Emergency Red Lighting Ideas and Discussion
thecowsaysmoo
Join Date: 2008-02-02 Member: 63557Members
Join Date: 2008-02-02 Member: 63557Members
I know some people liked the Black, and Some people will like the new Red, But imo The Black/Red fading in and out was the best by far. The Atmosphere produced with the red light slowly flashing was one of the best parts of the game playing as an alien imo. It Gives the feeling of space, technology, distress, general Natural-Selection Atmosphere that the game is sometimes lacking. The only thing I would like to see is the Flashing going Really Really slow.
Something like:
10 seconds off(total black)
10 seconds of Fade to red
10 seconds of all red
10 seconds fade back to black.
(skulks could use the time fading to black and total darkness times to move into superior tactical locations, while marines would wait till the light comes on to move through an area to repair the power etc.)
The slow pace really adds to the suspense and makes hiding in the shadows, and or creeping out of the safety of your base into the map more exciting/thrilling/heart pounding etc etc.
(playing as an alien, after you have taken out all the power nodes it gets kind of annoying when everything is constantly over saturated with red, takes away from the beauty of the game)
Something like:
10 seconds off(total black)
10 seconds of Fade to red
10 seconds of all red
10 seconds fade back to black.
(skulks could use the time fading to black and total darkness times to move into superior tactical locations, while marines would wait till the light comes on to move through an area to repair the power etc.)
The slow pace really adds to the suspense and makes hiding in the shadows, and or creeping out of the safety of your base into the map more exciting/thrilling/heart pounding etc etc.
(playing as an alien, after you have taken out all the power nodes it gets kind of annoying when everything is constantly over saturated with red, takes away from the beauty of the game)
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Comments
As a marine, i haven't encountered anything scarier than going into surface access on summit in complete darkness, with only your flash light, the game feels so immersive at moments like that.
And as a skulk, using pitch black to sneak right above a marine while avoiding his flashlight is just unforgettable :>
plzzzz try out this idea (or something similar) in one patch.
As a marine, i haven't encountered anything scarier than going into surface access on summit in complete darkness, with only your flash light, the game feels so immersive at moments like that.
And as a skulk, using pitch black to sneak right above a marine while avoiding his flashlight is just unforgettable :>
plzzzz try out this idea (or something similar) in one patch.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
agreed, when its pitch black, with all the little lights on the marines on and little lights in the room on the atmosphere is so immersive it gives NS2 a unique game-play mechanic that no other game can match. It was my favorite part about ns2 over ns1 as well. Even as a marine you suddenly see a skulk 4 feet away leaping on one of your teammates coming out of the darkness it is very awesome.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Reverting power node disabled color back to full red because everyone likes it more<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
/sarcasm
As far as Im concerned, going back to the less immersive lighting is not a sidestep, but a step in the wrong direction. I really enjoyed the pitch black moments, atmosphere-wise as a marine and stealth-wise as an alien
In PowerPoint_Client.lua at line 259 just paste this code:
<div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain' style='height:200px;white-space:pre;overflow:auto'>// I like total darkness when power is dead, so lets have that, but only when I am a marine
// If its dark when I am alien, I might try to sneak in darkness that dont exist
if (lightMode == kLightMode.NoPower) then
local player = Client.GetLocalPlayer()
if player ~= nil and player:isa("Marine") then
intensity = 0
elseif PlayerUI_IsACommander() then
intensity = renderLight.originalIntensity
end
end</div>
I decided to not make it dark for aliens, as they want to hide in shadows. If I try to hide in shadows that don't exist on enemy clients, i am dead.
Marines cant hide in dark, as aliens got their nice alien vision, so for them it only helps the atmosphere and makes it harder to spot aliens ^^
<ul><li>All rooms start unpowered (no powernode or other power source) and with a red static emergency lighting as default (map maker can ultimately decide if room starts with powernode)</li><li>Unpowered Rooms with infestation/alien structure causes red emergency lighting to osculate (indicating alien infestation...more infestation causes darkness to last longer)</li><li>Powered Rooms with infestation/alien structure causes lighting to occasionally flicker (indicating alien infestation...more infestation causes more frequent flicker or "temporary power outages")</li><li>Unpowered Rooms with hives and/or sufficient infestation go completely dark (w/ alien structure providing the lighting).</li></ul>
Have some of the lights randomly flicker red every now and again...
Also make it so alien structures give off some stuff orange light maybe even with a gentle pulse... It looks kinda odd that hydra can be seen in the dark but don't emit light...
So this gives you 3 lighting environments in the game..
Powered areas
Unpowered and undefended areas
Unpowered alien defended positions..
Obviously awesome extra overhead for no reason.
makes the game look ugly.
would rather have it be black 100%
now your going to say well thats not good for the rts player.
make it so when in rts mode its r_mode unlit
problem solved
maybe if you want to keep the red alittle make it so if u damage the power node to under 50% then it only has the red lights and dips from black to red once it destroyed its all black and only will the lights be on if its 100%
(this would make it so server admins could easily change lighting inbetween rounds, or possibly during the game)
All Black mode
All Red mode
Red/Black Flash slow flash
Red/Black Flash Fast flash
Red/black Flash Medium flash
Red flash(lights stay on just additional red flash) on power node under 100% but over 1% health with black on 0% power
Disco mode obviously**
(i'm sure there are more interesting ideas around too)
As Others have said, there is another additional route to try with the lighting, That of All lights off or power nodes down on game start kind of the opposite of the way it works now. The mechanic of marines having to restore power to an area before being able to drop res nodes would better match the Aliens have to expand infestation to an area before building. This could be somewhat too difficult to overcome early in the game for the marines though, so there would have to be a balance on maps where certain close proximity rooms to marine start would start with power. (or possibly 50/50 half powered up half powered down on game start) Something to be explored though imo.
It gives a moment to drop from above when crawling on the ceiling.
And it puts the marine more on edge.
the red glare just made me squint more.
10 seconds of Fade to red
10 seconds of all red
10 seconds fade back to black.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
this
Having the room pitch black until the power is restoret is to much i think
But keep in mind, the alien commander needs to be able too use the alienvision thus giving more advantage to the alienteam in areas without power.
(And.. the most alienstuff is build in rooms without power)
If the human commander can't see where he drops his buildings in the dark... then he has to wait if the red light is back on.
It encourages the flash light to be used and also encourages aliens to use their vision more.
The constant red is ugly and does not feel threatening enough. I would rather full pitch black/night vision than to see perma red.
It encourages the flash light to be used and also encourages aliens to use their vision more.
The constant red is ugly and does not feel threatening enough. I would rather full pitch black/night vision than to see perma red.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1
There is absolutely no reason to have a flashlight when there is no darkness. And you don't really get to see the best of the dynamic lighting system when everything is red, since the contrast between white light and red light isn't as big as between light and dark.
It also kind of defeats the purpose of destorying nodes to make the room dark. 10 seconds is a fair amount of time, but it makes node destruction a one shot affair. Most players don't have time to wait for an ambush, and since the node takes so long to take down for skulks, it kinda seems like without some constant darkness of some kind (cyclng or otherwise) the features mesh very poorly.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--sizeo:2--><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->1) Power goes out and the room goes dark like it does now.
2) Emergency lights kick on (and the power node flashing light turns on but plays NO warning sound yet)
The lights follow their same red/fading to black pattern they already use. This could go on for say 2-3 minutes so marines have a chance to recover the node before it goes dark and becomes more difficult.
3) The emergency lights start flickering to darkness in one corner of the room at a time (essentially the reverse effect of how lights turn on now) until the entire room is pitch black save for all those texture lights. The power node continues to flash and starts to sound its ambient "lights off" warning sound. <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
^^^
I would LOVE to try out a build with this functionality, just to see how it plays. It would feel like a natural extension of the current emergency lighting. There may be some issues with the texture lights looking weird with pitch blackness though. It may also deter new players who don't know how to use the flashlight (but then again, it could be a huge "wow" moment as well).
I posted about this already in another thread, but this keeps coming up, so I will post it again here:
What happened was that a change had been made to try out a desaturated version of the red lighting, because it was thought to be too red. This resulted in a weird pinkish brown lighting, and around the office a majority of us weren't crazy about how this looked, and thought that the saturated red felt more like emergency lighting and more dangerous. This had nothing to do with the cycling of the lights to the full darkness, which we had no problems with.
The changes were reverted to put the old red color back, without realizing that there was also the fading to black that had been put in at one point, as well. Removing the fading was just an unintentional byproduct of putting the red back in, and we should be sorting this out.
--Cory
What happened was that a change had been made to try out a desaturated version of the red lighting, because it was thought to be too red. This resulted in a weird pinkish brown lighting, and around the office a majority of us weren't crazy about how this looked, and thought that the saturated red felt more like emergency lighting and more dangerous. This had nothing to do with the cycling of the lights to the full darkness, which we had no problems with.
The changes were reverted to put the old red color back, without realizing that there was also the fading to black that had been put in at one point, as well. Removing the fading was just an unintentional byproduct of putting the red back in, and we should be sorting this out.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And all is right with the world. :)
...after onos
...and jp
...and..... well nvm you get the idea :D
What happened was that a change had been made to try out a desaturated version of the red lighting, because it was thought to be too red. This resulted in a weird pinkish brown lighting, and around the office a majority of us weren't crazy about how this looked, and thought that the saturated red felt more like emergency lighting and more dangerous. This had nothing to do with the cycling of the lights to the full darkness, which we had no problems with.
The changes were reverted to put the old red color back, without realizing that there was also the fading to black that had been put in at one point, as well. Removing the fading was just an unintentional byproduct of putting the red back in, and we should be sorting this out.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why would someone design a facility to have red emergency lighting? Where did this idea come from? It should be low light, red light does not help anyone in an emergency, and it hurts the eyes and makes it harder to see... the whole point of emergency lighting is so that people can still see momentarily in order to keep doing their occupation or to see where you are walking so you can evacuate.
Red light does not seem to make sense to me; to be used for emergency lighting, and its pretty ugly... in fact it hurts the eyes...
Thats just my two cents...
It's sci-fi. Aliens had a lot of red lighting during a number of high tension scenes (like the last stand where Burke gets killed). I've been using that lua mod somebody posted earlier in the thread and it looks pretty nice. The lights flickering on from black (instead of red) looks a lot more natural. Would love to hear a "humming" sound when the power comes back online.
Some of the texture lights (monitors, switches) etc... could use some local lighting to give off more of a glow, but otherwise it looks pretty cool in darkness. Some areas look better than others so I'd imagine mappers would have to adjust their maps lighting to get optimal looks out of their fully darkened room. I really like how it brings out the hue of the alien hive sitting in a dark room as well. You will notice the occlusion "fog" when its completely black.
whaa?.. red light hurts your eyes the least of all the spectrum and damages your night vision capability the least, hence why military has used it for so long. makes sense. albeit i admittedly still like pitch black more :)