Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Flipside on November 25, 2003, 07:39:54 pm

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Flipside on November 25, 2003, 07:39:54 pm

Could peeps test these Lens Flares for me and tell me what you think? :)

Thanks

http://80.71.3.130/~sectorga/tifiles/Flipside/effects.zip

Just unzip the JPG's into your /effects folder and add the content of the tbl file to the END of one of the Suns entries in Stars.tbl (after the RGBI settings).

Flipside :D

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Taristin on November 25, 2003, 07:50:18 pm

...wait. Lens flares are a good thing now?

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Woolie Wool on November 25, 2003, 07:54:51 pm

God, not lens flares. Please keep this silly gimmick out of FreeSpace. You're viewing the game through the pilot's perspective, not through a camera. People don't see lens flares!

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Solatar on November 25, 2003, 07:57:30 pm

Well don't turn them on.:rolleyes:  Why things are optional...:doubt:

Wouldn't the pilot's glass do it also....

Anyway, testing now.:)

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Taristin on November 25, 2003, 08:04:14 pm

Sorry, Woolie, God has nothing to do with this one.

I may try them, but I doubt I'll like it. I hate the sun glare as it is...

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Solatar on November 25, 2003, 08:06:37 pm

I like them. I sorta like the original about the same, so I'm indifferent on this one.:)

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Flipside on November 25, 2003, 08:20:33 pm

Well, as the man says, you can always turn them off, and yes, you would get lens flares from the cockpit, just look through the window of a car at night to see what I mean, military glass is glare-protected to a certain degree, but you still get the flare ;)

Flipside :D

Edit : Besides, if this was truly pilots perspective, we'd have to do it letterbox mode to make up for that bloody silly helmet ;)

Edit again : Thanks Solatar :) They are not going to be used all the time, only in specific situations ;)

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Taristin on November 25, 2003, 08:24:19 pm

That'd be cool. :cool:

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Turnsky on November 25, 2003, 08:29:35 pm

a lens flare /might/ be handy if you want ingame cinematics..

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Carl on November 25, 2003, 08:38:57 pm

Quote

Originally posted by Flipside
military glass is glare-protected to a certain degree, but you still get the flare ;)

you'd think in 300 years it'd have improved a bit.

...and this is all assuming that it actually is glass.

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Flipside on November 25, 2003, 08:47:55 pm

LOL True, but Fry_Day went to the trouble of adding these to the SCP, so I thought it's a least worth a go at making some. :)

Flipside :D

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Ulala on November 25, 2003, 08:55:13 pm

Screenies! :nod:

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: StratComm on November 25, 2003, 09:16:55 pm

Actually the "lens flare" effect is an effect of the curvature of the camera lens, and simply put the glare off of a curved surface such as a car windshield or a fighter cockpit looks completely different.  The effect at night is more of lines coming off of the light sources, instead of little blobs of light that always line up with the light source through the center of the camera.  It's caused by the same thing but they do not look at all the same.

And of course it can always be left off.  That's the only sensable way to do it anyway.  Anyway, I'm great with having some new effects, but not for lens flares... imagine what we can do with those and glowpoints.

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Flipside on November 25, 2003, 09:37:48 pm

Fortunately, it only works for suns :) I don't think I could cope with it on anything else.

Flipside :D

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Fry_Day on November 26, 2003, 02:49:54 am

Y'know, there's a saying in the realm of computer graphics, which goes something like this: "If you can't make it look good, make it look shiny"

Lens flares are shiny :)


And, I really like yours, as it's very gentle and not as overboard as many games seem to do.

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Stryke 9 on November 26, 2003, 04:00:05 am

Oh, so suddenly Freespace is all about a realistic portrayal of space combat.

Anyway. Lens flares, I say go for it. They're nice, and a realistic space fighter wouldn't have a regular glass cockpit anyway, but rather a heavily armored hull and a big simulated-cockpit screen on the interior displaying images picked up by a wide-range camera. But mostly because they're nice. And if anybody has a way to get those streaky scratched-lens light flares to render ingame, I say yet better, because those are even cooler-looking.

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Nico on November 26, 2003, 04:39:03 am

I like lense flares. actually, I like anything that looks cool or flashy.
Except day-like ambient light. I like contrasts and light plays. Lense flares make cool light plays.

Btw, someone already made lensefalres for FS2, no?

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: Flipside on November 26, 2003, 06:58:42 am

Fry_Day got them working a while ago, and produced a basic Flare, I'm trying to expand on that, using Geos as well as Circles and a slight rainbow effect as well :)

Flipside :D

Screenie :

(http://www.aqsx85.dsl.pipex.com/images/Flare.jpg)

Title: Lens Flares
Post by: mikhael on November 26, 2003, 09:29:42 am

Quote

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
You're viewing the game through the pilot's perspective, not through a camera. People don't see lens flares!

Funny. I see lens flares whenever I walk out of my office building in the afternoon, and I don't see the world through a camera.

Of course that might be because I wear high-refractive-index glasses...