Default or custom GLDEFS for flats available/possible?

[Rex Claussen]

I would like the NUKAGEx flats to have a greenish glow whenever they appear in-game. The wiki does not provide any information on whether there are default GLDEF definitions or if custom definitions are possible. I opened gzdoom.pk3 and poked around, but found nothing. I did a search on these forums, and came up with this thread, which seems to suggest that custom definitions are not supported/possible.

Anyone have an answer to this (or, better yet, a working example)?

[Pluck101]

you could make a custom "thing" in XWE that is invisible yet has a green glow to it, then scatter them over the nukage, i think... that would make the same effect i hope

[Graf Zahl]

Sure they are. The 'glow' feature was relatively broken for a long time but now it's working fine. But it requires the use of shaders so owners of old obsolete hardware are out of luck.

[Enjay]

In its basic format, this will do it:

Code: Select all

Glow
{
Flats 
{ 
   NUKAGE1 
   NUKAGE2 
   NUKAGE3
}
}

There are more options, but I forget them ATM.

Anyway, stick that in a GLDEFS lump and see how it looks.

[Enjay]

Further to my above post, I've been looking at glowing flats a bit more and I just want to check that things are operating as they are intended with respect to animated flats.

It seems that if the different flats in a sequence have different glow definitions, the one that was present on the floor when the map initialised is is the one that is used for the entire animation. This may be as intended, but it does mean that you can't have an animation where the flats in the sequence are of different colours and have the glow represent that difference in colour.



As an interesting aside, I also wanted to see what would happen if a flat changed mid game. If the flat changes from a glowing one to a non glowing one, the glow correctly disappears. If the flat was not glowing but it changes to a glowing one, again, correctly the glow appears.

Of further interest was if a sector is changing to a new flat because of a floor raise/lower special that changes the flat to whatever is on the front side of the switch, and the flat being changed to is part of an animation, the switch sector would be using the glow of whichever flat had been in the sector at map initialisation and that's the glow that the target sector will use too.


Anyway, attached is the file where I tested all this. It may prove useful to someone, if nothing to try and make sense of what I just said.

I'm assuming that everything is working as intended but I just wanted to check because the lack of glow changing during animation surprised me.


BTW, this file needs an SVN version of GZdoom. People using the official release can only use the older glow format I think (ie like my last post).

[Rex Claussen]

In its basic format, this will do it

Code: Select all

[/quote]
I tried it out and it worked fine, thanks. Now, a couple of questions:

1. The GLDEFS simply brighten the flat, and don't provide a glow. I'm guessing that's because of a possible hardware deficiency on my part? (Not a real issue, as players with the appropriate hardware will see the glow, while others will see the brightened flat. C'est la vie. 'Sella vee', for you French-speaking folks. Heh.)
2. I'm surprised this code is not easily found in the wiki. Am I missing something?

[Graf Zahl]

All shader-based options are disabled by default. You have to switch them on in the menu. What graphics card do you have?

[Enjay]

Another option could be that the sector where you have the nukage is already quite bright. As the sector light value gets higher, the glow effect gets less and less obvious.

[Rex Claussen]

All shader-based options are disabled by default. You have to switch them on in the menu. What graphics card do you have?

I looked through the menu, and the closest thing I saw of any relevance was the Renderer option (which I have turned to OpenGL). I didn't see anything about shaders. Of course, I'm using the latest official version [v1.2.1 (R309M)/ZDoom 2.3.0 (R1465)], not one of the SVN. Perhaps that may explain things.

I have a Mobility Radeon 9000.

Another option could be that the sector where you have the nukage is already quite bright.

The sector has a relatively low light value (112), and the nukage flat shows bright, but no glow.

[Graf Zahl]

All shader-based options are disabled by default. You have to switch them on in the menu. What graphics card do you have?

I looked through the menu, and the closest thing I saw of any relevance was the Renderer option (which I have turned to OpenGL). I didn't see anything about shaders. Of course, I'm using the latest official version [v1.2.1 (R309M)/ZDoom 2.3.0 (R1465)], not one of the SVN. Perhaps that may explain things.

I have a Mobility Radeon 9000.

The shader menu will be disabled on hardware that does not support them. It seems like your card is too old...

[Rex Claussen]

The shader menu will be disabled on hardware that does not support them. It seems like your card is too old...

Ah, that explains it. No problems, as the glow feature does not affect gameplay in any way.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Enjay]

Shame you can't see it because it's a very pretty effect.





Hmmm... maybe I need to increase the height of those glows a little.

[Rex Claussen]

Shame you can't see it because it's a very pretty effect.

Yes, very nice-looking effects.

Too bad I can't benefit from it on my main computer. I have a more recent desk-top that runs Vista, but I rarely use it (precisely because it uses Vista), except for video editing. At least, however, players that have the appropriate hardware will be able to benefit from the GLDEF I put into the game.