The Thread o' Lighting

    What kind of light changes would you like to see?

    • Brighter existing lights.

    • A very bright floodlight. "PlexBright"

    • A light that grows in brightness the more there are adjacent. "MultiPlexLight"

    • All of the above!

    • None of the above.

    • I really don't care...


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    Hello fellow StarMade players! Just a note: I am planning for this to be the central hub of discussion about light suggestions, thus freeing up space for more revolutionary suggestions than just lights. Now on to my proposals.

    I, for one, am fed up with the lighting system. I have a finnicky computer, and I assumed simple lighting would help my fps. For me, at least, this just removed almost all of the lighting. Everything was either really hard to see or pitch black. I turned simple lighting off, and then turned down the light settings. Everything became darker because of that. Adding to this, lights are just FAR too short range. I have to place a light every ~3 blocks, and that becomes annoying quickly when building a large open space like a hangar. I propose some changes, and everyone else should add their ideas.

    First off, buff lights. Currently I need about 8 or 9 to fully light a 7x7x3 room at 64 light setting, which is plain ridiculous. I should only need a lot of lights for a large space, at the moment even a hallway could require ten lights for just 30 blocks length, especially depending on the light setting. I propose that light blocks should have double, or even triple their current lighting range.

    Next, we could have a floodlight of sorts. Not like a spotlight or headlight, just a block that creates a huge amount of lighting. They could be used to easily light a hangar or a large room. Probably, say, ten to fifteen times the current lights.

    Instead of the previous two suggestions, we could have a single type of light, yes, even colored ones would disappear, but it would be CUSTOMISABLE! You choose the colors from either presets or a color selector. You would do this by pressing R in the air while holding the light, or by pressing shift+R on an existing block. The brightness would also be customisable, with a minimum of 0 (The block itself is lit, but nothing near it gets any brighter.) to a maximum of ~32 blocks. Another great thing about this is that existing lights could be replaced by the equivalent customised light, so as to not break saves, if such a thing is possible. We could also add an extra config for these, allowing admins to add color presets, remove presets, and change the min/max light amount.
     
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    mrsinister

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    well, I said it before and I'll say it again....

    only 1 Light block needed. The block changes color along with the color of the light by RGB slider bars. Have ranges from 0,0,0 - 200,200,200 that way you have all ranges of color and everything in between. :) and only using 1 block and 2 texture spots (off and on /or active and non-active).
     

    Valiant70

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    It just seems like a lot of trouble to select all of that stuff. I do like the idea of having only one or two types of light, but I don't want to have to use a complicated interface every time I want to place a few lights. It's a good idea, but it needs to be refined.
     
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    well, I said it before and I'll say it again....

    only 1 Light block needed. The block changes color along with the color of the light by RGB slider bars. Have ranges from 0,0,0 - 200,200,200 that way you have all ranges of color and everything in between. :) and only using 1 block and 2 texture spots (off and on /or active and non-active).
    Schema and the devs have talked about why there will be no RGB sliders for hull or lights. The way things work on this engine, having a slider like this apparently turns into an ENORMOUS resource vamp.

    Maybe one day, but don't hold your breath.
     

    jayman38

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    Blocks currently have 3 bytes of information. Full 24-bit color would double the data used by each block. And a lot of good ideas have been shot down for suggesting the addition of even a single byte of data to the current 3.

    Edit: On a side note, I agree that lighting from each light block should be increased. Longer range and more light.
     
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    Edited OP since customizable lights won't happen. I have another idea though, what about a multi-light? They would be like normal lights, but placing them adjacent to each other would increase their power, and thus allow nice looking big lights for big spaces instead of the awkward polka-dots from the current system or the odd looking situation we would get from a floodlight filling a room completely with just one block.
     

    jayman38

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    In light (har har) of the updated OP, maybe you could put everything, including the on/off switch into a menu activated by "R", so that you wouldn't need a new activation button ("Shift-R") to set the settings. On/Off settings actually aren't used very much and I bet they are more frequently changed with the use of logic instead of direct manipulation.
     
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    Why would I add to something that won't happen?
    Anyway, @ResonKinetic suggested flashlights for astronauts, which sounds great to me.

    What I fucking want in here: Fucking FLASH LIGHTS[DOUBLEPOST=1410964068,1410964020][/DOUBLEPOST]
    I was writing my post, sent it, and saw you beat me to it dayummmm
    Ninja'd!
     
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    What I fucking want in here: Fucking FLASH LIGHTS[DOUBLEPOST=1410964068,1410964020][/DOUBLEPOST]
    Why would I add to something that won't happen?
    Anyway, @ResonKinetic suggested flashlights for astronauts, which sounds great to me.
    I was writing my post, sent it, and saw you beat me to it dayummmm
     

    NeonSturm

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    Ambient Light! [per chunk?]

    Present when a block or mix of them is present in this chunk, decreasing in the adjacent chunks.
     
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    Ambient Light! [per chunk?]

    Present when a block or mix of them is present in this chunk, decreasing in the adjacent chunks.
    Do you mean something like a glowing rock making nearby things brighter by default? Sounds cool!
     

    NeonSturm

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    Do you mean something like a glowing rock making nearby things brighter by default? Sounds cool!
    We already have issues with brightness by suns.
    It would be a possibility to light things without over-bright lights where you are looking at.

    I also thought about some minimum light in an area. A way to get rid of ugly over-shadowed areas.


    Ambient light distributes light equally - like luminescent fog.
    MineTest water uses it (tried it out, but am mostly missing >2 blocks high jumps space(or air)ships and adv build features :p).
     
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    Ithirahad

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    We already have issues with brightness by suns.
    It would be a possibility to light things without over-bright lights where you are looking at.

    I also thought about some minimum light in an area. A way to get rid of ugly over-shadowed areas.


    Ambient light distributes light equally - like luminescent fog.
    MineTest water uses it (tried it out, but am mostly missing >2 blocks high jumps space(or air)ships and adv build features :p).
    Eeeeh no, I like extreme darkness. It should just be a lot harder to get and shouldn't happen every time you aren't four freaking blocks away from a light.
     
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    I'd rather have high-powered beams that can shine onto other objects...(like for the exploration of a ship graveyard or a dead titan, abandoned stations, etc.). Fixes for current lighting bugs would be nice, too.
     

    NeonSturm

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    Eeeeh no, I like extreme darkness. It should just be a lot harder to get and shouldn't happen every time you aren't four freaking blocks away from a light.
    That and bouncing light emmission would be nice too, but I guess a lot harder to calculate.
     
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    Alright, I'll address the different suggestions here with what I think of them.

    We already have issues with brightness by suns.
    It would be a possibility to light things without over-bright lights where you are looking at.
    I also thought about some minimum light in an area. A way to get rid of ugly over-shadowed areas.
    Ambient light distributes light equally - like luminescent fog.
    MineTest water uses it (tried it out, but am mostly missing >2 blocks high jumps space(or air)ships and adv build features :p).
    We do need darkness, mainly in enclosed areas or places at LEAST ~50 blocks from any light. Darkness shouldn't be absolutely everywhere like it is now.

    I'd rather have high-powered beams that can shine onto other objects...(like for the exploration of a ship graveyard or a dead titan, abandoned stations, etc.). Fixes for current lighting bugs would be nice, too.
    I'm not sure whether that is feasible due to heavy calclations, unless it is an invisible hitbox that bumbs up the light level of blocks colliding with it, like a giant box of area activators that cause light. Not sure if that would help though.

    That and bouncing light emmission would be nice too, but I guess a lot harder to calculate.
    One bounce shouldn't be too bad... right?
    Maybe have only certain blocks bounce light? Like transparent or dull blocks wouldn't cause bounces, but things like shiny metal hull would bounce it a little.

    Also, missles having a bright blast on impact would be awesome, to keep the calculations down just place an invisible and non-collidable block that produces a bunch of light, then it gets deleted after half a second. Cannons and beams could have a similar effect. This would make space battles really look the part.
     

    NeonSturm

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    We do need darkness, mainly in enclosed areas or places at LEAST ~50 blocks from any light. Darkness shouldn't be absolutely everywhere like it is now.
    32 :p
    50, seriously?

    After some thoughts: maybe directed light 50 blocks (= a moving "ray-trace"-plane of light), but not omnidirectional.

    Just imagine the lag (you may not want to be forced to play with it!). Did you not think "there has to be a reason for current restrictions"?