Questions about lighting

catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
<div class="IPBDescription">atmospheric? daylight?</div>I have two questions about lighting.

1. What does the "atmospheric" setting do?
2. Are there any "environment" lights, as used in the source engine to simulate large daylight or do we simply use spotlights for that? If I wanted to create a very large lightsource that floods an area (=daylight) do I just grab some huge spotlight or is there another method?

Comments

  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    1. Currently atmospheric is off by default (I think). But it is used to produce "godrays", which kill the Spark engine currently :P

    <!--quoteo(post=1854872:date=Jun 21 2011, 01:42 AM:name=Zuriki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zuriki @ Jun 21 2011, 01:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1854872"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><b>WARNING: 2MB IMAGES AHEAD!</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
    <!--coloro:#808080--><span style="color:#808080"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><i>But totally freakin' worth the wait, even on 56k ;)</i><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

    <a href="http://filesmelt.com/dl/NS2_1.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://imgur.com/WuXUhs.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a> <a href="http://filesmelt.com/dl/NS2_2.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://imgur.com/NypCys.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /> </a><a href="http://filesmelt.com/dl/NS2_3.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://imgur.com/UkPSOs.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
    (click to expand)

    Hoping to see atmospherics make a swift return, the game isn't complete without these God rays. It already improves alien start in summit tenfold.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    2. Spotlights are the current implementation, but I'm guessing we will get a sun or environment light in the end...
  • fmponefmpone Join Date: 2011-07-05 Member: 108086Members, Squad Five Blue
    your first question: yes, it produces god rays.
    2nd question: that is "ambient lighting" its the little sun icon next to the light bulb.
  • pSyk0mAnpSyk0mAn Nerdish by Nature Germany Join Date: 2003-08-07 Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
    edited July 2011
    Ambient light helps to simulate bounce of lighting just like high-range low-brightness point lights.
    The difference is that you can choose different colors for each direction and that way geometry gets lit that faces away from the light.
    I usually only use one per location, if at all, to fight pitch black faces (near the border of the map) that face away from all the spotlights and pointlights.

    There is no sun entity as of now, you'll have to use one or multiple light spots to simulate the sunlight and maybe a few simple point lights.
    You can check out the outdoor parts in my map for some examples.
  • catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
    Thanks for the info gentlemen.
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