Battlezone Universe

Battlezone Universe => Battlezone 2 => Maps and Modding => Topic started by: VSMIT on August 17, 2009, 07:27:17 AM

Title: Emit lights? (*name*__e)
Post by: VSMIT on August 17, 2009, 07:27:17 AM
I have a unit here that I'm working on, and everything's working out great except for these lights.  Nothing I do to them makes them work in-game.  I exported from Max, the materials were set correctly in Max, had "__e" appended to the end of the object name, the objects still show as untextured in-game.  Just white, no colors.  I even did a copy/paste of the material from a stock unit and it didn't work.  Any suggestions?
Title: Re: Emit lights? (*name*__e)
Post by: mrtwosheds on August 17, 2009, 02:39:29 PM
2 ways to do lights.
Use alpha channels on the textures eg mytexa0.dxtbz2
Or if you want light geometry's, make them as you have
and then paste (notepad) into the .xsi an SI_MeshVertexColors  entry.

To do this, locate your light__e frame
copy the whole           
            SI_MeshTextureCoords {
               4;
               0.299582;0.041257;,
               0.519321;0.006217;,
               0.299582;0.408025;,
               0.519321;0.408025;;

               2;
               0;3;0,1,2;,
               1;3;1,3,2;;
            }

entry. rename it SI_MeshVertexColors and then alter the first section to have 4 values, leave the second as it is.
            SI_MeshVertexColors {
               4;
               0;0.5;1;1;,
               0;0.5;1;1;,
               0;0.5;1;1;,
               0;0.5;1;1;;

               2;
               0;3;0,1,2;,
               1;3;1,3,2;;
            }
Paste it underneath the SI_MeshTextureCoords {
entry. You can now alter these values to colour the frame by vertex, 3 of them are rgb values, this example is greeny-blue.
Title: Re: Emit lights? (*name*__e)
Post by: VSMIT on August 17, 2009, 09:09:05 PM
Thanks, I'll let you know how it turns out.
Title: Re: Emit lights? (*name*__e)
Post by: BNG Da BZ Fool on August 18, 2009, 03:23:55 PM
Can light color be changed to other colors like say red and green? I was thinking about this the other night at work when I was outside watching a passing aircraft cross the night sky. Can they be made to blink as well? I know quite a few tricks might possibly get them to work, but how could it be done?
Title: Re: Emit lights? (*name*__e)
Post by: mrtwosheds on August 18, 2009, 04:39:47 PM
The only way I can think of altering the colour of a geometry light would be to make its vertex's different colours and then animate it, would only work on things that support animation.

Title: Re: Emit lights? (*name*__e)
Post by: Avatar on August 22, 2009, 12:34:59 PM
I think you just need to assign a material that's only an ambient color setting.  In Max it's just one of the default base materials, I'm not sure how it's done in other packages.

Quote from: BNG Da BZ Fool on August 18, 2009, 03:23:55 PM
Can light color be changed to other colors like say red and green? I was thinking about this the other night at work when I was outside watching a passing aircraft cross the night sky. Can they be made to blink as well? I know quite a few tricks might possibly get them to work, but how could it be done?

FE posted an ODF with a blinking light... I think it was the EDF Armory.   I thought it was cool and added it to the NSDF recycler, to make it look more like a modern day aircraft.  It looks cool but after awhile you start to wonder if you want a flashing strobe light on your most important Production unit...

(HEY!  OVER HERE!   SHOOT THIS!   lol....)

I'd guess that an effects light like that could cycle colors, but the emmissive ones would have to be animated.   You can make animations of one frame that happen so quickly they don't look like an animation.

-Av-
Title: Re: Emit lights? (*name*__e)
Post by: BNG Da BZ Fool on August 22, 2009, 03:42:36 PM
Your probably right, talk about ringing a dinner bell, or giving away your position. I have a feeling that that combat vehicles in the real world wouldn't be foolish enough to even try using white lights; infrared red I can see. If they were alien invaders bright colorful lights might look somewhat intimadating. Then again lights already exist on BZII craft already I'd just wondered if colored lights were possible.