Legacy:Light Effects

Tarquin: page duplication with Actor (UT)/Lighting – sort of. How much has changed form UT to UT2003?

Foxpaw: Most, but not all, of these still work for dynamic lights. Static lights - basically none of them work right anymore, due to the fact that lightmaps are pregenerated and can't be animated through the use of lighteffects anymore.

Tarquin: Ok. So do we need one page for UT, one for Ut2003, or will one page do for both? How about I move the list & images from Actor (UT)/Lighting to here?

Foxpaw: I think that's a good idea. One could also add the lighteffect "QuadraticNonIncidence." I'm not sure what it does but it seems similar to NonIncidence.

UArchitect: made a few adjustments, hope nobody minds :P

T1: Of course nobody minds, that's the beauty of the wiki.

OlympusMons: I was wondering if these actually worked in ut2k3 or 2k4. Im sure Ive tried and they didnt work so maybe there should be two different pages if it doesnt apply to all versions of the engine. Ok so I added the rest of the light effects and types. Unfortunatly I have no clue what they do I just thought it would be handy to have them here.

Prograham: I think this page should be split into two. One for UT2K3 and earlier, one for UT2K4, because none of these LightType Properties work anymore in 2K4. It just makes sense to me to make a new page for something if the engine changes it.:tup:PS- I would make a new page right now but I'm new to editing the wiki so instead I'm just going to leave really long paragraphs for now j/k.

This is what is done now(I am cutting and pasting from http://forums.beyondunreal.com/archive/index.php/t-141250.html)-> Dynamic lighting is disabled in the current Engine build. The only thing remotely dynamic you can do is use TriggerLights. I sure there's a way to constantly trigger them and get your blinking effect, but usually they turn on/off when a player touches their trigger. In Blitz's map BR-Warzone (http://www.unrealplayground.com/maps.php?mapid=3324) he has TriggerLights to make the flash of guns in the distance, but I'm not sure how he did it. I think he coded them since the map is full of scripted stuff he wrote.

T1: Try looking into using projectors, maybe. Hourences uses projectors for the lightning effect on ONS-Dinora IIRC.

LightType Properties

***NOTE: LightTypes will only work when bStatic is False!***

LT_None 

No lighting. Why you should use this for lights is beyond me!

LT_Steady 

Normal light. Probably the one you'll use most often.

LT_Pulse 

Pulses the light on and off. Imagine playing with the light dimmer switch.

LT_Blink 

simlar to flicker, light is on but flickers off every so often a more subtle flicker, sometimes works sometimes doesnt..not sure whats up with that.

LT_Flicker 

Good for broken down factory-type areas. Flickers on/off, as if the light ws broken. does not work with Coronas.

LT_Strobe 

Flashes light on... off... on... off... Whee! Headaches! Not really suitable for gameplay...

LT_BackdropLight 

Possibly used in SkyBoxes, but I dunno. No effects observed.

LT_SubtlePulse 

I find this to be good with Green Lighting against Slime pits. Just barely noticeable, but it's there. Pickups are lit in this way.

LT_TexturePaletteOnce 

The light colour will cycle once through the texture palette selected for Skin.

LT_TexturePaletteLoop 

As TexturePaletteOnce but loops. The value of LightPeriod sets the speed.

LT_FadeOut 

LightEffect Properties

LE_None 

Standard light.

LE_TorchWaver 

Subtle fire effect, as though it was a torch.

LE_FireWaver 

Normal fire effect, as though it was an actual fire.

LE_WaterShimmer 

Set lighting to this underwater for interesting results.

LE_SearchLight 

A rotating light. Not much to this.

LE_SlowWave 

This'ld be good for a light just above water, methinks. Sends out slow waves of light.

LE_FastWave 

Sends out fast waves of light.

LE_CloudCast 

 ??? No apparent effects.

LE_StaticSpot 

same as spotlight as far as i can tell.

LE_Shock 

Like LT_Strobe, only faster.

LE_Disco 

Random "disco" lights, the type of lighting you see in n00b maps.

LE_Warp 

 ??? No apparent effects.

LE_Spotlight 

One spot of light. Remember to rotate the light actor to get this where you want it.

LE_NonIncidence 

same as le_none but does not take surface normals into account, generally makes light look brighter, useful for lighting curved bsp surfaces as the surface normals wont create a flatshaded look

LE_Shell 

Gives a "The Ring" effect, only lights up the edge of the radius.

LE_OmnibumpMap 

Yikes. No apparent effects.

LE_Interference 

Like SlowWave/FastWave mixed together, except differs according to the textures.

LE_Cylinder 

It's a cylinder of light instead of a sphere.

LE_Rotor 

As if a fan was in the way between the light and the surface. - the effect is a little wrong actually :P but it does an ok job, most people dont notice :P.

LE_Sunlight 

Used in the sunlight class. From what I can tell its a huge directional cylinder.

LE_QuadraticNonIncidence 

2k4

LE_Negative 

Changing The Effect

LightPeriod = changes the speed of the light.

LightPhase = Which frame of animation the light's on.

NOTE : Remember all light effects will significantly decrease performance on your map! Use sparingly!

LightEffects in UT2004

djdanlib → I will register at some point... This is what LightEffects do in UT2004's UnrealEd. Only a few are non-working. However, the current version of the engine doesn't allow these to animate in-game unless the Light is Non-Static. They do at least project static light patterns. Setting a light as dynamic effectively disables the light.

LE_None 

Normal, obviously

LE_TorchWaver 

Obsolete

LE_FireWaver 

Obsolete

LE_WateryShimmer 

Obsolete

LE_Searchlight 

Supported

LE_SlowWave 

Supported

LE_FastWave 

Supported

LE_CloudCast 

Obsolete

LE_StaticSpot 

Supported

LE_Shock 

Supported

LE_Disco 

Supported

LE_Warp 

Supported

LE_Spotlight 

Supported

LE_NonIncidence 

Supported

LE_Shell 

Supported

LE_OmniBumpMap 

Supported

LE_Interference 

Supported

LE_Cylinder 

Supported

LE_Rotor 

Supported

LE_Negative 

Supported

LE_Sunlight 

Supported

LE_QuadraticNonIncidence 

Supported

'[DoW]MeepZero: I noticed that the light effect properties when rebuilt come up with an obsolete light effect error in my verson of Ued (UT2k4 v3355). Im guessing this is what you were talking about with them not being functional anymore up top there. The light type properties only function if the light is set as a dynamic light. Is there any way to get those lighteffects to work, or can they be simulated in some way?

UArch i noticed the description for nonincidence was incorrect, it does not pass through walls...its basically the same as le_none but it doesnt take the surface normals into account when lighting bsp

Tester I think Spotlight is a dynamic light, whereas StaticSpot isn't. I did a quick search over the net to find out what LE_Negative is. That light effect seems to be a negative light, instead of casting light it "subtracts" light.

Wormbo: The "dynamicness" of a light depends exclusively on the value of bDynamicLight. There's absolutely no difference between SpotLight and StaticSpot, at least not in UT2004.

seditious: I noticed the Postal Babes mutator made color-cycling dynamic lights so I looked into the code... it's simply changing the value of LightHue each Tick(). Based on that (directly on, hopefully with L7's permission), I'm thinking about brute-forcing the LightType effects into a subclass of Light. The obvious problems so far include not being able to get palettes from textures without some fancy code and probably not at all, and of course the performance. I had already subclassed LinkBeamEffect to make it stay put like a decoration even in network games, just by overriding the default properties. When I pasted L7's dynamic light code into the otherwise empty script, the green muzzle glow on nearby walls and floor was changing colors, woohoo! So I have only to create a set of patterns and give them enum names or something, and maybe create a few more variables for brightness, phase, frequency, amplitude, etc... but since these pages suggest certain effects already work with the right properties, is this a waste of time? I'm still a total n00b :) Gonna go play with bStatic for a few. ADDED: OK, it's that simple. I subclassed Light, only making the default property bStatic=false and now the LightTypes (LT_*) work as promised. Well, also bDynamicLight has to be true so I'm going to add that to the defaults... Anyway I'll probably still do this just for the sake of total flexibility (maybe even radius!). And no matter what I did, LightEffects (LE_*) didn't animate. No big deal.

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Category:Legacy To Do – Category:Legacy Refactor Me into Actor/Lighting or a similar page or really clean this up