AnD4D's Forum Posts

  • Ashley - Yeah, I figured I should have added the correct image. I couldn't remember when I'd saved the image, so used another example.

    As you said, it's probably the range, but you can see in this example that the light sprite is pretty far away from the walls.

    Might it be possible to allow us to set the extrude distance ourselves? If I'm making a game for an iPad, I'll want it pretty large, but if I'm making a lower res game I want it smaller. If that's too tricky to add in, then not to worry. I imagine if it's off screen it won't cause many problems with processing anyway?

    The shader for the next build... will I be able to use that without WebGL? Unfortunately I can't use WebGL for my next project.

    I've just tried out your other method so I could better visualise it, and while I'm getting solid black shadows now where no light reaches, sadly it's still not the effect I want. Personally, I just want solid white for light, and solid black for shadow. I imagine I'll be able to do that next build.

    This is with 34% opacity on each light. For some reason I'm getting pitch black shadows where there should be light... but in any case, I don't need transparent shadows, so it doesn't worry me too much. With this new effect you've created, will other people be able to get transparent lights? It doesn't sound like it, but in any case I intend on adding a fall off sprite that overlays the light source so it will slowly fall off into darkness.

    Can you tell what they made this light system using? http://ncase.me/sight-and-light/ Is it HTML5? Flash? It appears to run great in a browser, and the code appears to be open source. I don't understand how this all works, so I'm not sure whether or not the same system is possible... but it appears to work with multiple light sources brilliantly!

  • I'm afraid I don't see any improvement in the lighting in the last beta release

    I'm still seeing random lighting appear when I get to one side of the screen, and I still can't get decent looking multiple light sources.

    — Are these this like to improve over the coming months? I've just continued a game that requires these 2 in place. If it's unlikely, I'm happy to shelve the project again in favour of another I'm working on!

  • Should I take it everyone agrees, and has nothing else to add? <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing">

    I'm able to proceed with my game at the moment by using just 1 light, but ideally I'd like to use at least 3 in each level.

    Is this what our light and shadow plugin is based on, or is this more advanced?

    http://ncase.me/sight-and-light/

  • *Please note, this thread is for discussion of the plugin and improvement/recommendations. Last time I did a thread like this, it stretched on for 50 pages, as people started using it for troubleshooting their own projects.

    Hey there! Just wants a quick post about peoples concerns with the new light/shadow feature so far.

    A while back I shelved the development of a pretty fun game purely because it relied on the shadow features granted by the paster plugin. It looked and played great, but I had issues in regards to the speed. You had to have a pretty decent machine to run what otherwise was a very simple game... and sadly, that just wasn't worth while.

    In any case, since the feature has come back to me in a form that is faster (can be used on mobiles), I thought I would pick the project back up... but very quickly shelved it again, and here's why.

    Multiple Light Sources

    My game relies on multiple light sources. Before, I was able to touch a button on the keyboard and spawn in new light sources using the same light over and over. With this one, I notice that for each light source you wish to introduce, you need to have a new object (ShadowLight1,ShadowLight2,ShadowLight3). If you don't, then the light sources appear to cancel each other out, and will only appear where they are zero shadows at all.

    *EDIT - Turns out you do not need multiple objects. My bad!

    It looks like you need to set the transparency to 50% or so if you have 2 lights to avoid each one washing the other out... but that's not of use to me sadly. I want anything in shadow to be completely dark, and anything in light to be completely light. I'm amazed that shadows are more dominant than light with this plugin.

    This is an example with 3 lights with 33% opacity.

    This is an example with the same 3 lights with 100% opacity.

    As far as I can tell, it's impossible for me to get the effect I want. If I was to set this up in real life, using real lights, I would be able to see the middle of the area without any issues.

    Light Colours

    I'm not sure why anyone would be interested in having different coloured shadows. Who know, maybe they will. It doesn't interest me though. In my original game, when a green light hit a red light, I'd get a yellow light. Looked cool.

    Seeing as this was almost a year ago, I can't remember exactly how this was achieved... but very well may have simply been an addition effect added to a coloured sprite. In any case, I suppose there's no reason not to have it, but like I said... it doesn't interest me, as I don't see the benefit.

    Shadow Length

    I want my shadows to go on forever. If there's no light, I want darkness. For some reason, if I have my level with 1 light, without height, without WebGL soft edging, without radius... I still end up with random glitches similar to, but not exactly like this:

    Final Thoughts

    I love the fact that we're getting this. This has been on the top of my list for about a year and a half, so I'm really happy we're seeing it being developed now. I'm not interested in putting anyone down, as I really am happy... but I just wanted to gauge peoples feedback on it to see what is impossible to change, and what we can really make use of. I'm hoping this plugin is actually something that can be improved on, and isn't just a simple drop in plugin.

    Anyone else have anything to add?

  • Is it possible to recognize whether or not you are in shadow or light via events?

  • Ahh, nice!

    Thanks ramones!

  • Without CAPX one cannot help you

    Seriously? It would take less time to create it than it would to upload it, seeing as it's already in the examples folder.

    https://copy.com/4HFigE8IrfzT

    *EDIT* My mistake - I forgot to mention I was using the lighting example.

  • I was messing around with the new lighting system, where it's already set up to have the light source set to the position of the mouse.

    I then added in a simple piece that would rotate the layout.

    Every tick - Set layoutAngle to layoutAngle+1

    The light simply doesn't follow the mouse cursor anymore. I've tried using absolute in the hopes that that works, but sadly not.

    Is this even possible with rotating layouts? It seems to base the position on where the mouse cursor would be if the screen wasn't rotating.

  • :) at least, with the last release I can't see him on the list at all

    Lol! Strange that as soon as he's publicly called out on it, he fails to appear.

  • Updated your graphics card?

    Also, you haven't followed the instructions for bugs. A capx might be useful. do you have a second machine to try it on?

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  • not really... for the recent releases, I were always close to the lightning draw.

    I'm usually at work, when a new release is available, my browser just triggers me that I got a new message on twitter, I click that little bird in my browser see that it is scirra, click the link, hit the download button and done.

    If you can do that 7 times in a row averaging 4 seconds with that method, I'll fund your next game. Especially seeing as Ashley or Tom actually need to post to Twitter when it's uploaded... which is usually a few seconds after it's been uploaded. 30 seconds, I can understand. 4? No chance, unless you were lucky.

    Nobody is THAT lucky.

  • The release notes states:

    "Avoid placing radius-based lights very close to, or even over, shadow caster objects. The algorithm can fail to render a full shadow in this case."

    The image above shows the distance my light source is away from the wall. I also have a light radius of zero (anything higher, even 1, causes worse results).

    I'm happy to have this... but at the moment I can't use it for anything other than effects, such as the god rays as shown in the op. Is this as good as we can expect it to get? I was getting better looking results with paster, but it killed the frame rate. This doesn't give great results all the time, but the speed it runs at is beautiful.

  • Could also be that he is an active twitter follower... I managed the lightning draw with the last release, as I have a plugin in my browser which instantly notices me of a new tweet... saw it, clicked the link and downloaded.

    7 times in a row? Most approximately around 4 seconds? That's some very unlikely fast reactions.

  • Either way the download race has always amused me, I think it's great fun!

    I think it's great fun too! But only if it's fair. Reputation is a good way of letting people know at a glance how much they use the software. This aruche is a newbie that's taking advantage.

  • Looking forward to how this turns out in the stable release!