Guild of Writers

I'm happy to report that the waveset looks pretty good at night time too. I have to adjust the reflectivity more for the fainter stars, but I thought it looked pretty good:

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*sob* that is REALLY night time... all I see is a huge black area. Did the update do something to the uploaded graphics? Since a day or 2, I can only see one in about 20 images

Well you're missing a beautiful shot. I'm thinking Pryftan Kitty here.
Nice job, Andy.

Thanks. I've actually done a lot more since that shot.....I've put in more tiki torches, lit up the beach some, etc, etc,...

Think we might be keeping Zephyr a night time Age.......

Andy... Why not (as a hack) check the age's TIMEOFDAY (with python) and display the appropriate version at linkin? At least until real day/night cycles (Gira style) are available.

I always love day and night ages... I already want to visit Zephyr... Need to find time though

That place just keeps on looking better and better Andy

Tsar Hoikas wrote:Andy... Why not (as a hack) check the age's TIMEOFDAY (with python) and display the appropriate version at linkin? At least until real day/night cycles (Gira style) are available.

Been there, done that and... nope, you do not want to read TIMEOFDAY with Python. Uru will immediately CTD.

Actually, I was torn between a day time and a night time

**** off on a tangent *****

What's with Andy anyways? I mean the guy is always making 'Day Time' and 'Night Time' versions of his Ages....sheesh, what a rip off!!!



***** back on tangent ******

I thought about Gira......but they are not using Python at all to do the day night cycle, but the light source for the sun is moving (tied to the plane that is the sun texture), and the Age is dynamically lit, not just by that light, but other back lighting also, and of course we know how the sky fades from that greenish/blue to the starry night time sky.

NO idea how they did that.... ....I call it "Cyan Magic".

Then of course there's Teledahn, which looks really neat with all the lightmaps put in, here's a Blender Screen shot of that:

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It seems that they light up the Age with the revolving sun too.

(oh, one thing that I noticed, seems things that move like lights and stuff, they label with a prefix of RTDir on those objects).

I think I could achieve the same effect, sorta, kinda, maybe, by rotating the sun light source/textured plane with a python file, and maybe get it to do like Teledahn. But for day/night like Gira...I don't know how I would fade out the day sky texture and fade in the night time textures, not to mention also the land, beach, make the tiki torches go out and come back on.......

urrrrrr.....just monsterous to think about it........
I did think about a day/night link in......have two books, one is day, the other night, but damn the files are huge as it is....it would be like having two of the same Age, so I'd have several high MB prp files....

Ha! This just goes to prove that we still have a LOT to learn from Cyan ......

D'Lanor wrote:Been there, done that and... nope, you do not want to read TIMEOFDAY with Python. Uru will immediately CTD.

Crap. There goes that idea.

andylegate wrote:I thought about Gira......but they are not using Python at all to do the day night cycle, but the light source for the sun is moving (tied to the plane that is the sun texture), and the Age is dynamically lit, not just by that light, but other back lighting also, and of course we know how the sky fades from that greenish/blue to the starry night time sky.

NO idea how they did that.... ....I call it "Cyan Magic.

They use this fun little class called plLayerSDLAnimation... Which works fairly similarly to layer anims, only they're based on SDL variables (typically the AGETIMEOFDAY variable). They can be made to use IPO curves, I'm sure, although I'm not the blender expert.

You're quite right. There are two types of animation that Cyan uses specifically for Day/Night cycles. These are LayerSDLAnimation, which is derived from LayerAnimationBase, and AgeGlobalAnim, which is derived from AGAnim. These types contain a single additional value, which is a reference to an SDL variable. These animations base their status (animTime) on this variable. So, for instance, the sun/moon lights are rotated by the AgeGlobalAnim, and the sky is transitioned by a LayerSDLAnim.

Neither of these types are available in pyprp yet.