A little experiment with Fire glares...

[nbohr1more 2023]

Ever since I worked on "Chalice of Kings" with Bikerdude, I have wanted to get flame particles

with new particle glares into the core mod. My reasoning was that the candles have glares and the

un-glared torches look mismatched. This proposal was met with mixed reactions, so (knowing the history

of TDM feature proposals...) I have created a technical demo.

 

You may download it here:

 

zzz_flameglare.pk4.txt

 

(fixed)

 

Just rename without the .txt extension at the end and place it in your Darkmod directory.

 

Here are some screens.

 

 

 

 

Using particles for this is probably the wrong way to go now that Duzenko has an emissive light

feature in his branch:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19659-feature-request-emissive-materialsvolumetric-lights/

[nbohr1more 2023]

Moar!

 

 

[nbohr1more 2023]

Fixed missing glare for newer torches...

 

 

 

zzz_flameglare.pk4.txt

[VanishedOne 532]

Having had to conceal lamp flare particles clipping through thin walls in the past, I'd be wary of adding default glare particles, but emissive light versions could be interesting.

[peter_spy 1431]

That volumetric lighting is still far from perfect but it's better than particles. Actually what is worth investigating IMO is particles in current candle lights, which are too expensive atm. You can't have e.g. scenes with dozens of candles, like in builder church for example, because these detailed flame particles kill the performance. It could be replaced with something much less taxing, i.e. a static flame texture, with orientation following the player, and with some waving effect in the shader (I believe it was a shear function).

[Springheel 4571]

Yeah, the current candleflame particles are very wasteful. I don't know much about particle editing, but my trial and error hasn't yet come up with anything better. Using a sprite might work but then that would require a new batch of models and entities, which probably isn't in the cards.

[duzenko 641]

An eye-candy indeed

[RPGista 602]

That looks really neat, I like it a lot... Great work man.

[AluminumHaste 973]

That volumetric lighting is still far from perfect but it's better than particles. Actually what is worth investigating IMO is particles in current candle lights, which are too expensive atm. You can't have e.g. scenes with dozens of candles, like in builder church for example, because these detailed flame particles kill the performance. It could be replaced with something much less taxing, i.e. a static flame texture, with orientation following the player, and with some waving effect in the shader (I believe it was a shear function).

That's called a sprite, and using the LOD system would be cool.

Imagine a 3 frame candle sprite subtly moving, and that sprite fades as you get closer and is replaced by the particle within maybe 10 feet.

[nbohr1more 2023]

Having had to conceal lamp flare particles clipping through thin walls in the past, I'd be wary of adding default glare particles, but emissive light versions could be interesting.

 

Yes, I haven't seen the issue crop up that much with this mod installed but a few missions have this glow-bleed.

Notably, Alberic's Curse in the cathedral.

 

I'm not a fan of what it does to Penny Dreadful 2: All the way Up. The yellow glare clashes with the white illumination.

That said, it actually makes the mission more consistent because the hanging oil lamps also have yellow glares with

white lighting. :shrug:

 

Sotha's missions seem to be made for this. Mandrasola, Coercion, etc all look great.