[Bob-san]

Hey... is there any chance that the engine can put lights (like search lights) on craft? I don't mean glowmaps, I mean lights that will point forward and illuminate anything directly in front of your ship (at a distance of 300m or so). If this was possible in the engine (and doesn't need a large bit of a code overhaul), how plausible would it be to add in the lights to individual ships?

[Snail]

What about reflections (ie. a Perseus flies by a super-shiny newly-oiled Deimos and you can see your self on it )

[taylor]

Hey... is there any chance that the engine can put lights (like search lights) on craft? I don't mean glowmaps, I mean lights that will point forward and illuminate anything directly in front of your ship (at a distance of 300m or so). If this was possible in the engine (and doesn't need a large bit of a code overhaul), how plausible would it be to add in the lights to individual ships?

It's a big deal to add, but this on the todo list.  It will almost certainly not be a real light though, instead being a light map, but we have to add light map support for that to happen.  It might not be until Bobboau's material system is added that this feature is actually worked on though.

What about reflections (ie. a Perseus flies by a super-shiny newly-oiled Deimos and you can see your self on it )

The performance hit would be so severe that the game would become practically unplayable, even on the best systems.  So, don't hold your breath.

[Bob-san]

Yeah. I prefer to play on the lower ambient lighting settings--seems more realistic when you do that. Still, it is very hard to dogfight on the dark side of a larger ship. I would up the ambient lighting but then it just seems... comical...

Anyways--how much work would adding this functionality be? An hour? A day? A month?

[Snail]

Anyways--how much work would adding this functionality be? An hour? A day? A month?

A pretty long time.

Unless someone nice comes around, figures it out, and then posts the build here (wink wink, nudge nudge)

[taylor]

Anyways--how much work would adding this functionality be? An hour? A day? A month?

It's a post-3.7 feature at the least.  Like I said, this is probably going to have to wait until after the material system is in, and probably until after the decal system has been redone.

This sort of feature doesn't cater to a space sim, it is far more suited to a FPS, or terrain, so it's not going to really be easy to do well in FSO.

[Snail]

How hard would it be to add lighting to a ship the same way a laser lights up the hull around it?

[Bobboau]

to do in a hackish way, not too long, to do right, several months.

[Bob-san]

That hackish way could actually work fine... ok here's a better question--how hard is it to put in a cone-shaped beam weapon? That could be used to show what the light spread is, have it set at about 80% transparency in front of the cockpit, limit range of "firing" to directly in front for capships, aim at fighters/bombers when in range, and strait again for when out of range? Would that work to jury-rig a solution?

[Getter Robo G]

I too need to know about a possibly cone shaped beam/weapon.

Trek has Tractor/Repulsar beams and they usually are cone shaped or at least wider at the target than at the originator.  I haven't tried altering a normal beam yet, but it's on my to do list.

Just thought I'd ask before tinkering...
 

[taylor]

That hackish way could actually work fine...

No it's not.  We aren't going to put in a half-assed solution that doesn't really solve the problem.  You'll have to wait for it to be done right, or do it yourself and maintain your own builds with the changes.

[Flipside]

Hackish ways are never a good idea in the long term, which is why it hasn't been introduced yet

It could be interesting to have a Cone shaped 'weapon', I can see it being useful for things like Support Frigates in the Homeworld mod as well as the Trek one, not to mention other uses people are bound to think up.

[Bob-san]

I actually think it could be used to replace the SSL (Shivan SuperLaser)--from the intro movie, the "beam" is more like a plasma jet then a beam we see in FS2... anyways--carry on. Would a cone-model for a 3D beam work? I'm not even sure that the current beams are 3D....

[Bobboau]

... ok, first off beams have never and are not going to any time in the near future be 3d.

second, what are you people suddenly talking about cone shaped beams for? we were talking about lights, and I mentioned it probly wouldn't be too hard to drop an extra couple of lights in on a model, but that there are all sorts of nasty consequences that would have to be resolved, and to further how the hack method would be crapy it would not be a cone light but a point light, we do not have low level suport for cone lights so that would need to be done first, and for something you'd practicaly never see it's not worth it.

third, if you want a cone shaped beam, you can do that now with a triangle shaped graphic and a short ranged beam.

[Flipside]

The problem with doing it that way is that you really have very little control over the proportions of the beam, as far as the Cone weapon is concerned, I think what people have in mind is something that matches it's proportions to the target, so that you get that 'tractor beam' effect.

[Bobboau]

well it still has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with what we were talking about a second ago. 

[Snail]

Hey, how about a laser bolt that is automatically fired upon the beginning of the mission and follows the player's ship at the same position, thus lighting everything around the ship?

[Bob-san]

That could work... nothing says the beam can ONLY be unidirectional... now how hard would that be to add in by mission? How would we keep the bolt from wandering (when you change speeds, direction, &c)?

[Herra Tohtori]

Okay, as long as we don't have an actual feature for this, I'd like to ask whether this could work (and to what extent):

Make a weapon with a really high rate of fire and particle velocity, practically zero energy use and some pre-defined cone of fire (5-10 degrees would probably do it) that does no damage but spews a lot of low-memory, translucent, very fast disappearing particles on the surface.

That should make for some kind of a makeshift spotlight that can be activated. Technically it should create a shimmering light effect where the "projectiles" hit, but I really can't think how realistic the effect would be. Also, the projectiles themselves would probably cast some kind of lighting to the environment.

Basically the effect would be the more realistic the more there would be these particles, but obviously the amount of particles would be limited by the performance of the PC. I do not know how much would be required for a truly realistic enough effect, but it may be worth a try.


In fact, I may have to try and create this for the sole purpose of flying in BtRL's Emmental asteroid...