Lighting Techniques

[JimmyJamba]

Wanted to ask everyone what sort of lighting techniques you use on your ships and stations. Do you have a your own little pattern or way that keeps it consistent throughout the build or do you just go with whatever feels right?


Please share! I'll get us started with a couple of mine. Oh and feel free to add pics to help us see the light!!



* Interior. At the beginning of the build I'm going to decide what way I want the lights set up and usually be consistent throughout the build. I tend to use white light either on the floor or the ceiling for most of my builds while using colored lights on the walls. Sometimes it might be white lights only on stairs and ramps. Mix it up ya know?

* Exterior. I rarely like to have light blocks visible. Most of the time I will set up a white hull wall and have the light blocks hidden from sight only having the coloured light reflect on the white hull. I really like the way the white hull glows as opposed to how the light blocks themselves look when they are visible.

* While sometimes I don't like how wedges behave in light. I've found a couple ways I like to use them with lights.

This way is pretty basic but I like how it makes it look like a light fixture:

This last way is my new favourite and will most likely try to include on a lot of my new builds. The light is not reflecting from the floor up onto the wedges.

* Ice Crystals. My first and second build for the most part were flying Ice Crystals. I know right? Since then, I've really moved away from using them all together. You might find a group of thrusters crafted from Ice crystals on some of my ships but instead I might try and find a creative way to use blue light blocks and white hull.

* Lava. I like to use it... a little too much? Not sure... So I don't make the same mistake I made with the Ice Crystals, my general rule is to only use it for spots on a ship that makes sense... thrusters. It doesn't always work out that way. You won't really see lava on the inside of my ships at all.



Looking forward to seeing what ways you folks use all the different blocks to help create lighting on your stuff!

 

[Phort Knight]

Thanks for taking the time to set this up, lots of great ideas here!

 

[TheDarkOne05]

I tend to make the outside unornamented, but for inside lighting I use ice blocks, since they have a calm color that usually fits the ships I make.

 

[HadrasVorshoth]

I generally aim for white-blue lighting within ships, with a two-line plexidoor system to turn off the calm lights and replace them with red lights (by covering/uncovering them), if I remember to do so when in danger.

I tend to use lens flare light blocks inside 5x5 power blocks to make them shiny.

 

[JimmyJamba]

Awesome, this is exactly the type of thing I was looking for with this post. That is a really good idea with the plex doors. It would be cool if we had some sort of flashing lights to use instead. Personally, I would never have time to change to the \"danger\" lights as I tend to panic in times like that!! lol

 

[MrFURB]

My usual external thruster exhaust uses alternating ice crystal and white hull. With bloom effects turned on maximum it looks absolutely brilliant and mixing the two materials gives the colors variance and thus substance.