[Flaser]

when you add in warp effects as tube, do you think you might be able to set engines as point glows?

Nope.  The reason is that we only have so many lights to work with (eight) per rendering pass.  If you had 8 engines then it would take two passes just to render them (since light from the sun always gets rendered first), and then you have light from explosions, weapons, warp effects, etc.  We don't really get the ability to use baked on lights like other games do, since all of our lighting is dynamic.

The only way that we would do this is if it's via a light map, where the lights are rendered to a texture and then we just use that texture.  I suppose it would be possible to have a pre-rendered map, and some extra POF data, which would let you use an included light map and still have it turn on or off based on the engine state.  That is all more of Bobboau's department though, he's the graphics expert.

Self illumination is sorta possible with glowmaps - you draw the light/shadows cast by the engine into them.
As for light sources: I think we could differentiate the issue, for example allowing destroyers and above to have a single engine "light" attached to them. The code could also optimize by valuing lightsources, only drawing the most visible ones (render gurus should be consulted how such a thing could be effectivly calculated).

[Turambar]

yeah, it was just wishful thinking, hoping that maybe when fighters flew past a capship, they'd cast some engine light onto it, considering the bright blue glowyness.

self illuminating engine glowmaps could be a fun side project from BTRL, but i have a feeling i wont pursue it very soon, considering my other side projects