Sectorgame

Ok - I have a bit of a dilemma for Basewars. As most of you know, Basewars is a Hyperspace project - Which means the majority of the level is outside. The problem is, that because of the huge size - I have to light it all in ONE go. I want to use volumetric lighting, as this makes the playerships and robots affected by dynamic lighting. Dynamic light still affects AI with no volumetrics, but Goraud Shaded bots don't work too well without volume lights. This shading is a method of lighting an object before it is created, for example bots created via a Matcen. This is quite essential for the eye-candy in a level like this.

The problem is - Volumetrics also means that because playerships are only lighted by dynamic light, that means when flying in the space environments they will be pitch black. The only thing you'll be able to see is the engine/thruster glows, or the name of the player if HUD names is turned on. You'll be able to see the playership if they get close to a lightsource ofcourse, but there aren't many outside. But - If I don't use volumetrics, that means the AI ships could be affected - It also means the playerships will be full bright, meaning they'll be bright in a dark room, thus removing the "omph" and the realism. That and, it looks ugly when a ship is full bright.

So - What do you think? Weighing the pros and cons, what would YOU prefer?

COuldn't you just create a couple "suns" out side that are hidden?

I already explored that idea. It doesn't work, suffice to say. I can create sunlight, but it reduces the framrate on my 3ghz system to about 20.

It's a simple yes or no poll really, as there is nothing that gets past me

are you suuuuuuuure? (See my insistance that hunter is evil thread)

You have to admit that pitch black playerships would be rather interesting. However you would still be able to see them rather well because of 2 things.

1. They blot out the background
2. If they ARE shooting at you, they will be firing lots and lots of stuff making it plainly visible where they are.

Besides, it'd make it a lot easier to go on stealth missions. Fun fun fun...

I could go both ways but i'm leaning toward the pitchblack idea.

VL.

I think it would be best to do the lighting so that everyhting inside is nice and lighted perfectly, that's the majority of the work, right? then show it off.

Well I guess yeah, the interior's make up 50% of the work. I suppose playing with HUD names will always remove any problems with not being able to see ships, and the engine glows are quite easy to spot.

and it would be creepy, and thats always good.

Plus, there is no other level with pitch black ships, so your doing somethin never done before! Which is usually good unless theres a REASON it hasn't been done before....

If only playerships could have lighting properties like their AI counterparts.

you could edit the player ships, and put a glow point on them so they have a "halo" around them. For Multi, though it woulc be a pain to camp with that....

Glow points don't glow though, it's all linked to the thruster accleration. For that to work, you'd have to use a texture based glow - which wouldn't work too well either.

oh.... okay.

I think pitch black ships would be neat. When you think about it, isn't that how real space is like?

Actually no, the sun illuminates anything thats not behind a shadow of some sort. So everything is either 1. REALLY BRIGHT or 2. PITCH BLACK.

And I guess there would be a sun included in this level.

Hmm, I was thinking it like there would be no sun in the level at all.