Flickering light

I'm trying to make a light that will randomly turn on and off, or flicker (if used with a fast timer), but I can't find out how to change the "Full Bright" setting of a prim on and off.

Unless someone has a better idea?

Lewis

wiki and llSetPrimitiveParams()

Bear in mind that llSetPrimitiveParams() has a built-in script delay of 0.2 seconds, so very rapid flickering may not be possible with this function. You may also be able to use things like texture animation or changing the alpha or colour of the objects to get the desired effect as well, since I don't believe they're delayed.

Texture swapping just doesn't seem to work as they aren't cached properly, and there's no way to pre-load the textures like you can sound.

I guess a colour tint of white > grey > white might do the job.

Lewis

you might want to try the effect rotating a texture.. cros 2 prims or more and set them up might have the result you want

I'm curious about this comment.

Once the client loads a texture, I see no problems when "swapping" textures quickly. Additionally, how is this much different than using llSetTextureAnim?

I'm interested to find out if others think Lewis' statement is accurate

Well, llSetTextureAnim() is all done client-side, which doesn't force updates like actually changing the texture with llSetTexture() does. I haven't tried rapid calls to llSetTexture() before.

According to the wiki llSetTexture carries a 0.2s sleep penalty, llOffsetTexture too - so there's that delay. But if I'm looking at a object once it's loaded all its textures I can flick them around quite happily at the limit of that speed.

But yes, if you're aiming at more than 5 flicks a second then setting up a texture anim might be the only way. Adjusting them is a PITA if you want to be able to alter the timings genuinely at random.

llSetPrimitiveParams( [PRIM_FULLBRIGHT, ALL_SIDES, TRUE] ); // full bright on
llSetPrimitiveParams( [PRIM_FULLBRIGHT, ALL_SIDES, FALSE] ); // full bright off

can replace ALL_SIDES with specific face, if/when necessary.


You could probably do it by dividing your texture in smaller areas, painting both 'off' and 'on' colour on it (or maybe even use gradients to cram number of flicks/colour changes into single texture) ... then switch between areas by adjusting UV parameters.

Actually, I've had success with preloading textures... Just bury a small prim inside your object and set each side of it to a different one of the textures you intend to preload. Or, with the hud you can make the sides/backs/anywhere that's not visible when attached have your preloading textures. Even though you don't really see it, if you've got it on your hud or are close enough to the object, should work...

I had a dancefloor, which basically randomly dragged one of twelve textures (different light patterns) out of itself to display on the top surface. The texture wouldn't just flip, I'd get the grey box and then a fuzzy rendition before the texture appeared... just before it disappeared again whilst the next one was loaded.

Lewis

depending on what exact light style you are looking for you can get a good flicker with particles, on, off, and double bright (2+ stacked on top of each other).

Is the dancefloor one prim or several?

I suspect the problem is that with 12 textures you've got quite a long run time before all 12 textures have been loaded, and depending on your cache size, SL etc. you might have lost one by the time it comes around again, especially if it's busy. This will be especially true if you've got big textures.

There are two solutions to this - one is to make a 2 prim floor if it's currently only 1 prim. Make one a hollow cut cube (that gives you 9 faces and should be hidden), the main floor prim then has 3 hidden faces (more, but you only need three). Set the 12 hidden faces to each of the 12 textures, then load the relevant one onto the top surface so the textures are all preloaded. This will kill most clients unless your textures are nice and small - they'll have to load an extra load of textures and in clubs there are usually a LOT of other textures around, clothes, skins, etc...

The other, which will also encourage you to use smaller textures - make one floor texture. 12 nicely divides up into a 4X3 grid, or 6X2, and use llOffsetTexture to move the texture around so it displays nicely. I *think* although I've not tested it, that 4X3 will work better in terms of less risk of bleeding across.