Light sources and what they look like.
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Light sources and what they look like.
See the moon there? When we look at the sun in spring the only thign that really changes is how bright and what colour. However what fiw e could change ti to become a moon, stars, another planet even?
Is this possile, what sort of effort would be needed, and is it at all feasible.
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- Imperial Winter Developer
- Posts: 3742
- Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59
Well, I think it would be possible for a player to recreate a moon by playing with the light settings, but I agree that I'd love to see an option letting the player set the sky and sun textures.
For example, I was intending on making a map that shrinks TA down, so that you fight on a ------- table, or across the stove (similar to the micro machines map made for OTA a little while back), but it would look strange to be battling in a house, and look up and find the sky.
I would like to instead have the massive walls and ceiling flying off into the distance in 3-point perspective, and have the light source as a lightbulb way off in the distance. I'd like to be able to do this simply by sticking a detailed bitmap or something in a folder, and have Spring load that as the sky texture.
Of course, giving players the ability to set a repeating animation would be great, so that player's can make stars that twinkle, or a planet off in the distance that slowly spins.
And on maps with meteor storms, people could add in little meteor shower animations...
For example, I was intending on making a map that shrinks TA down, so that you fight on a ------- table, or across the stove (similar to the micro machines map made for OTA a little while back), but it would look strange to be battling in a house, and look up and find the sky.
I would like to instead have the massive walls and ceiling flying off into the distance in 3-point perspective, and have the light source as a lightbulb way off in the distance. I'd like to be able to do this simply by sticking a detailed bitmap or something in a folder, and have Spring load that as the sky texture.
Of course, giving players the ability to set a repeating animation would be great, so that player's can make stars that twinkle, or a planet off in the distance that slowly spins.
And on maps with meteor storms, people could add in little meteor shower animations...
Yes, it's pretty, but I'd hate for my galaxy to be that close to another
[edit] Just a quick thought: how hard would it be to put in a "NoClouds=1;" tag for .smd files to completely shut off clouds from rendering (for moon maps, for example)? And, for that matter, how hard would it be to make a "Stars=1;" tag? Just have an alpha image thing which is speckled like you'd expect the night sky to be, and have it interact with the colors of the map's fog/sky/etc in game. Something like a nighttime mars map... you'd still expect the sky to have a bit of a butterscotch tone rather than pitch black, much like the night sky is a deep blue rather than black here on Earth. Both would be steps forward, anyway...
[edit] Just a quick thought: how hard would it be to put in a "NoClouds=1;" tag for .smd files to completely shut off clouds from rendering (for moon maps, for example)? And, for that matter, how hard would it be to make a "Stars=1;" tag? Just have an alpha image thing which is speckled like you'd expect the night sky to be, and have it interact with the colors of the map's fog/sky/etc in game. Something like a nighttime mars map... you'd still expect the sky to have a bit of a butterscotch tone rather than pitch black, much like the night sky is a deep blue rather than black here on Earth. Both would be steps forward, anyway...
Whoohoo look at all the trouble I can cause
I was thinking about the same thing, and it would be great. I was thinking that perhaps we could, as a first step, put support for some finite number of additional lights in the .smd file... Would also be great if we could provide some more parametrs (light source radius, brightness, possibly even source type).
Another pair of related suggestions:
1)having more then one kind of bump/surface map applied- Everything has that dirt/mottled flat surface at the moment (save water)... Im not asking for total flexaility but some sorta diffusion/specularity control might be nice. Though if you wanna add subsurface stuff and material specifications, far be it for me to complain. Maybe including a few 'stock' materials would suffice (like a combination of soft/hard smooth/rough and shiny/flat, using a 16-color indexed image or some such)
2)And maybe allow a toggle for fog a 'participating' medium... (think atmospheric dust scattering the sunlight... I think it might be called aerosol scattering. As is if you have fog, it gets 'thick' based soly on distance, and can be quite a bit more luminous than the surrounding terrain.
Then again, this is all eye candy, none of it is even remotely important to gameplay!
But could someone really seriously explain to me the XYZ coords of the sun? Lol... whatever the heck it is it isn't intuitive, I just played and played until I was so confused I dunno why it did kinda what I wanted It would make a lot more sense if it was specified as 2 'fractions of an arc' and maybe use the third axis as a brightness/intensity setting...
I was thinking about the same thing, and it would be great. I was thinking that perhaps we could, as a first step, put support for some finite number of additional lights in the .smd file... Would also be great if we could provide some more parametrs (light source radius, brightness, possibly even source type).
Another pair of related suggestions:
1)having more then one kind of bump/surface map applied- Everything has that dirt/mottled flat surface at the moment (save water)... Im not asking for total flexaility but some sorta diffusion/specularity control might be nice. Though if you wanna add subsurface stuff and material specifications, far be it for me to complain. Maybe including a few 'stock' materials would suffice (like a combination of soft/hard smooth/rough and shiny/flat, using a 16-color indexed image or some such)
2)And maybe allow a toggle for fog a 'participating' medium... (think atmospheric dust scattering the sunlight... I think it might be called aerosol scattering. As is if you have fog, it gets 'thick' based soly on distance, and can be quite a bit more luminous than the surrounding terrain.
Then again, this is all eye candy, none of it is even remotely important to gameplay!
But could someone really seriously explain to me the XYZ coords of the sun? Lol... whatever the heck it is it isn't intuitive, I just played and played until I was so confused I dunno why it did kinda what I wanted It would make a lot more sense if it was specified as 2 'fractions of an arc' and maybe use the third axis as a brightness/intensity setting...
- RightField
- Posts: 110
- Joined: 11 Nov 2004, 21:29
Just make sky texture replaceable and some bit more advanced light settings and it would all work out nicely.
Edit: Or even better! Skybox support!
Edit: Or even better! Skybox support!
Last edited by RightField on 12 Jun 2005, 14:13, edited 1 time in total.
Would be nice to have some variation available to give us the real fight over a galaxy feel when playing spring.
On a side note, if our skies were perfectly dark, our nearest galaxy neighbour M31 or Andromeda would look about just as big. About 6 moon diameters. But because of light pollution we don't see shit.
On a side note, if our skies were perfectly dark, our nearest galaxy neighbour M31 or Andromeda would look about just as big. About 6 moon diameters. But because of light pollution we don't see shit.
Like I already said, if someone has time, I'd like to have a choice of atmospherical effects, such as thunderstorm, aurora borealis, etc... to use instead of the clouds, to give planets a more alien feelings. But that's really not a urgent features, as anyway once in game I just go in TA style view.
Adding a tag to allow changing the dark blue under the horizon is probably much quicker and would be more noticeable in TA style view.
Adding a tag to allow changing the dark blue under the horizon is probably much quicker and would be more noticeable in TA style view.
Eh, Redfish, the stars in our own galaxy between us and the Magellan Clouds and Andromeda would distort the light from them with their gravity, regardless of atmosphere. Surely the men on the moon would have noticed "OMG GIANT GALAXY IN THE SKY!!" while they were there if it were only the atmosphere causing the distortion :)
- [K.B.] Napalm Cobra
- Posts: 1222
- Joined: 16 Aug 2004, 06:15
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- Imperial Winter Developer
- Posts: 3742
- Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59
If you were somewhere like the Magellanic cloud, then the other Magellanic cloud would fill the sky
And yeah, stuff realism, I want to see three suns over a desert planet, and the gas giant which my moon is revolving around.
I'm confidant Weather effects will make an appearance in Spring, I believe, but not for a little while. However, putting your own sky with your map is something which can be done rather easily, and would really have a great effect on maps.
And yeah, stuff realism, I want to see three suns over a desert planet, and the gas giant which my moon is revolving around.
I'm confidant Weather effects will make an appearance in Spring, I believe, but not for a little while. However, putting your own sky with your map is something which can be done rather easily, and would really have a great effect on maps.
i dont see why the sky or night/day shouldnt have an effect on gameplay. night could cause reduced los, as could mist. electrical storms could have strange effects on your units. ie causing planes to randomly drop outa the sky, fusion reactors to stop and start, weapons to malfunction.
but what i really want to see is all this stuff come together. imagine having a gas giant looming over the planet, surrounded by a multitude of moons that have been melted and twisted by its gravitational forces. there could be a few suns, one blue, one a apricot orange (as in pitch black). they could cross each others paths, creating momentary darkness, or a lower light intensity, and then finally night. during the day there could be heat wave effects, at night a rolling fog that consumes everything, making your own units hard to see let alone your enemies'. and you could look at the sky and see the outline of the gas giant and it slowly spinning satelites.
*drools all over keyboard*
would be cool, but i love romanticising about that sorta stuff.
but what i really want to see is all this stuff come together. imagine having a gas giant looming over the planet, surrounded by a multitude of moons that have been melted and twisted by its gravitational forces. there could be a few suns, one blue, one a apricot orange (as in pitch black). they could cross each others paths, creating momentary darkness, or a lower light intensity, and then finally night. during the day there could be heat wave effects, at night a rolling fog that consumes everything, making your own units hard to see let alone your enemies'. and you could look at the sky and see the outline of the gas giant and it slowly spinning satelites.
*drools all over keyboard*
would be cool, but i love romanticising about that sorta stuff.