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Point LIghts

Alphazero Sugar
Noob Tube
Join date: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 60
04-20-2006 11:12
The new lighting system in the preview grid sounds great.

I was wondering, do the lights behave only as point lights?
Any chance of a cone or barndoor light rig?

Will there be script methods to turn the lights on and off?

Many gracias,
A0
Torley Linden
Enlightenment!
Join date: 15 Sep 2004
Posts: 16,530
04-20-2006 16:54
Hopefully, Alphazero, you have already had an opportunity to play with the new lighting system for yourself! I don't know a way to shape the lights into cones (would be nice for car headlights and flashlights etc.) or other forms as you ask... and scriptable lighting is something that's been asked a lot by Residents this week!
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Torley Linden
Enlightenment!
Join date: 15 Sep 2004
Posts: 16,530
04-20-2006 16:57
And here is more info from Steve Linden about scriptable lights:

From: someone
Relax everyone.

1. Scripting for lights will be in the next preview release. They use the llSetPrimitiveParams call with the following format (official documentation will be available soon):

llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_POINT_LIGHT, bool Enable, vector Color, float Intensity, float Radius, float Falloff]);

2. I do apologize for breaking the old scripts but it could not be helped. We did take pains to make sure that old scripts still make the old lights fully bright (or not), they just don't cast light any more. Keep in mind that less than 1% of the residents currently have local lighting enabled, so the behavior won't be changed for the majority of the residents.

3. I will make sure this is in the documentation, but in case anyone is eager to start writing scripts now, it is much cheaper to change the Intensity and Falloff values of a light than the Enabled state or Radius, so the best way to turn a light on/off is to set its Intensity to 1/0.

The next preview release should be available this evening (Thursday, 4/20).

Enjoy.

-Steve


Source

I'll ask him about the point lights.
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Steve Linden
Linden Lab Employee
Join date: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 23
04-20-2006 17:16
There are no immediate plans to include spot lights or other types of lights because they are still expensive to calculate for a large percentage of our users' hardware. We may add them in the distant future, but for now the best way to approximate a spot light is to create a translucent cone linked with a tiny light (but with a light radius matching that of the cone), centered partway between the base and the end of the cone. I'm not familiar with what a "barndoor" light rig is, but area lights can be approximated with several small point lights.