Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Iain Baker on July 09, 2022, 02:14:10 pm

Title: jump points and lighting
Post by: Iain Baker on July 09, 2022, 02:14:10 pm

Hi everyone.

Is it just me, or do jump points not cast dynamic lights consistently? If you watch the liked video the rear end of the karuna is dark when it jumps in, despite the jump point being behind it. A few seconds later we see the flanks of the ship illuminated by another jump point. Is this an engine limitation or am I missing something?

Also, just a thought - the 'god rays' that come from a mission's star if a ship is in front of it - could these be added to jump points too? Might be a little computationally expensive but it would make for some great screenshots :-)


https://youtu.be/9SpbifbNbo4

Title: Re: jump points and lighting
Post by: EatThePath on July 09, 2022, 10:34:51 pm

What is most likely causing this effect is that the light of a jump point is a single point directly at the center of the portal. For lighting the flat sides of a ship emerging from a portal that means the light source is actually behind the surface, so doesn't light it.

Either that or there isn't actually a jump portal in that shot and the sound is just being played by events so there's more dramatic control of the motion. The sloped aft surfaces should be lit at least, and I don't see that there.

But that first issue is definitely an issue, one that quite bugs me and is as far as I know a form of 'disc light' is relatively high on the list of things qazwsxal may be able to implement in the future.