[Crybertrance]

                    Now since the introduction of various engine improvements like shadows, advanced pixel-lighting, etc.. the game environment look very much realistic! However, there is one downside, It is becoming increasingly difficult to see many surfaces on ships etc.
                    Take for example, the UEFg Karuna (from BP:WiH). There are many missions in which you are asked to land in the fighterbay to end the mission. Now, while this is very realistic and cool, it is becoming a bit difficult to see the innards (the launch tube?) of the fighterbay. This is very unrealistic, I mean its a frikkin launch bay!! Surely they would have made some arrangements to enable the pilots to actually see where they are going! The glow-points on the floor do not emit light and just look unrealistic (Imagine, lighting a LED in a completely dark room, at-least a bit of the room get lit). Moreover, actual lights can also be used to illuminate ship names (imagine a capital ship from WiH with the nameplates lit!!)

                    Is there a way overcome this? Could we use self-illuminating textures as floor-strips on the "runways". Or is there some other way to create light sources bound to certain parts of a ship (defined in PCS, myabe?)?

[The E]

Those maps are called glowmaps. Yes, we can use them. You might have seen them on almost every ship.

As for using more light sources: No. Not going to be possible within the confines of keeping the render engine fast. We are currently limited to 8 lights per object; this limit will not be raised while we are still operating within the confines of OpenGL 2.

[mjn.mixael]

We are still limited to OpenGL 2? Huh.. I woulda thunk we would have been up to Open GL 3 by now.

[Crybertrance]

As for using more light sources: No. Not going to be possible within the confines of keeping the render engine fast. We are currently limited to 8 lights per object; this limit will not be raised while we are still operating within the confines of OpenGL 2.

Sheesh, even I thought we upgraded to OGL 3... Anty ETA as to when we will upgrade?
Also, I am aware about glowmaps, Its just that I am not happy with their intensity, is there a way to change the intensity of glowmaps?

[The E]

Sometime after 3.6.14.

The problem is, we're currently using OpenGL 2 coding while relying on OpenGL 3-level hardware support (Especially in terms of allowed shader program length). Untangling that, and doing a clean OGL 3 implementation will take some time.

[headdie]

also there are community members stuck on cards only capable of version 2. 

In my case upgrading to a version 3 rated card would require at a minimum a new motherboard and processor as my Mobo is pre PCIe so limited to AGP cards, the fastest of which I believe are cards like the GF 7950 which is still only OGL 2 compliant. 

Although I am not an expert on these things I would not be surprised if someone said that if the FSO engine went version 3 then I wouldn't be able to play the game reliably on version past that point

[mjn.mixael]

That's a valid point and certainly something to consider. Of course now we enter the constant argument of exactly how much old hardware should FSO support...

[The E]

Well, we aren't going to throw away the current render engine . There are ways and means to enable an OpenGL 3 render path if OpenGL 3 hardware is available, and stick to the old one if not. Have some faith in our ability to foresee and take care of these things.

[BlasterNT]

Going back to the original point though, most fighterbays on ships are not illuminated.  Would something like a glowing ring around the entry, or a set of unique colored glowpoints effectively denote fighterbays?

[mjn.mixael]

Fighterbays not being illuminated is an issue with the model's artist. FSO already has the tools necessary to make them look lit up. Glow maps and glow points are the main ways of doing that.

[The E]

Note that doing this has, until recently, not been necessary. It's only now that shadows are possible that this is actually necessary.

Also note that this technique is not really available for tilemapped ships (because doing baked lightmaps for those is impossible).

[Dragon]

The glow-points on the floor do not emit light and just look unrealistic

Actually, I know a way to fix that, but that'd be a really, really lot of work. The basic idea is to duplicate every glowpoint and shrink it, so glows would "light up" instead of disappearing and appearing (look at Intrasystem gate for an example of such system at work), then bake a glow emitted from them into the glowmap. It'd very labor-intensive though, and I don't have the skills to do the latter part.
Also, it's a recent issue which has to do with the introduction of shadows.

[The E]

Does not solve the problem that glowpoints are just sprites, not actual light sources.

[Nuke]

use a portal. outside the portal the current outside light setup is used. you cross the porthole into the fighterbay then the bay lights come into play and exterior lighting setup is ignored. we just need a way to rig the interior areas with lighting (could probably just use new glowpoint types that can also be light emitters). let the game have as many light setups as it wants, and then have the engine select the 8 most relevant sources for a current scene then allocate hardware lights for those.

there is always deferred lighting *runs away screaming like a mainiac*

[Dragon]

Does not solve the problem that glowpoints are just sprites, not actual light sources.

It wouldn't solve the problem, but make it much less pronounced (if done right, the only thing missing would be casting light on ships passing by).
A partial solution might be better than none at all, especially that I don't see a way they could really emit light in the forseeable future.

[headdie]

how do glow maps and shine maps interact (I ask because I have never really sussed them out yet)? I know that glow maps don't emit light but would it be better to have a setup where by if a face is lit above a certain level the face shows the shine map more prominently and if it is blow that level the glow map is more prominent.

[Dragon]

Glowmaps are applied on top of other maps and no lighting is applied to them. That's all about it. But it should look good, a faint glowmap will not be very visible over a bright shine map.

[The E]

Umm.

You really do not know how these two work

Let me take you through the whole rendering setup we have.

For every pixel, we do the following:

• Calculate the ambient, diffuse, and specular lighting terms
• Look up the diffuse map colour for the current pixel. This is our base colour.
• Modulate the base colour by the diffuse and ambient lighting terms
• Look up the specular map colour for the current pixel. Modulate the specular lighting term with this. Add the result to our base color.
• Add the environment map colour for the current pixel to the base
• Add the glow map colour for the current pixel to the base
• Modulate the base colour by the current fog setting

So, in a way, what you are describing is something we are already doing. The reason why glowmaps are called glowmaps is because they always show up the same, regardless of the lighting conditions.[/list]

[headdie]

Ignorance is bliss until you wind up the ppl in the know.  Thanks The E.

[Nuke]

i think glowmaps can be treated in effect as lightmaps. for it to look right every surface needs unique uv space, and then just bake in lighting in the moddeling program.