[m!m]

Wouldn't it be neat if the thrusters of our ships would produce actual lighting on other ships instead of "just" having some bitmaps at the back of our ships?

I thought that would be a neat idea so I put together a little demo. Here are some builds for that demo:
Windows Builds 64-bit
Windows Builds 32-bit

Other platforms are also available here: https://porphyrion.feralhosting.com/datacorder/builds/test/engineLights/

This simply adds a cone of light behind every thruster point that is roughly scaled to the size of the thruster and adjusts its intensity based on how much thrust is applied just like the standard thruster bitmaps. This is applied to everything that has a thruster so even missiles produce this at the moment.

Please check this out and let me know if that is be something that would be used by some mods. If so, then I will add some configuration options so the intensity, size and color of the lights can be adjusted on a per-ship basis.

[Iain Baker]

Sounds cool - Could we get a video to see it in action?

IMO You can't have too much eye-candy - except when it makes it difficult to see whats going on, or if it hits performance too much. Have you noticed a notable performance dip with it?

[Nightmare]

There's a number of shots on Discord: https://discordapp.com/channels/223511295431933953/223511363807346691/706164569533448234

[mjn.mixael]

Sounds cool - Could we get a video to see it in action?

IMO You can't have too much eye-candy - except when it makes it difficult to see whats going on, or if it hits performance too much. Have you noticed a notable performance dip with it?

Also he posted a build for a reason... so that people would run it and check out the effect themselves in-person. Also so that these people might find and report bugs.

[Nightmare]

So, DLed and tested the 32bit variant, working fine on my end. Just the issues with self-shadowing The_E mentioned on Discord isn't perfect yet; and that they're blue not matter of the actual thruster color right now (but that was just the current status of the development if I got the OP right). Overall it's a pretty cool thing

[m!m]

Thank you for your comments. While self-shadowing would be nice at some point it is very difficult to implement efficiently so that will not be part of this feature should it make it into the master branch.
There can be various customization options should I choose to actually fully implement this. These are the options I can think of at the moment that would be customizable on a per-ship class basis:

• Color
• Cone angle
• Radius multiplier (how far away the light produces lighting)

Anything else that might be useful?

[The E]

Thank you for your comments. While self-shadowing would be nice at some point it is very difficult to implement efficiently so that will not be part of this feature should it make it into the master branch.
There can be various customization options should I choose to actually fully implement this. These are the options I can think of at the moment that would be customizable on a per-ship class basis:

• Color
• Cone angle
• Radius multiplier (how far away the light produces lighting)

Anything else that might be useful?

One thing to consider is that thrusters can change color and intensity in afterburner mode. While that is not usually a consideration for capships (and I'm pretty sure that adding these lights on fightercraft isn't that good an idea), it will come up in missions that feature playable capships.