Dynamic (head)lights
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From the start I’ve been interested in anything that can enhance the lighting in Freelancer. And since I have no idea how yet the effects in Itano Circus and Plasmafire were achieved (haven’t had the time yet to really look into it either), I started with something simple, dynamic headlights.
It worked nicely and the effect is pretty nice as well, but it caused a crash when a lot of (dynamic) lights appear in your vicinity. I read a relevant topic on this forum, and it mentioned that Freelancer cannot handle more than 6 (or was it 8?…) lights at the same time. And there was no way around that, at least not at the time where the topic was written.I was wondering, since that post was at least a year old, whether there have been made improvements in that area, that don’t involve hardcore coding / re-writing engines etc.
Judging by W0dk4’s reply to my introduction post, you would expect there is:However, recently, there have been found some nice hacks regarding dynamic lighting without completely changing the engine - check the limit breaking and lighting threads.
I haven’t been able to find any information about it though, just the tutorial on dynamic headlights.
Also, were the effects in Itano Circus and Plasmafire done by re-writing engines / other really complicated stuff, or just by creative coding? I’m curious, because if it involves complicated stuff like that, there’s little point for me to look into it. And if it’s done by creative coding, I’m all the more interested!
Thanks for any info.
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I beleive fox over at Flak had headlights going, as well as a few guys here I can’t remember the name of.
I’m pretty sure the limit is four, and as far as I know thats a DX8 limit, not just FL.
Try Effects Showcase, I think it was the guys messing with docking lights inside the Rheinland BS.
As for IC and PF, I’m pretty sure it’s just creative coding, and new effects via ale probably.
You can always go through and see if you can’t replicate some of the stuff they do there. Obviously it wouldn’t be very respectful to then go use the copied stuff, but it would be a learning process to making your own.Though I’ll be perfectly honest, even if it does raise some eyebrows, but given PF’s stupid EULA, I think they deserve to be ripped off. Not that I ever intend to, just… eugh.
Good luck.
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PF’s entire graphical showoff comes from extremely saturated and contrasted textures and an over-generous amount of bloom through ENBSeries. I personally would NOT recommend anybody trying to mimic their style because while it might be striking for the first minute, I’d never want to play in there unless I was screening people for epilepsy.
Itano Circus has moderate bloom and masterful use of ALE editing.
So in both cases, no, there hasn’t been a lot of hacking about, just creative use of tools already available to all.
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Sorry, have been away. I was talking about this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYvp1ZG5p7M&feature=player_embedded
http://the-starport.net/freelancer/forum/viewtopic.php?post_id=44725#forumpost44725
