Infestation and Lighting
Blasphemy
Join Date: 2008-05-02 Member: 64201Members, NS2 Playtester, Subnautica Playtester
Join Date: 2008-05-02 Member: 64201Members, NS2 Playtester, Subnautica Playtester
<div class="IPBDescription">Another lenghy read, but this is very cool. (Images)</div>So I was just about to go to bed when I had this one thought that I could not distract myself from, so I got up, and made this thread in order to incite discussion on something. And that was when the proper 3D infestation is to make it's apperance in the game, how will it be related to lights when they are obstructed. Please bear in mind that I was having a hard time trying to decide if this should be in General Discussion, or Ideas and Suggestions, but I decided to make the thread here in order to allow for people to provide their own solutions and discuss about the problems and solutions I am going to provide.
<hr />
NOTE: If you developers out at UWE have already thought about this, then I apologize for any offense that you may possibly take for this and may question it's existence. But I still believe that this thread has a purpose as stating what may be completely obvious and possibly planned for is very important as there may be other people in this forum that have not realized something like this, and I think the discovery of an idea for this is too cool to pass up. I am also writing this at 5 AM so I may be slightly scatterbrained here.
<hr />
<b>THREAD SUMMARY HERE:</b> <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=117722&view=findpost&p=1925515" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...t&p=1925515</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMiKKv7g7s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMiKKv7g7s</a> -Video of the Prototype. This will be relevant to the discussion so please watch or re-watch this to leave it fresh in your mind.
Now as you may or may not have noticed, the infestation appears to be a transparent sprite that is cast over all textures and surfaces within a defined volume, oriented at the cyst's rotation. This means that any underlying textures, lights, or grates will still pop through and leave a rather odd look to the rooms.
Of course, as indicated in the video above, when the infestation turns into what looks like a procedurally generated 3D mesh, this effect will not occur (or should not, anyways.) So we will not be having cheesegrater holes on infested grates, and we won't be having lights shine through the infestation unless we were to have some sort of transparency to it.
With this in mind, I imagine completely infested rooms from bottom to top would have to be blacked out and completely impossible to see in without flashlights. This can look cool, and if done right, could be a very immersive aspect to the game. But this puts a couple problems on the table.
Problem 1) As anyone who has made a map for this game would know, the light props/textures do not actually cast lights on the geometry as would be done in a half-life/source .bsp level. This means that you would have to go in and manually add in spotlight and point light entities that would float close to, but not inside the light in question. Unfortunately, when this is done, if the infestation were to creep over and cover a light, the light entities would currently not respond to the change, and the room would still maintain original illumination.
Solution(?) to Problem 1) Have the light entities tied to the model through some form of parenting, so when the infestation sweeps over the light, the entities would respond accordingly, possibly lowering the brightness of the entities until completely covered which would then disable the entity.
Okay so that problem is solved, but another problem comes into play. And this is involving gameplay.
Problem 2) So now imagine we have a room completely infested, with all the lights blocked out. Any player or commander that goes to this room will have a problem navigating the room, and the current solution is for power nodes to have this rather ugly solid red tone to all the lights which really hurts my eyes. Now as you can probably understand, any room with a destroyed power node is going to be under the control of the Alien team. The advantages are many, but navigation is a problem, especially to the commander.
Solution to Problem 2) I was looking at the Cyst and I noticed that they glowed a very nice bright orange color, as do most of the Alien buildings. So what I did was I opened up my map NS2_Goliath and made a quick temporary edit to it in order to prove a point. And that is that I think alien structures should cast a light in the level. Whether these lights should cast shadows or not I do not know yet, but the results are very cool.
As always, these images are thumbnails and a larger version is available at just the click of a button.
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/3n6xI.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/3n6xIl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a> <a href="http://i.imgur.com/jUNUT.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/jUNUTl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
EDIT: Current status of suggested lighting. Paramaters and details on second page.
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/pV1Ag.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/pV1Agl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Note: I deleted some light models and changed the skin on the other flouresecent ones to prove my point. Hopefully by full release UWE will have multiple light models for on/off function, and maybe even a flickery animation for the transition between two states.
Now my intention is that this is to be a Before/After shot of a room that is infested. With either power node off or all the lights obstructed by infestation. As you can see, the results provide you with a navigable surface, while still leaving the idea that the room is without power. This on a gameplay perspective also provides the aliens with plenty of shadows to hide in.
With this solution, I believe that we can abolish this red light emergency lighting system that you get when aliens destroy a power node in favor of something more dynamic and impacting on gameplay. When the power node is destroyed, all the lights in the room will turn off and stay off until repaired. Alien commanders can place the cysts in a controlled area, and will be able to light up the room, while establishing a new feel of player control.
What do you guys think of this idea? Do you agree with it? Disagree? Maybe you have your own ideas that are related to this that I haven't touched base on? Personally I think this is a very exciting idea and would very much like to hear your opinions on the matter.
<hr />
NOTE: If you developers out at UWE have already thought about this, then I apologize for any offense that you may possibly take for this and may question it's existence. But I still believe that this thread has a purpose as stating what may be completely obvious and possibly planned for is very important as there may be other people in this forum that have not realized something like this, and I think the discovery of an idea for this is too cool to pass up. I am also writing this at 5 AM so I may be slightly scatterbrained here.
<hr />
<b>THREAD SUMMARY HERE:</b> <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=117722&view=findpost&p=1925515" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...t&p=1925515</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMiKKv7g7s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMiKKv7g7s</a> -Video of the Prototype. This will be relevant to the discussion so please watch or re-watch this to leave it fresh in your mind.
Now as you may or may not have noticed, the infestation appears to be a transparent sprite that is cast over all textures and surfaces within a defined volume, oriented at the cyst's rotation. This means that any underlying textures, lights, or grates will still pop through and leave a rather odd look to the rooms.
Of course, as indicated in the video above, when the infestation turns into what looks like a procedurally generated 3D mesh, this effect will not occur (or should not, anyways.) So we will not be having cheesegrater holes on infested grates, and we won't be having lights shine through the infestation unless we were to have some sort of transparency to it.
With this in mind, I imagine completely infested rooms from bottom to top would have to be blacked out and completely impossible to see in without flashlights. This can look cool, and if done right, could be a very immersive aspect to the game. But this puts a couple problems on the table.
Problem 1) As anyone who has made a map for this game would know, the light props/textures do not actually cast lights on the geometry as would be done in a half-life/source .bsp level. This means that you would have to go in and manually add in spotlight and point light entities that would float close to, but not inside the light in question. Unfortunately, when this is done, if the infestation were to creep over and cover a light, the light entities would currently not respond to the change, and the room would still maintain original illumination.
Solution(?) to Problem 1) Have the light entities tied to the model through some form of parenting, so when the infestation sweeps over the light, the entities would respond accordingly, possibly lowering the brightness of the entities until completely covered which would then disable the entity.
Okay so that problem is solved, but another problem comes into play. And this is involving gameplay.
Problem 2) So now imagine we have a room completely infested, with all the lights blocked out. Any player or commander that goes to this room will have a problem navigating the room, and the current solution is for power nodes to have this rather ugly solid red tone to all the lights which really hurts my eyes. Now as you can probably understand, any room with a destroyed power node is going to be under the control of the Alien team. The advantages are many, but navigation is a problem, especially to the commander.
Solution to Problem 2) I was looking at the Cyst and I noticed that they glowed a very nice bright orange color, as do most of the Alien buildings. So what I did was I opened up my map NS2_Goliath and made a quick temporary edit to it in order to prove a point. And that is that I think alien structures should cast a light in the level. Whether these lights should cast shadows or not I do not know yet, but the results are very cool.
As always, these images are thumbnails and a larger version is available at just the click of a button.
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/3n6xI.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/3n6xIl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a> <a href="http://i.imgur.com/jUNUT.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/jUNUTl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
EDIT: Current status of suggested lighting. Paramaters and details on second page.
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/pV1Ag.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/pV1Agl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Note: I deleted some light models and changed the skin on the other flouresecent ones to prove my point. Hopefully by full release UWE will have multiple light models for on/off function, and maybe even a flickery animation for the transition between two states.
Now my intention is that this is to be a Before/After shot of a room that is infested. With either power node off or all the lights obstructed by infestation. As you can see, the results provide you with a navigable surface, while still leaving the idea that the room is without power. This on a gameplay perspective also provides the aliens with plenty of shadows to hide in.
With this solution, I believe that we can abolish this red light emergency lighting system that you get when aliens destroy a power node in favor of something more dynamic and impacting on gameplay. When the power node is destroyed, all the lights in the room will turn off and stay off until repaired. Alien commanders can place the cysts in a controlled area, and will be able to light up the room, while establishing a new feel of player control.
What do you guys think of this idea? Do you agree with it? Disagree? Maybe you have your own ideas that are related to this that I haven't touched base on? Personally I think this is a very exciting idea and would very much like to hear your opinions on the matter.
Comments
One concern of mine is that rooms with destroyed power nodes are not going to immediately have Cysts placed in them. At this point, the room is going to be pitch black, which puts the Aliens at an advantage with their DarkVision. Then, when the Khamm drops Cysts, the room lights up, which increases the dangers/trade-off of turning on DarkVision, and allows Marines to see better. A bit counter-intuitive, in my opinion.
However, this might still be viable. You might try reducing the radius on the light the Cysts are emitting.
Neutral (Unsocketed) - Normal lighting
Powered (Socketed) - Normal lighting with power range at borders (<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=117699" target="_blank">see idea</a>)
Unpowered - Mostly darkness, some lights remain active (flickers now and then), like street lamps on a dark night.
Powered (Infestation) - Covered lights tinted orange and dimmed.
Unpowered (Infestation) - Covered active lights tinted orange and dimmed, alien structures help light the room with bioluminescence.
Granted, these are just examples, and I am very much in favor of removing the red emergency lights >_>
although i think that old prototype is great i don't think that our final infestation will be like that.
PsiWarp: I like that flickering streetlamp light idea. Maybe they could make a script run past a filter so it only applies to spotlights.
Kuban: I will give that a try. I'll also see about moving the light entities closer to the cysts and re-adding shadow casting.
Speaking of shadow casting, I wonder if when the full infestation gets implemented, if it will cast shadows? It will probably be disabled as you would for most wall props in optimization, but what about lights casting light-shafts through windows and those windows get infested? Will light entities have a flag they can trigger to enable infestation shadow casting?
although i think that old prototype is great i don't think that our final infestation will be like that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The original DI video was actually made in a nascent version of Spark. The engine was loading up a Source BSP map though. That's why the narration in the video refers to a BSP map.
great to hear then!
*nerd chills*
Then the other thing is they will have to make it so its possible for the Kham to be able to drop cysts everywhere except just on the floor.
2nd- It should be possible to give the Khamm the ability to drop cysts on any surface using a similar method to that used by the Spectator to drop from Commander view to First Person. The Khamm just looses total map knowledge while doing it... ;) Technically, The Marine Comm should be able to pop down to local view too in a similar way. I dont know why he would want to though- other than to spy out Kharra. heh heh.
Maybe to plan a more precise placement of buildings, mostly turrets for more effective defense. Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what's on the ground level when you look at the map from top-down perspective, so actually being able to look into there would certainly help.
The gotcha I see is that when marines want to clear the infestation out of an area, they'll have to shoot out the 'lights'. Or on the flip side, aliens might want to minimise the amount of cysts they use so as to keep the area dark for marines while they can use hivesight. Both of these considerations are discouraging.
I'm not thrilled about the idea of a commander dropping lights (I think it would be laborious, much like the current need to drop cysts). It would also detract from the efforts the map makers put in to designing their levels.
One suggestion I have is that infestation could cover a power node and short it out, preventing it from being rebuilt until the infestation was cleared. This resolves the issue we have with "light & power" vs "infestation" thematically demonstrating the areas of control by linking the two concepts. In saying that I'm not ruling out aliens being able to munch power and obviously the current cyst mechanics could exploit such a system but I think those are upstream problems. I have some fairly radical ideas about how the game could make better use of infestation but I haven't put all those thoughts together on the I&S section, yet.
So I whipped up another edit of the room with Cyst lighting. I moved the light entities 32" from the Cyst origin. I also changed the brightness of the lights from 3 to 1 and set it so they casted shadows. I like the results. I keep the range the same so players can see as much surface area as possible, helping them to identify the room, and their position inside it.
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/2k3QP.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/2k3QPl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Okay so now I gotta put some more ideas on the table, and then I'll touch base with your guys' ideas. (This could really give the Alien commander a unique and powerful ability.)
Power nodes: I still believe they have a purpose. They are a quick and risky shortcut to affect buildings in a grand way. Much like how marines can run deep in and sever a trunk in a cyst tree, Aliens can run in and black out a room. I think unsocketed nodes should have an "incomplete" lighting brightness value where some lights would fizzle, others not work entirely, and the rest be at half brightness. This could be defined as the middle ground of the level, and most of the map would be affected by this. This of course will probably, as Kyron just mentioned, "detract from the efforts the map makers put in to designing their levels." I'll touch base on that a bit later.
When a Marine installs a socketed power node, this could return the lights in the room to run at full power and look as the Level Designer intended. This has some benefits. One is that it will be easy to determine if a room is under Marine control by simply entering the room. This can in turn help the commander determine if that one hallway next to some powered room is actually powered and not have to mistakenly place a building in unpowered zones.
Aliens start out with a shady middle ground unsocketed room, which they can in turn make darker/brighter with the use of Infestation and Cysts. Maybe we could have a function of the Shade so that it could disable any unstable lights within it's operating radius. This could give the Alien commander an incredibly useful strength in controlling the lighting in rooms they own, and tailor the environment to their strengths and weaknesses.
Of course, the Alien rooms don't have to start off completely blacked out. This is something that would have to be achieved over the course of the game. It could determine a certain level of infestation. Light infestation could be just Cysts branching across the floor of neutral rooms in order to capture resource nodes. Medium Infestation could be when gorges (and AlienComm?) start blocking out the lights manually in unsocketed rooms, and Heavy Infestation could be when a Power Node is knocked out, the room is blackened, and Infestation speed goes into overtime allowing a blacked out room to be taken control of very quickly.
Medium and Heavy Infestation could make it very possibly to obtain "Hatchery" conditions, which could then speed up Alien egg production. Maybe Alien buildings and evolution times could be sped up relative to how many 'artificial'/flourescent lights there are in the room. The location entity could track which lights are disabled, and that percentage blocked out would influence how long it takes to build something. Of course, in order to prevent Shade pitch black room spam, I think that there should be a "bioluminsecent" light amount percentage that would need to be taken into account for, too. Baby skulks that are sleeping in their warm cozy eggs will grow up to be mean and feral if they don't get their Cyst nightlight.
This could also be representative towards the Aliens' identity as a species, and not just a foreign menace to Humanity. Having an Alien hive room with the sound of wheezy bubbly breathing of extractors, coupled with the motherly hum of the hive, added with the crickety croaking sound of the Hydras (where did the Hydra creak sound go anyways?), with a warm orange light from nearby Cysts could help players imagine the Aliens more as a biome/community of creatures that you would see on Animal Planet.
This Light/Medium/Heavy Infestation feature could add a whole new level of strategy to both the Aliens and the Marines. Now the Marines will need to consider where they want to build their buildings, in order to not socket power nodes in overextended areas and possibly aid a (heavy infested) hive expansion if they lose a room with a tech point inside.
Whew! You still with me? If so, then I am now going to touch base on some of you guys' thoughts.
<u>The Level Designer spends all this work on the lighting just for it to be blacked out and not looked at:</u> I understand this. This is exactly why I decided to experiment this theory on my own map rather than on Summit or Mineshaft. I wanted to understand the feel of spending so much time on a room, for it to get butchered and blacked out with little lights here and there that are all the same color. What I discovered, and this is all personal opinion, mind you, is that I felt joy about it. I got to see my room in a new light, literally, that I never would have been able to see if I were to have stayed with the Normal -> Emergency Red system that is currently in place. This change was refreshing and enlightening, especially because I had every ounce of control involved with this factor. This is exactly why <b>if</b> the UWE devs decide to implement this, that I must emphasize and digress, that <b>there needs to be tools and parameters for the Mapper to control how the rooms are infested</b>. That way, we aren't actually going against the mapper at all, instead, we are giving him the freedom to design his rooms with this feature in mind, and create some amazing levels.
<u>Alien commander gets a free-look capability to place cysts on walls and ceilings:</u> This would be great. Then we could have the Alien Comm. and Gorge work together to infest a room quickly and efficiently. This may cause problems towards Gorge players though, as now the free hive Cysts that build faster than the Gorge's will also be able to be placed on walls. Gorge Cyst may have to be changed around to accomodate this change.
<u>Commander placed lights would be laborious:</u> I agree, but I do not think that it is a bad thing. I believe that the Alien Commander does not have as much as a role in the game in comparison to Marine Comm. Having something like this could be a more manual and involving form of "evolution upgrades" where, while the Marine Commander can just click a button and research Weapons 1, the Alien Commander, which Charlie already mentioned that he intended to have a Gardener role, can spend his free time optimizing evolution and construction speeds in their Hive room.
<u>Clearing out an Infested area will become increasingly difficult the more Cyst lights are destroyed.</u> This is another powerful point, but something I believe I could work to the Marine's advantage. If I as a Marine can recognize that flourescent lights are negatively impacting to Alien growth, I could strategically knock out the cysts that are blocking the big lights, repair the power node, and "blind" the structures/eggs/hive, possibly even reducing combat effectiveness to Whips, Crags and the like. Suddenly what was beneficial to the Aliens could be used to benefit the Marines.
This post turned out a lot longer than I was expecting, but I'm glad I wrote it. I hope one of the devs could pull some time out of their busy schedule to read this thread, because I genuinely believe that this could be just what the Alien Commander role needs to be an attractive position in the game, and to also add another level of immersion and fun to a game I already adore.
Interesting ideas here, and they all do well to adding to the atmosphere - something i love dearly about NS.
But in regards to cyst emitting light,<i> i swear this has been planned already</i>... wasn't there a screenshot just like this that Cory made some months ago, demonstrating alien structures giving off their own light?
In any case, i love it. And its exactly what i imagined NS2 to look like when i first heard of dynamic lighting.
I did have a thought lingering in the back of my mind that they were already planning something like this, as the cysts looking like they did was evidence enough for me. I decided to make a thread about it anyways in order to cover all of the bases, just on the off chance that I could have thought of something that they did not. The thread has also allowed me to see other people's thoughts on the matter aswell, which has even made me think of things that I never would have thought of otherwise.
Stuff like the Shade blacking out unsocketed power node lights, varying levels of lighting according to power node status, or normal flourescent vs. bioluminescent lighting affecting alien growth rate as key gameplay mechanics are just too good for me to stay quiet about.
Pro's:
Gets rid of horrid red emergency lights
Adds in a dynamic atmosphere, and makes the aliens just that much more scary
Makes infestation do more cool stuff
Helps define map control more clearly
Allows aliens to create dark hidy-holes for skulks to wait in ambush
Gives marines extra incentive to use their flashlights
Gives aliens extra incentive to destroy power nodes in rooms they occupy
Con's:
More stuff to code
That is all.
Could the lights be made a bit more 'orange' to match the light that you might expect to come from the cyst? At the moment, specifically the light on the floor at the foremost cyst looks too 'white' or clinical... to me.
Nice though :D
Back on the topic of the infestation, I think the main problem right now is that the infestation isn't completely a 3d mesh, but rather mostly a 2d texture expanding out over all the surfaces. This would make it nearly impossible to have a true dynamic lighting, so all the suggestions would probably have to be hard coded. A complete 3d mesh that expands would add a TON of polys to the game VERY fast and given the current stability of the games, it wouldn't work well. A full 3d mesh could, however, accomplish exactly what was suggested here. Granted, the game has been doing a lot better recently, and it will only go slowly uphill, so this could be fixed in the future.
Awesome pics by the way!
The reflections of the original texture under the infestation should not be visible. I think it's the wrong bumpmapping. It shouldn't be from the metal floor, but from the infestation. That is also why it's way too shiny. The infestation looks like a transparent film or a thin layer. But it should be thick and voluminous.
You simply have to use the bumpmap of the infestation texture to get rid of this effect. Don't wait for this old infestation system from the video. With the current server tick rate, going down with only 100 or 200 entities, imagine how big the problem will be if you would have such a great part of dynamic entity creation shown in the video. This is just not possible with current pcs and even less with NS2 servers nearly killing any highend machine right now.
<u>Volumetric Lighting</u>- The only current entity that can cast volumetric light is the Spotlight entity. I think I may be able to achieve the effect you are suggesting, and I'll give it a try a bit later. I'll also see about enrichening the color of the light the Cyst casts.
<u>Under texture showing through</u>- I know what you mean, and I've seen this for a while now. Even in normal games I see the underlying texture shining through. This is mostly visible on grates and textures with alpha values in it. I do see a couple Infestation.lua files, as well as some Cyst.lua files, so I think I could try and go about modding the client side files to achieve this kind of stuff.
One problem though. I don't know how to code! Don't get me wrong, I'll still give it a shot, but I don't know how well it will work out, or how messy my code will be. Who knows? Maybe I'll be able to script kiddie this thing together!
EDIT: I just discovered that the decal opacity value can not be changed in the infestation.lua file to where you don't see the underlying texture. I did a test in the Cinematic Editor with the decal entity, and any texture applied with it appears transparent with the underlying texture still shown.
I also saw a file called DynamicMeshUtility.lua, and was excited for a moment. But upon further inspection reveals that it is just a bunch of utility functions to create common shapes.
<u>Touch base</u>- Heh heh heh heh heh.
<u>Computer handling</u>- I completely understand how crippling having the full infestation will be on computers if implemented now. But I don't believe UWE is that desperate to get the final mesh in immediately, either. Just like the addition of the recent material system, we will just have to wait for the game to be ready and optimized enough for it.
Orly? Assuming that marines flashlights are just another spotlight entity, this explains why they are so damn hard to see with. If you can somehow set the angle on the spotlight such that it sends light like 140 to 180 degrees outwards, you could originate the spotlight on the cysts and direct them straight upwards (relative to the orientation of the cyst) and it probably wouldn't look half bad. Obviously omnis would be the best choice for this, but spotlights will have to do. If you give this a shot, definitely post results. Ever since you posted the pictures of the alien structures giving off light, all I can notice when I play NS2 are really bright alien structures floating in a black space. It's starting to bother me :(
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/hpIgI.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/hpIgIl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a> <a href="http://i.imgur.com/5ImgT.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/5ImgTl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a> <a href="http://i.imgur.com/geJvD.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/geJvDl.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
What I especially like about the last picture is how there is another aspect to hiding in the dark that is generally not taken into account for stealth games such as Thief: Deadly Shadows. And that is even though you are standing in perfect darkness, if a light is casted on a wall behind you, you can get silhouetted and still be easily identifiable. Just as much as if you were standing in a fully lit room.
Also, one of my friends was suggesting that the extractor light brightness value could be tied to when it is breathing. So when that orange sphere enlarges, the light would go brighter, and when it shrinks, the light would dim. I thought that would look very cool.
Light parameters are as follows: All point light colors are enrichened to 255; 106; 34, spotlight color is 255; 128; 64, and specular is on for all lights. Large Cyst point lights are 256 size, 1 brightness, and cast shadows at 0.15 fade rate. Mini Cyst point lights are 192 size, 1 brightness, cast shadows at 0.25 fade rate. Atmospheric Spotlights for all Cysts are 100 size, 2 brightness, inner angle 30, outer angle 75, atmospheric density 6, no shadows. Extractor spotlight has 160 size, every other parameter is the same.
Wait for the decal system to go in, as well, infestation will have bump map etc.
This really does look fantastic. UWE take note!
Thanks and good job. I hope the developper team will at least try this in a build so community can test it.
In fact I'd rather have it be more hazy when an area is infested to hinder marine vision in that regard vs low light levels that can be changed with gamma. So non infested areas (marine controlled) would have no to very minimal haze at all (no teammate flashlight vision hindering in these areas). And infested areas could look like the screenshots above, maybe even more hazy, so flashlights would be a detriment. Could also pave the way for a thermal vision upgrade of some sort for marines with exo suit equipped?
Anyway it looks fantastic and I hope UWE gives this a shot along the way. If anything, could make for some wonderful immersion.
EDIT: Oh, I don't mean that flashlights should be removed from use or anything, it's just they would be more suited for contested areas assuming powered down state eventually means lights off instead of what we currently have now with lights fully on in all rooms whether they have a power node built or not.