GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[MRKane]

Gidday everyone

I've been mucking around with a map I was building and was looking at some Verandas and crates I had strewn around a section of the level (intended as a "player covers NPC while he makes his escape" section) and was thinking that what would really make it pop would be some good shadows.

So I've seen secondaries being used as shadows throughout Goldeneye and Perfect Dark and started mucking around with that as an approach - but again it's just not quite enough as they end up very sharp. So with the background explained I'd like to have a way to do shadows with a nice penumbra gradient making it look "softer".

My thought on that was having a texture with a gradual alpha on it, and then mapping that texture to "construct" said shadows. Can Perfect Dark do "alpha gradients" and if so what's the trick to it?

Cheers!
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No Mr. Bond, I expect you to be re-coded!

[pavarini]

The method you describe is exactly how the vent shadow in Dam was done (secondary with texture 04FD). I believe PD can do alpha gradients using vertex coloring.

[Wreck]

Hmm, could you not just affect the alpha set on the shadow vertices (or opacity, if you call it that)? Like the ones attached to the object (crate, railing) be more full (say BF), and the ones further away be lower (say 3F or even 00 for fade out)? Been a while since I last played around, and that may have been on Island.

[pavarini]

I don't think GE supports gradient alpha, you have to use a grayscaled texture with alpha to do such an effect.

Last edited by pavarini on Sun Jul 15, 2018 3:46 pm; edited 2 times in total

[SubDrag]

I'm sure you can do something like that. Maybe check out Carrington Institute, that does some top flag like crazy.

[MRKane]

Whelp, as it turns out much of the methods used in PD seem to either be beyond my level of determination (Blender cannot paint vertex alphas) or just simple sharp-cut shadows.

I did experiment with an alpha edged image and tried to keep the resolution low so the engine image-stretching created a "gradient" but wasn't happy with the results to simply broke out the knife tool and had at it.



It'll do. I'm not making a masterpiece, I'm just milling out levels. It's also a rabbit warren however - as once you start adding shadows you realize that the rest of the level is lacking them. Of course it'd also be cool to have a grand piano, and particle effects, and...wait...is that a hole in the mountain? Gawdamnit.

Cheers guys!
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No Mr. Bond, I expect you to be re-coded!

[Lazlo52]

Apparently, the Visual Editor has a lighting mode that can do the vertex shading for you. Or something. I don't really know, I could never figure out how it works. I heard it was invented so the huge Goldfinger 64 backgrounds could be lighted with less manual labour.
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[MRKane]

Funny you should mention that Lazlo52 - I worked with Sub to write much of the math handling the lighting Aaannnndddd I've no idea how to use it either! lol

I wonder if it would be able to speed up the production cycle of the maps I've been working on - so far it's been a month and a half and I've got two basics made but not populated with a mission. I'll bug people about that later
_________________
No Mr. Bond, I expect you to be re-coded!