[Fineus]

As you all know, suns provide the only dynamic lighting in mission that is constant - laser flashes and so on move about and start and stop but the lighting from the suns are always there. However this can be inpractical since suns also glow...

This got me thinking, would it be possible to make a sun that doesn't glow when you face your ship towards it... that doesn't even show up on the screen (similar to the modded ambient darkness suns). It just casts the light type specified on everything in mission, thus you have dynamic celestial lighting without the bother of having 2, 3 or 4 suns in mission (thus argueing that the system is a binary system or something) and having them glow every time the player faces the suns. This would prove pretty darn useful to mission designers who want to add more feeling to their missions without the problem of having multiple suns/glows in the game but who want a dynamic lighting setup. The only question is - can it be done?

Here's what I'd like to see as an outcome...



As you can see, the Aeolus is blue on the right side, red on the lower and left. This was achieved by using multiple suns to create the colored lighting as well as two ambient_black suns to lower the ambience level. However I'd like to be able to do it without having the sun graphics or glows in mission - effectivly placing colored lights around the mission.

What do you think? can it be done now or is this something for the source code project?

[an0n]

I should think that'd be pretty easy to do. You just copy the sun code, take out the glowy bits and make tags to use on non-glowy suns.

[IceFire]

This is definately something I'd like to see become a part of the Source Project.

Right now stuff like TBP and BWO use a hack and slash method (ie. two suns, in the same location, one with reversed values so that its casing a glow on the opposite side of the ship) but I'd love to be able to do that without adding a second glow/flare (so when you do look at a sun it doesn't blind you).

[Kellan]

Yes! Make that happen!

The sun is in the sky...

As you can see, my treatment is progressing. I will recover from the evil an0n's zombie attack...I will...I... *dies* Oh. Maybe not then. No wait, I'm not de---

[CP5670]

Are you guys talking about lighting that colors all sides of the ships equally or simply more intense lighting? What I did in PI was to just quadruple the sun glow intensites in stars.tbl, which makes things significantly more colorful, but only the sun-facing sides of ships are lighted up as before. (although this is actually more realistic than having both sides the same)

As you can see, my treatment is progressing. I will recover from the evil an0n's zombie attack...I will...I... *dies* Oh. Maybe not then. No wait, I'm not de---

I thought he already ate your brain; how did you come back alive?

[Fineus]

We're talking about adding colored lighting to the missions without actually having sun glows (when you turn your HUD towards a sun it brights out) or graphics (the image of the sun itself). Thus what you're left with is the lighting effect on the ships without any signs of the cause of that lightness. This is typically ideal in nebulas, subspace or when the background is really prominent. It can make a big difference if the ships are lit up properly as opposed to just being lit white, blue or whatever whilst everything else is a differenty color.

[Eternal One]

Yes, we've taken the same thought here. We used the method IceFire explained in our demo release, nowadays we're working on a more flexible solution.

Right now we already have a modification active that allows us to change the ambient lighting on mission files. So we can have any kind of ambient lighting we ever want, and even different between missions.

That is allowing us to dump all the "black suns" we've had to use before. We are going to replace them with "dummy suns", which are suns that are invisible and don't have the glare either. We're going to use them to simulate light emitted by background nebulaes, it should be pretty cool.

We're going to eliminate the glare by inputting additional tokens to stars.tbl that control the amount of glare a sun emits. So we're not only able to eliminate the glare, but to make it stronger or weaker on visible suns if needed.

All this will of course be available to the source code team if they want it, and I can't see a problem with any other mod team either.

[IceFire]

All this will of course be available to the source code team if they want it, and I can't see a problem with any other mod team either.

Yes...for sure.  I was talking to you about that as well.

I'd really love to see some sharing of info between the TBP team and the regular Source Team for sure.  I see TBP being sort of special needs because of the nature of the changes that were after but the byproducts may be intensely useful to the Source Team and vice versa.

[aldo_14]

Best to try and integrate it with the source stuff that's been done too...actually, maybe the best way to do this would be to ensure that everyone who writes a mod to the code also includes a copy of the edited c / h files, with comments of what has been chamged.... that way it could allow it to be gathered together.

[IceFire]

Yeah....I think thats the best idea...and I think thats the kind of system being setup.

[Fineus]

I suppose it goes without saying that all of this would be parsed through a commitee of sorts which releases a newly compiled source code every so often with all the submitted alterations added in and functioning? The working with the code download the latest version so that it is garunteed to be compatible with everything else before it?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Thunder
I suppose it goes without saying that all of this would be parsed through a commitee of sorts which releases a newly compiled source code every so often with all the submitted alterations added in and functioning? The working with the code download the latest version so that it is garunteed to be compatible with everything else before it?

Ideally, each person would compile & release their own particular additions and be able to get some testing, before it's chucked into a full code pack- this would also allow modders to use that coide whilst waiting on it being incorporated into an official community release.

It'll be necessarry to test each addiotnal sperately, anyway - before testing whether the interaction of each has an effect on other mods to the code.

Of course, the big hurdle has to be backwards compatibility, IMo.

[beatspete]

Ambient light is a good idea...
From a FREDer's point of view, you could make a system with a neutron star for example, which doesnt give out much light.  You could also have missions in open space, ie away from a star, though how you would get there with jumpnodes i dont know.
Perhaps a nebula that gives of light would be nice.  Or place a few invisible stars behind them and they would seem to glow and give off light... be pretty cool.
Also missions in the twilight, round the dark side of a planet for example, with very little ambient light.

Those are my ideas...  This would be a pretty cool mod to have.

pete

[Raven2001]

Ohhhh!!! Now we are getting somewhere!!! If I understand correctly, wha tyou want to do is make lighning effects like Starlancer right??? Then YES I WANT THAT!!!! I LOVE STARLANCER'S GRAPHICAL ENGINE!!!!

Wait, where's that medicine??? Oh, here it is!!!

[IceFire]

Actually...StarLancer's was fairly simple as well.  Sun side and ambient side.  Most of the time the ambient side was green, but on occasion it was also blue and orange.

It had cool specular lighting tho.

[Raven2001]

I guess not... at least in starlancer there was a orange light (sun), a blue/green/organge light (nebula) and a dark "light" ambience...

Btw, since this requires coding... is it a possible that people like us (erm... you coders ), a modding community, to implement that reflection engine seen in starlancer??? Just asking...

[IceFire]

Yeah....I'd love to have the specular lighting that StarLancer had....and light maps.