or a flashlight helmet
----------------3/3/15 12:32 GMT+8 Edited----------------
Below is two interesting and POSSIBLE ideas
from page 2 both by PreparationsA-G
can we have both???????
Below is two interesting and POSSIBLE ideas
from page 2 both by PreparationsA-G
can we have both???????
What about the Shield-Effect?
What about the light that emanates from shields when you shoot a ship's interior with your laser pistol?
That produces light.
I don't know if it actually "emits" light, or if its just simply a "visual side-effect" of the shield graphic on the blocks it renders over top of, but when you're in a dark ship and you shoot the walls, the shield-graphic thing lights up the area around your shots, and you can see enough to know what's around you.
Couldn't this effect/property/principle/mechanic be utilized to make some kind of crude flashlight? I feel like it could.
How I was Thinking This Could Be Done: (sorry its kinda long)
Couldn't you just add in a new "action" (like "firing" some (new) specific item/tool (in this case a "flashlight" item/tool) at any physical block) that would produce that same shield-graphic? Except alter the "shield-graphic" that would render for this new action slightly, so that instead of having the white, rippling, chicken-wire graphic of the current shield-effect, it would be more of a solid shade of some transparent-ish white (such that it would just illuminate the blocks behind the effect) (and look like a flashlight beam).
Perhaps also the radius of this effect should be changed from that of the original so that it would more resemble the size of a flashlight beam. Or maybe it could even have the radius of the "altered-shield-effect" graphic be dependent on the distance of the player or entity "firing" the new (flashlight) item/tool from the object being hit by it. That way the flashlight beam radius could get bigger as you got farther away from the object being lit up.
Could something like this work?
(I ask, because I only vaguely understand game code and such)
Maybe instead of a flashlight, we could instead have "night-vision goggles" or a
"Night-Vision Mode"
available when wearing your space helmet.
It could kind of function in 3 layers:
(1 2 3)
- It could function kind of like lighten-mode by lighting up all the blocks in your field of vision (and just to the player using it, so it would be client-side (which is easier, right?)).
- But then, on top of that (the lighten-mode), it could have some kind of shader (like the shield-effect shader), that would tint all of the blocks a greenish (or perhaps a color of the user's preference), and make it look more night-vision-y.
- Then there could maybe be a final layer (that would perhaps be toggle-able), that would identify the type of block the player was looking at in sort of a Heads-Up-Display(HUD)-type fashion (perhaps up to a certain distance), like is done in build mode, similar to what NeonSturm suggested (but much cooler looking than build mode, and more HUD-y). Maybe the HUD-identifier could also identify the types &/or names of mobs & astronauts that the player looked at, as well as names of ships.
I'm not sure it would really be as "cool" as a flashlight, but it might be much more do-able alternative.
And it kind of fits the genre/setting of the game a bit better too if you think about it.
...Just an idea.
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