E... removed it (but it was only a static effect, we were thinking about something that could be adjusted dynamical). There's also such a thing with the PBR map overrides in the current F3 lab.
2. A derivate of this for the custom mission with the subspace Sathanas - it would be good to modify the rendering of specific maps, in this case the Sathanas glow maps. Currently it is possible to turn them off entirely (and on) on the entire modell, but it looks rather dull to the point it's better without using the effect. (While not discussed, I think that if something like that was made it would be good to have an option where only a specified map would be affected).
I think both 1 and 2 are related, 1 fades out/in all maps; 2 affects only the glow map. The effect would be slightly different from the current cloak/uncloak effect, however.
This function could be accessed via a single action where the ship (and optionally, the specific map) are altered over a specified time, or as a series of SEXPs where the map is given the rendering "90", "80"... etc.
I talked with Goober about that, but he said that this would require new shaders in addition to/replacing the current built-in shaders, and he doesn't know how to write such things. Therefore we require somebody from the community who volunteers to do that. I haven't any clue about coding, leave along complex things such as shaders.