Skybox Lens flare/bloom

[Kexikus 995]

I have pretty much all my skybox model issues solved, but there's one thing that still eludes me and that's the lens flare/bloom effect when looking directly into the sun.

 

I know that this effect is part of the model as Dastardly had once written me a little application to edit it, but that was only for K1 and now with the new tools I figured I might be able to do it myself for version 2.

 

In all models that I checked that have this effect, there is an odysseylight placed right where the sun is. These odysseylights have "Lens Flares" parameters and my first thought was that it has to be the "Flare Radius" parameter, so I turned that one down to decrease the effect and that did indeed work. However, that can't be everything as I have two modules where one has a very extreme lens flare/bloom effect (Ahto east, manm26ab) and the other doesn't (Ahto west, manm26aa). But in both cases, the "Flare Radius" is the same and in fact everything about the lights is the same except for the "Multiplier" parameter but changing that had no visible effect. Now I wonder what else there is that's responsible for this visual effect and how I'd go about controling it.

 

For anyone who wants to have a look, the skybox models in the example above are m26aa_set and m26ab_set. Thanks!

[ndix UR 218]

I can't figure out why they would be different. I did notice that m26aa_set & m26ab_set both use selfillumcolor 1 1 1, which brings with it a bloom effect for users with video buffer effects. I don't know how common a practice that is game-wide, having only dabbled in skyboxes personally.

 

The only other model difference I saw was the addition of AuroraLight02 in m26ab_set. The light is set up as a shadow casting, non-flare light, (slight blue color, much higher multiplier) located closer to the main fountain area in m26ab_set.

 

Another thing you might try is wiping the lens flare lists completely. So, set lensflares 0 (instead of 1), and remove texturenames, flarepositions, flaresizes, and flarecolorshifts from the auroralight01 node. I have a really terrible rig for lighting tests or I would try these things myself, sorry I can't be more help.