[taylor]

I updated the build at the same link.  Give it a try and let me know how it works.

There is a change to when the extra lighting passes happen, a couple of very minor performance changes (probably won't notice though) and lights are sorted by priority now.  Priority being this order: directional lights (ie, suns) -> tube lights (ie, beams hitting target) -> largest affected area -> overall brightness of light.  Check speed too since I haven't really tested that out with the sorting added in.  Especially see how it looks with a bunch of lights affecting a target at the time.

I think I'm happy enough with this now that this will get into 3.6.9.  The only deciding factor now is whether these changes mess up for anyone.

[neoterran]

I tested the newest build with mission with lots of warping and beaming on different cap ships, orion, deimos, fenris, sobek, and that little terran cruiser that looks like a fish 

I don't see any problems, the lighting coming out of warp looks great at a headon angle, the beams are lighting up the targets right.. looks solid and no problems here..

In fact the whole game looks pretty damn amazing as of late. The one thing that we really need is a new effect for flames/gas escaping from ships on a hit. As I understand it we have a new (better) alpha mode that this effect doesn't use... Is anyone working on making it look better and less...particle like ?

[Zacam]

Light Test doesn't seem to take -allslev or Shift+Alt+s, Ctrl+Alt+S or anyother combination use of "S" in Mission simulator to unlock missions.

EDIT: Ignore that. My keyboard is being a pain. CTRL, SHIFT and ALT all work on the left side, just not TOGETHER. *sighs*

I also noted it doesn't have the shield problem from RC5, but is it based on the same as multi_test? Or an entirely seperate build?

Also noted that unlike multi_test and rc5 more of the missiles/bombs now spin on center in loadout except for the Harpoon, Trebuchet and Stilleto II (which I also mentioned in the "Playing with Warp Effect" thread, but I figured it'd be useful here just in case.) Also mentioned over there that in conjunction with the a_subspace.vp that the arse end of vessels no longer prematurely display. The lighting effects on this build are gorgeous.

So far, unless there are any other features or fixes to be implimented, this has my vote for 3.6.9 Final. And I can't wait to see the new VP's for it!

[taylor]

light_test is just an basic progression of multi_test.  It has all of the same stuff from multi_test plus any other bug fixes since, and the lighting changes of course.  The center spin thing for missiles is one of those fixes that happened between the builds.  Except for the hi-poly tech missiles, everything should spin on center now.  The only exception to that rule is that the lab will still show missiles spinning off-center if the POF isn't setup right, so that we'll know which ones still need to be fixed in the model.

I think that there a still a couple of much needed/wanted bug fixes to make before 3.6.9, but we're very close to it now.

[neoterran]

taylor.. there is still a bug that causes a blue screen of death on windows when the freespace window is minimized and then you switch back to it using maximize or switch to from the task manager. I can reproduce this, do you know about this ? the blue screen occurs in the nvidia miniport driver.

[taylor]

taylor.. there is still a bug that causes a blue screen of death on windows when the freespace window is minimized and then you switch back to it using maximize or switch to from the task manager. I can reproduce this, do you know about this ? the blue screen occurs in the nvidia miniport driver.

Yeah, there was a Mantis bug about it a couple of days ago.  Basic idea though, don't minimize a game. 

That's just the way it works and there isn't all that much to do about it in code.  The problem isn't limited to FS2_Open.  I plan to look at trying to prevent the crashing in the future with the newer OpenGL code for 3.7, but I doubt there is going to be any work done towards fixing this before then.

[Colonol Dekker]

Any time i switch using SCP, or FS2 retail in non-software it locks (no BSOD but thats moot) I learned to live with that about five years ago.

[Pnakotus]

S-99, thanks for your second lot of screenshots: there's definately something broken with my setup as I don't get nearly as much firing self-illumination as you do.  The lack of bright flashes when blobturrets fire still disappoints me, but I've lived with it for ten years.   Are the commandline options (many versions of which I've culled from various threads there) the only thing that affects lighting?

Taylor, great news on 3.6.9!

[S-99]

Well first off, there's the light coding of the fso, and the commandline is like the master controls of it. The coding is the only thing that affects the lighting. But with the commandline options being the master control of the lighting you could safely say that's the only thing that affects lighting. No problem on the screenshots, i have a lot of them, besides showing them off, i'm glad they're useful for analysis

[Pnakotus]

Holy ****, Taylor's light build is nuts.  I've got self-lighting all over the bloody show now.

I've got a question about how lighting is handled with LODs etc.  Far ships don't seem to be lit, and sometimes a ship suddenly starts getting lit a second or two after a beam hits it.  Is this normal?

[Zacam]

Pnakotus:
It all depends on the order of other lights/effects in the area and how it factors "what's critical" to "what's not".
And all of that is largely going to depend on the resources of your system and what else it's doing at the time.

Obviously, (and I think taylor even mentioned when he released it, I could be wrong though) there is still the need for some "tuning" of it, but for general practicality it's a working edition of a concept that says it can be done. 3.6.9 isn't final yet, so it can only get better from here. (and even when it does go, it can _still_ keep getting better. Gods I wish I knew how to program!)

[S-99]

Yoiu guys suck. I can't even test this build yet. I'm building a new machine, and am waiting for all of my parts to come. I need to test this lighting out first chance i get.

[neoterran]

Oh, this build is the one i'm using right now. The lighting is definately better, i hope it makes it into 3.6.9

[Mars]

Yoiu guys suck. I can't even test this build yet. I'm building a new machine, and am waiting for all of my parts to come. I need to test this lighting out first chance i get.

Same here... just waiting to be abele to play real games again

[Huggybaby]

Sorry to bump an old topic, but did the lighting changes in this build ever make it into the current build?

[taylor]

Sorry to bump an old topic, but did the lighting changes in this build ever make it into the current build?

Yes.