Adding new Light-type

[Gandi]

Hi!

 

I was thinkin about adding a new light type which also gets rendered in the render lights pass..

now my question: is that even possible, or do i have to do it like some kind of post-process effect??

 

i fear that it aint possible that easy, but it would really be better if i could use it as a light...

[Canardia]

You can do an area light by removing one line in the spotlight shader.

[Gandi]

y.. but i dont want to overwrite a light i want to add an extra one!!

so i want to use all light types + my new one..

[Canardia]

Of course you shouldn't modify existing files, but take a copy and rename it and modify it.

[Gandi]

and how should i use the new file afterwards?

 

CreateDirectionalLight() creates a directional light, but how should i e.g. create a directionallight which uses my shader?

[Gandi]

so, is there a way of doing that (josh?)

[Chiblue]

so, is there a way of doing that (josh?)

 

Did you every get a response to this, I am trying to do the same thing?

[Rick]

These lights and their functions are sort of hardcoded in the API. I'm not sure you can really do this, and even if you could I think Josh does some things behind the scene to speed lights up that I'm not sure you would have access to.

[Chiblue]

Ok thanks, so then I guess I am back to my original question, I have a florescent light model that I am using in a scene and want to illuminate the scene to simulate the florescent lights illumination, how would I do this, I have tried all light types and point light is the closest but creates a point of light rather than a light that covers the area of the tube?

[Rick]

My first response would be, are you comparing this functionality to any other engine that has this, because in every engine I've used there isn't such a light. Normally the texture of your light would be bright white, then you put a point light in the middle, or you could put multiple point lights if you wanted to, but that would probably degrade the FPS in that area.

[macklebee]

er... do you not read the posts here? using a simple glow shader plus the change described here should work for what chiblue is attempting

[Chiblue]

Sorry, this is what I have done so far, I created a model that has multiple florescent light tubes in a single line with a fixture between them, I then created a glow image and using the glow shader created the material to make the tubes appear to glow. Even though I do say it myself they look pretty cool, but now I want to light my scene using lights that will create the light and shadows similar to the light given my a florescent tube. So back to the question, point light is to issolated to a particular "point" (excuse the pun) the spot light is obviously not correct, direction light will not work becuase I need 360 degree emission of the light, and ambient will not work becuase of its ability to cast directional shadows...

 

So I am left with point light which gives me the correct shadows and light/darks areas, but I want the point light to be along the entire lenght of the tube evenly? I hope this makes some sort of sense... I need light glow on the ceiling and dispersed light below...

[Rick]

er... do you not read the posts here? using a simple glow shader plus the change described here should work for what chiblue is attempting

 

Dangit, so now I have to piece together multiple posts to respond to one post. WTF.

 

I don't read all the posts, just some.

 

It seemed like the suggestions that were given were still not giving what Chibule is after. I was just thinking maybe what he was after was something that wasn't really done in most engines to begin with.

 

[EDIT]

Just replied to the other thread after reading this one