Dynamic lightsources?

[gman19]

I PMed Survivor about having dynamic light sources, namely flares that move in the air and extinguish themselves after a set time. He said that he wasn't an expert in the lighting field, as his "doctorate is in brushwork." He pointed me in the direction of a topic about lightstyles, which I just could not get. I've copied and slightly modified the PM I sent to Survivor, in hopes that there's somebody here that has a doctorate in lighting .

I'm wondering if the current Tremulous/GTKRadiant engines can support the concept of having light sources generated in specific areas at specific intervals, which move through the air then fade into nothingness after a set time.

I'm trying now to make the lighting in my map, Caverna, based upon flares. Throughout the map, several landed dropships will be placed that fire flares from a mounted mortar atop the ship. The dropships are stationary, and do not move like the escape dropship I talked to you [Survivor] earlier about. The flares fire at an angle into the night sky then slowly fall back to Earth and extinguish themselves shortly after reaching the peak of their trajectory.

The system I am trying to set up is this: The flare is fired from the mortar atop the dropship. The flare is a lightsource that's very bright and lights up a generous amount of space. The mortar has a timer that fires one flare every 30 seconds or so. The flare that is already airborne flies upwards for about 20 seconds, gradually slows, then starts to fall. 25 seconds into the flight time of the flare is the peak of the trajectory, when the flare is at its highest point and not moving at all. That is when it starts to fall downwards and extinguishes about 5 seconds after its highest point.

So how do I go about doing this, if it's even possible?

Sorry if I seem to be a nuisance, but I'm working on an ambitious project that needs to explore where few or no other maps have gone. As far as I know, no map so far has this effect, let alone had the majority of their lighting system rely upon said effect.

So, is there anybody here that can give me some pointers? Thanks for any help I can get.

[Survivor]

I for one am betting you don't have q3. It's a pity since that is why I didn't send you this link back then. It's a technical demo of the q3 engine by a certain mapper. It also has in its hallways a system of lightstyles which can be likened to what you want but only inside. It also has included the .map for it in its download. I really can't explain it myself that well since my best work really is with brushes and gameplay.

[Odin]

I actually almost got this to work on my new map. However, the shader comes up as "shader not found" and the surface is drawn as gray.

[Plague Bringer]

What about this:

A shader that's transparent on most of it, but has a very bright light emmiter on one end. It'd be animated, so that it moves very quickly in one direction.

Put it on a large patch, and voila.

You have the illusion of a flare shooting up into the sky and then falling.

Untested, and just off the top of my head >_>

[Survivor]

You don't understand quite clearly. It's easy to make something moving that looks like it is emmitting light. It is quite hard to make the emitted light look like it is coming from a moving lightsource.

[gareth]

you can add dynamic lights to particle systems. q3 style dynamic lights rather suck tho.

[Survivor]

Iirc the dynamic lights from the particle system work like the q3's rocket light. It's a multiplier accounted to the already present lightmap. Although this might be fine for a small area like the rocket or lucifer charge I imagine it would we quite a hefty drain on resources over the area gman is intending, it's my belief the lightstyle is actually less intensive on the system than the multiplier while looking better.

[Plague Bringer]

You don't understand quite clearly. Stuff I don't quite grasp.

You're right, I'm gone. >_>

[.f0rqu3]

you can add dynamic lights to particle systems. q3 style dynamic lights rather suck tho.

dont! it causes lag

[gareth]

afaik, from what i can tell, q3 dynamic lights multiply the final pixel value, not the lightmap.

gareth wrote:
you can add dynamic lights to particle systems. q3 style dynamic lights rather suck tho.

dont! it causes lag

well theres already a load of dynamic lights used anyway, there is one for every flamethrower particle even i think.

Anyway they are used quite nicely on some sparks in metro.

[gman19]

So, to summarize;

I'm way in over my f***ing head, right?

[Survivor]

Not at all. By all means give it a try, and if you succeed write an easy to follow tutorial on it.