Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Sheepy on October 28, 2003, 12:17:49 pm
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Is there a VP for them? if so where cause i sure as hell cant find it (call me stupid if you want).
If not could some one point me in the right direction of what im supposed to be looking for/doing?
Cheers.
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no. Nobody actually has been doing lots of glowpoint stuff because so far
a) glowpoints dont fade in & out, they just blink on and off, which looks rather crappy (bit like some animated .gif christmas trees)
b) the bitmap used for glowpoints (till now) looks like a white circle, and not like anything that actually glows
However, if you want to try yourself, search the forums theres an ulysses and an arcadia with glowpoints (if i remember correctly) - the ulysses will have two white/blue circles on the wingtips (100% opaque, as all glow points so far) and some weird blinking lights on to and bottom, and the arcadia looks like some 'christmas tree' variant :rolleyes:
I sincerely hope someone will improve the glow points so they can actually look cool (cause well-done glowpoints 0wn.)
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Lightspeed, I couldn't disagree more with the "blink on/off looks extremely crappy". It's all in how they are done. If you didn't like the Arcadia, then that's fine, but the lights were carefully set up as to not need a fade in/out effect. (I don't like the "Christmas Tree" comment because I went out of my way to not have lights everywhere, but that's beside the point) And besides, you've flipped a light switch countless times before no doubt, there's no reason to make a glowpoint fade in and out in reality anyway (well there is on things like signal towers, but it has more to do with the way the lights are built than what they are supposed to do). It's just a visual flare that is added in by certain game designers anyway, so it isn't something to be demanded.
Also, unless this has been changed recently, you can specify any bitmap you want for a glow (round works better). I used engine glows and beam glows for mine so something's wrong if all you're getting is a white circle, but technically any bitmap will work just as well.
Sheepy, as far as I know there have only been a handful of ships with glowpoints; several varients of the Ulysses (which was the testbed to begin with), My Glowpointed Arcadia (http://www.duke.edu/~cek6/install01.zip), and a couple of fighters in Aldo's CoW which have slightly screwed up timing (delays are 1/1000 what they should be; aldo did it thinking that delays were in seconds apparently, because as it stands there are something like 10 state changes per frame, and the game seems to randomly pick one or the other each frame) Look at the Arcadia with PCS to get a feel for how to set up glowpoints in banks and so on.
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Originally posted by StratComm
Lightspeed, I couldn't disagree more with the "blink on/off looks extremely crappy". It's all in how they are done. If you didn't like the Arcadia, then that's fine, but the lights were carefully set up as to not need a fade in/out effect. (I don't like the "Christmas Tree" comment because I went out of my way to not have lights everywhere, but that's beside the point)
Well, i know glowpoints are done like this atm -- i'm not critisizing that one, and certainly, there's lights which look good if they blink on and off but normally, fading in & out (even if they have really short fade times) looks far more realistic and better (don't ask me why, it just feels right ;) ). And that christmas tree comment was more about the blinking thingy... I dont think there are too much lights on the arcadia. I don't even think theyre placed on wrong spots. :) All i think is that switching from 0-100% transparency you don't really feel it as a light source, it looks like an opaque sphere appearing and disappearing, a fading effect however would solve that problem.
And besides, you've flipped a light switch countless times before no doubt, there's no reason to make a glowpoint fade in and out in reality anyway (well there is on things like signal towers, but it has more to do with the way the lights are built than what they are supposed to do). It's just a visual flare that is added in by certain game designers anyway, so it isn't something to be demanded.[/B]
see above, and (especially on the arcadia), i think those lights should act like signals, so ... :)
And about the last thing... Yes of course you can use the current glowpoint system for some details. But making it fadeable and more configurable you could add a whole new dimension of placing them, which in turn would result in some really awe inspiring ship models (especially on capships). What would be really cool too, would be if the light would actually lighten the surrounding areas :D
Also, unless this has been changed recently, you can specify any bitmap you want for a glow (round works better). I used engine glows and beam glows for mine so something's wrong if all you're getting is a white circle, but technically any bitmap will work just as well.[/B]
I know! The only thing is that nobody has done a better map yet than the one used on the models there are so far. And IMHO it isnt very suited for making the points look like they'd actually glow. Also, it'd be really hard to get a texture which would look glowy despite the lack of any light effects (with only ON, or OFF :doubt: )
I do think the current glow point models have potential. All that needs to be done is some improvement on the bitmaps and the way of handling glow points :nod:
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so you cant get a fade effect by stacking 2 or more glowpoints on the same spot and having one drop off after another? I dont know anything about them, but I would like to learn how to do my own.
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Over exposure could make the breakthrough in actually simulating the glow of the glowpoints - alpha channels would also be a godsend.
However the new dds and tga support *or jpg- already implement some of the alphachannel handling so your options are becoming much wider.
On the other hand I think some function handlind should be implemented....although this coud get really complicated.
So just adding the ability to have broader control over the blinking *random, blinking, non-sysmetric rythm, ect.
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a light fading in/out means that it's circuit doesn't cleanly switch
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it looks cool though :D
oh, and some lights take some time to reach their maximum brightness, and also some time to glow out.
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the people cry: "Screenshots !!"
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no, just you
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Glowpoints are decidedly uneventful in screenshots; it's the simple animation that helps them the most.
And lightspeed, the only light that I've ever seen to require a warm-up time is the one in my dorm room right now. The reason some lights pulse like they do has nothing to do with warmup/cooldown, but rather with the circuit into which they are built. When you think you're seeing a light fade in and out, what you are actually seeing is a very low-frequency continuous alternating current applied to a LED. I know of no light source that glows when there is no current passing through it though, so a clean switch will always produce a snap on.
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btw, cheers strat :) are there any more of these kicking about or lurking in the depths of peoples hard drives they are willing to share?
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actualy realy big lights do take about 1/4 a second to reach there maximum brightness and another 1/4 a second to cool down to non-visability, it's just doing this would require an alteration of the file spec
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Any way you could use Ani's to trick the system?
Flipside :D
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Originally posted by Flipside
Any way you could use Ani's to trick the system?
Flipside :D
/smacks head on desk
now, why didnt i think of that earlier? ;7
Sounds like a good solution :yes:
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How's about 'cause glow points don't support ANIs?
Sorry to ruin the idea. I'll look into implementing ANIs, though.