Retsam Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 My apologies, as I'm sure this has been covered somewhere, I just haven't been able to find it yet.I want to create searchlights. I have the model, and the FX light, the thing that is stumping me is the actual light. Everything I'm doing is based on a spherical light source. I want a bright cone shaped/directional light source as one would expect a searchlight to create. I have not figured out if the shape of the light can be changed. I only know of the light values and radius. Incidentally, I'm wanting to merge the searchlight onto a turret. The idea being to use the already existing AI of the turret to track targets with the light. lol, Ambitious considering I can't even figure out how to make the light yet hehe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wetblanket Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 I can't help directly but remember seeing a couple of mods that aimed to make the pipboy light directional. The one that worked best used some scripting (?) trick that unfortunately significantly affected game performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retsam Posted December 30, 2011 Author Share Posted December 30, 2011 (edited) I can't help directly but remember seeing a couple of mods that aimed to make the pipboy light directional. The one that worked best used some scripting (?) trick that unfortunately significantly affected game performance. Thanks for the quick reply. I certainly want to avoid any performance impacts. My machine can barely run this game with low details as it is.I found this:(ID) DLCPittSCOLSpotlight(Model) SCOL\SCOLDLCPittSpotlight.NIF (Edit is greyed out)(Object Data) FXGlowSimpFillRndHalf02Position (1.77, -8311, 4.11) Rotation (2.6, -0.11, 1.32) Scale 0.18 It has 0 on the use info, and it appears as red exclamation in preview and world. Seems like this was an idea that never got used.Not sure if I can learn from this, I'm just way too new to this. (Not entirely true, I modded for Morrowind but that was so long ago I pretty much forgot everything). Currently messing with these:DLCAnchSpotLight01FXLightBeamBrt01DLCPittSpotLightKickerCool Does FOV do anything to a Light object? I messed around with it, but saw no changes. I may have to just settle with a light that has a large radius. Rather unrealistic effect... Something just occurred to me. It's a bit more work and would have to be created at each location independently but...Place an ambient light directly in front of the spotlight AND place a light source X distance and in line with the spot light. This would give the illusion of the object being lit from the spotlight when accompanied by the FX at the spotlight itself. The only catch is when I learn how to make this light rotate, that second light is going to be at a fixed distance as it moves. If the radius is large enough and the expected distance doesn't change to much (panning the yard) it should still look fine (although if an actor passes in front of the second light they might get lit from behind instead of front- perhaps a series of tight radius lights in a line-sight configuration- performance hit?)... hmm. Need to go figure out how to make the light move and try this. :) Edited December 30, 2011 by Retsam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retsam Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 Just in case anyone else has a similar task/question:Tonight I found this:http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12248#content(Blender on Elder Scrolls Nexus site)It is an excellent all-in-one-deal. Has all the tools in one zip, excellent installation instructions, and a massive 1500 page manual. Everything that is needed to work with animations.I really didn't know where to begin. Once I knew the "magic app" was Blender, it was an easy search to find this:http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Lighting/Volumetric_LightsThis is what I expected to find. It's already been done.So I guess I spend a few days reading and figuring out the basics, then I'll learn how to make this work in Fallout. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeoshua Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 You're not dealing with the limitations of Blender or 3dStudio Max or any modelling program when importing meshes, you're dealing with the limitations of the NIF file format. I think you'll find that most of the lights are fakes, in Fallout. The reason the directional pip boy light is so frame rate intensive is that it basically has to shoot a bunch of projectiles at a fast rate towards a wall, which produce a "flare" when they hit. It's not actually a light, but a weapon that does no damage. All those shafts of light? Merely glowing meshes that look like a shaft of light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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