Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: IncendiaryLemon on January 05, 2003, 10:32:37 am

Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: IncendiaryLemon on January 05, 2003, 10:32:37 am
I understand the difficulties implementing it into gameplay (as Digital Anvil explained it) but it seems more plausible in Freespace where you have more arbitrary control over the placement of light sources.

 Then it would only look pretty and add little to gameplay. However ships hidden in debri fields only visible by runner lights immerses you. hmm... pretty...

 but thank you for the SCP, your work is greatly apreciated.
Title: Re: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: vyper on January 05, 2003, 10:45:36 am
Quote
Originally posted by IncendiaryLemon
I understand the difficulties implementing it into gameplay (as Digital Anvil explained it) but it seems more plausible in Freespace where you have more arbitrary control over the placement of light sources.

 Then it would only look pretty and add little to gameplay. However ships hidden in debri fields only visible by runner lights immerses you. hmm... pretty...

 but thank you for the SCP, your work is greatly apreciated.


To be technical, fs2 has dynamic lighting already (watch weapons glow reflect off some hulls). The problem with dynamic lighting in a game like fs2 is mainly resources - lighting can hog a lot of rendering time and imagine the battle of Capella with hundreds of dynamic lights... :nervous:
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: Fury on January 05, 2003, 10:53:57 am
Better dynamic lightning could be possible when HT&L is working efficiently. But until then, I am afraid it would do no good. Takes to much resources to produce.
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: vyper on January 05, 2003, 01:25:29 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Mr. Fury
Better dynamic lightning could be possible when HT&L is working efficiently. But until then, I am afraid it would do no good. Takes to much resources to produce.


Indeed, but then again that isn't THAT far off. Remember, the technology exists (see Wildcat gfx card) its just not affordable. The same could be said for Gforce/Radeon level quality a few years ago. Give it a year or two and quad-t&l-engine cards will be commonplace.
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: IncendiaryLemon on January 05, 2003, 01:28:29 pm
(looking at your location tag) wasn't the Ark Royal sunk in Scapa Flow?
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: Anaz on January 05, 2003, 01:33:54 pm
GTD Ark Royal

It's a mod ship...
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: RandomTiger on January 06, 2003, 07:20:16 am
Quote
Originally posted by Mr. Fury
Better dynamic lightning could be possible when HT&L is working efficiently. But until then, I am afraid it would do no good. Takes to much resources to produce.


Ironically when we move to HT&L the number of lights will be limited by your gfx card and the API. Which gives you a maximum number of lights of 8 in OGL and DX8.

You can place a much larger number of potiential lights but only the nearest (or most significant) 8 will be used.
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: Bobboau on January 06, 2003, 07:46:29 am
can't you do more than 8, I thought it was only 8 at the same time, so if a ship had 10 lights on it you could do the first eight and then in a second iteration do the remaining two
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: vyper on January 06, 2003, 06:05:53 pm
Quote
Originally posted by IncendiaryLemon
(looking at your location tag) wasn't the Ark Royal sunk in Scapa Flow?


Not the Advanced Hades class! ;)

Got Beam? :D

Anyway, the number of lights is limited by how many tn'l engines u have on ur card.
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: RandomTiger on January 07, 2003, 07:01:54 am
Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau
can't you do more than 8, I thought it was only 8 at the same time, so if a ship had 10 lights on it you could do the first eight and then in a second iteration do the remaining two


Whats involved in doing a second itteration and do you really want to do that?

Do we want any object to be lit by more than 8 lights? Given the typical poly count of the models involved I wouldnt have thought so.
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: Bobboau on January 07, 2003, 08:24:42 am
well I don't know, I just thought you could relight something,
the number of lights was just a limit on how many you could do at one time,
I realy haven't looked into this that much and I'm probly wrong :sigh:
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: IceFire on January 07, 2003, 09:12:11 am
When we talk about number of lights.  Are we refering to lighting from a "star" or lighting from say a port on the side of a ship?

If so ...does that mean that only one ship can have 8 lights?  What if they are all the same light?  What if 10 ships have 8 different lights?  Woa :D
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: Bobboau on January 07, 2003, 09:18:01 am
lights, things that will light other things, beams weapons (local) stars, there can only be eight of these things affecting any given polygon at one time
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: RandomTiger on January 08, 2003, 07:14:54 am
Quote
Originally posted by IceFire
When we talk about number of lights.  Are we refering to lighting from a "star" or lighting from say a port on the side of a ship?

If so ...does that mean that only one ship can have 8 lights?  What if they are all the same light?  What if 10 ships have 8 different lights?  Woa :D


Might be an idea to check the max num lights for crap gfx cards, might be less than 8 for all we know. Games dont tend to use many lights anyway, even in hardware they are expensive. There are many other tricks we can use to light things that are a lot less expensive if we do a bit of research.
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: Petrarch of the VBB on January 08, 2003, 01:25:11 pm
Quote
Originally posted by IncendiaryLemon
(looking at your location tag) wasn't the Ark Royal sunk in Scapa Flow?


Not as far as I know. I'm pretty sure it was an accomodation hulk, claimed by the Nazis to be the Ark Royal, though I could be wrong.
Title: Dynamic Lighting
Post by: Goober5000 on January 08, 2003, 01:31:40 pm
Actually, the LRCa Ark Royal is the ship you're based on for the first chapter of the Unification War... ;) :nervous: