[Scotty]

Let me start off by saying that I like the concept of the light shafts.

Let me continue by saying that the increased overall glare makes the game very difficult to play in an area with even two suns, much less three or more.  The increased glare effect will literally turn the entire screen white except for whatever you're fortunate enough to have cast a shadow if you look at any occurrence of two or more suns in close proximity.  In some campaigns - notably Derelict and Blue Planet - there are quite a lot of suns.  This renders some of the missions in those campaigns damn near unplayable because the player finds him or herself utterly blinded and unable to even see target boxes at any range at all.

Please tone it down.

[Zacam]

I actually came up with a few thought on this one.

First is bloom contribution. Not sure where I was going with that one, but I'll let it percolate.

Second, is per-Mission flags/setup for Light Shafts. Right now, it's either globally on with a static set of values, or it is globally off. That doesn't sit well with me. Places (in FRED) that it could go is either in the Mission Specs or the Background. Mission Save should have 2 lines (or maybe just one) defining "$Light Shaft Flags:" to indicate that it is on (if one liner) followed by comma separated values for each of the control values in the order as listed in the Post Processing Table. Would still only ever take effect if -post_process is present, but also won't care if the TBL cites them as "Off" (which means then that most mods won't have to distribute one -just- for Light Shafts).

This will not only allow for better instancing so that it doesn't have to be on for missions that don't really -need- it, but also allows significant control over how MUCH there is.

And now I remember where Bloom Contribution comes in. Add as an expanded value to the existing Light Shafts setup a Bloom Modifier that controls (either in two parts or one part) how much (if any) contribution that the players Bloom setting will affect.

Additionally, could expand or tie in the Light Shafts to the actual Suns listings so each Solar body has an element of control for its respective intensity and type, but that may be much more complicated than just a stock per-mission, but would probably be much more ideal.

In terms of the general corona/glare contribution to the scene, that can happen even without -post_process and Light Shafts and could probably use some toning down or introduce some controls so that mission designers can better control the intensity and contribution thereof.

[Kolgena]

Wow Zacam, that would actually be amazing if implemented. Personally, I've always left sunshafts off at the launcher because it looks bad in non-nebular missions (where's all the fog coming from?), especially when you can't tweak its intensity per mission.

[Shivan Hunter]

Scotty, in the sunglare

I like the idea of a stars.tbl addition controlling light shafts. FRED could still have a few values in the background editor to modify it, just like the ambient light modifier it has now.

One thing I'd like to see (and I don't know how possible this is) is the ability to have light shafts without the existing glare effect. I know light shafts inherently have to brighten the screen somewhat, but at the moment it seems that the light shaft effect is blended additively with the existing sunglare effect- which is why it's suddenly much brighter (enough to get complete whiteout with only two suns). I have a few custom suns and all of them use $NoGlare:, but I'd still like light shafts on some of them (in particular, the one used for a nebula mission).

the bloom contribution thing could be solved by removing bloom completely (j/k, that would work best as an option in post-processing.tbl or FRED).