Say no to light!

[Legacy_Master Jax]

               Ladies and gentlemen, I was just playing a new module last night, and something that has always bothered me just pissed me off even more! You see, light sources are bright. Duh! I know... BUT the issue is not only are they bright, but also have some kind of "glare" effect attached to them, and they also unrealistically glow even through furniture. That's wrong in so many different levels...

Thing is, I would like to know if it is possible to change the normal fire model to fix this thing. And if not, what are the model names for both fire placeables, the one with light source and the one without? I mean, if there is no way to fix the glow-through-furniture issue, at least I would like to override the light-source model with the other one!

As always, thanks in advance! '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tiberius_Morguhn]

               Yes, you can turn off the "flare effect" for light sources.  However it also turns off the engine's lighting for that placeable.  I provide both types in my More TNO Placeables package.  The key is the LightColor/Offset columns in placeables.2da.  To make those placeables have no ambient light (which turns off the flare effect), simply ***** out those entries in the 2da.  You can see an example with one of my braziers below.

Label                       StrRef   ModelName           LightColor   LightOffsetX   LightOffsetY   LightOffsetZ   SoundAppType   ShadowSize   BodyBag   LowGore   Reflection   Static
989        mtp_Braziera                ****     PLC_I05a            6            0.003989       0.010825       0.874821       21             1            0         ****      ****         1
990        mtp_BrazierNoAmbienta       ****     PLC_I05a            ****         ****           ****           ****           21             1            0         ****      ****         1

You can compensate somewhat for the placeable's now missing lighting by changing the tile lighting and surround tile lighting (eg.  make a tile with fire bright yellow or orange and the surrounding tiles a darker yellow/orange and then next layer of surrounding tiles black).

You can also place dynamic lights on placeables - ie. the "flicker" lighting effect.  This crushes the engine and should be used sparingly.  You can see this effect via the TNO torches and the MTP candles I did.

Hope this helps.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tiberius_Morguhn, 03 mars 2012 - 07:24 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Master Jax]

               Thanks a lot Tiberius! It's precisely what I meant! Great work on your haks, by the way!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_NWN_baba yaga]

               hi there and i have a different approach on that. You can remove the "lens flare" effect from the aurora dlight in 3dsmax and keep the dynamic light. The model your looking for is "fx_flame01". It´s the one for all source lights in your tilesets.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Master Jax]

               Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! That's exactly what I was coming in to mention! I went and changed all the placeables, but it seems the thing didn't help at all cause the fire came from the tilesets themselves! Thanks a lot Baba! I am going to try that out RIGHT NOW!

Update: You were right Yaga! Once I got rid of the AuroraLight part of the model, the lightsource keeps being there but the unforgivable glare is gone! And from every tileset! Thanks a lot!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Master Jax, 04 mars 2012 - 06:49 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Master Jax]

               Ok, now, the fx_flame01 modification did remove the flare from the tileset flames, but it seems to me like the lightsource wasn't removed, which is pretty much what I wanted. HOWEVER, Tiberius mentioned for placeables, one may only remove the flare by removing the lightsource itself in 2das. Is it possible to get lightsource without flare in the placeables, just like the flames form tilesets? Any help is appreciated!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Master Jax]

               After some time I came back to this thread and noticed my previous post was wrong. The flare in the tilesets was removed ALONG with the dynamic light! As far as I can understand from Baba's post, it wasn't supposed to, so I came back to rekindle this old topic in hopes either Baba or some other builder may guide me through it. You see, there are three main components in the fx_model, aside of the usual model-named and the ignoregon. These are Flame, Real flame, and the little cube for lighting. Removing this last one is what I did, and such eliminated both the dynamic light and the flare effect altogether. I tried deleting the other two one by one, but when the game loads it crashes, and if removed at the same time, the flame itself disappears. It seems Baba meant doing something other than simply deleting an element. Hope you guys may clarify this for me!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Thanks for staying on this. I've subscribed to this thread, and will be following along.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_nwnsmith]

               Can anyone post a fx-flame01 for download. I don't have a 3d program but would like to use this.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tiberius_Morguhn]

               I poked around at this tonight and seemingly fixed it.  Exporting fx_flame01.mdl to text has a section defined for AuroraLight01.

node light AuroraLight01
  parent FX_FLAME01
  ambientonly 0
  shadow 1
  isdynamic 0
  affectdynamic 1
  lightpriority 4
  fadingLight 1
  flareradius 30
  texturenames zd
    fxpa_flare
  flaresizes zd
    3
  flarepositions zd
    1
  flarecolorshifts zd
       0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000
  position 0 0 0
  orientation 0 0 0 0
  radius 7
  shadowradius 5
  color 1 0.419608 0.419608
  shadowradius 15
  verticaldisplacement 2
endnode

Removing the 8 line blocks for the flare attributes and setting flareradius to 0 seemed to do the trick.  Simply setting flareradius to 0 only would crash the toolset.  The modified block for AuroraLight01 looks like this now and the whole mdl can but put in override:

node light AuroraLight01
  parent FX_FLAME01
  ambientonly 0
  shadow 1
  isdynamic 0
  affectdynamic 1
  lightpriority 4
  fadingLight 1
  flareradius 0
  position 0 0 0
  orientation 0 0 0 0
  radius 7
  shadowradius 5
  color 1 0.419608 0.419608
  shadowradius 15
  verticaldisplacement 2
endnode

which provides dynamic lights without the annoying flare like this:


               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Excellent!

*said whilst rubbing hands together like montgomery burns*
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Master Jax]

               AAAAH! Where's my previous post?! Well, no matter! I have confirmed the instructions kindly shared by Tiberius do achieve the desired effect! There is no more flare, but the dynamic light prevails! Thanks a lot for aiding us in this matter! Now, since it worked like this with the fx_flame01 model, wouldn't it also work with any other light-emitting model, like say... braziers and campfires? Such would avoid the 2da approach, which is overriden by any module-required haks. I mean, I've checked the models the same way and they have neither flar nor aurora values, but is it possible they use different names for similar acting values?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Master Jax, 20 décembre 2012 - 09:44 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_s e n]

               you can also track down the flare texture (if its just one) and blacken its alpha channel
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_3RavensMore]

               Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Great fix, quick and easy, and it makes a big improvement in lighting.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Master Jax]

               BREAKING NEWS, PEOPLE!!! I was intrigued with Sen's idea, and quite frankly thought it rubbish for a couple minutes, but decided it was worth looking into! After some hunting through files, I found out, indeed, there is a texture for the "flare" effect, and LO AND BEHOLD! After some tweaking, I managed to get it to go away!

Here's the trick! You open the NWN Explorer, and look for the fxpa_flare.tga in the textures part of the main data, NOT the texture packs. Once extracted, open it with an image editor of your choice, and lower all brightness, so the image turns black. HOWEVER, and this is the key thing, you must set the contrast to its maximum. If you don't, you will get a shiny, yellow block in-game. I have already tested the override, and can confirm the flare is gone from placeables without having to modify each value in the placeable.2da and without losing dynamic lighting! Of course, this also makes the previous modification to the fx_flame01 obsolete, so you can throw that override out!

Thanks to both Tiberius and Sen for making this possible!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Master Jax, 21 décembre 2012 - 10:37 .