Thriller light beam ? Plz help

[[NER-BNL]Veteran]

Does anyone know how to make a light beam go on and off , like in those thriller movie.

// Scene is a dark hallway in a mental institution

Someone please help, or point me to a tut.

Greetz Veti (Mapping noob)

[lizardkid]

give your light a key/value of

targetname/flickerLight

and put this into notepad

Code: Select all

main:

// misc DM stuff and other junk that needs to be included

level waittill spawn

level.flickerThatLight = 1
thread flickeringLight

end

flickeringLight:

while(level.flickerThatLight == 1)
{
wait 15
$flickerLight hide
wait .3
$flickerLight show
wait 2
$flickerLight hide
wait .3
$flickerLight show
wait .5
$flickerLight hide
wait 5
$flickerlight hide
wait .5
$flickerLight show
}

end

save it as the same name as your map with a .scr extension instead. (say your map's name is myMap.map, save this as myMap.scr) and put it with the map after you've compiled

this is a pretty smple bit of code, hide makes it disappear, show makes it appear. it's a really cool effect though, when applied indoors.

mess with those wait values (wait 5) to get the light flickering just like you want it, i used those for an electric light in a dark garrison once. it had a cool effect in the building, but the model's shading looked awful, so use wisely.

[wacko]

I would recommend adding a corona to make it more realistic.
Then, I couldn't make a light entity hide or show ingame.
But:
u can add to ur map a script_origin and make it light in the script. This light though will be visible on the backsides of walls it shines on
If u don't care, then here we go:
Add a light bulb.
Add a script_origin where u want the light to be. Give it model : fx/dummy.tik and targetname : fx_light_01
Add another script_origin where u want the corona to be. Give it model : static/corona_reg.tik and targetname : fx_light_01 and imho scale : 0.5
In ur script something like

Code: Select all

main: 
// misc DM stuff and other junk that needs to be included 
level waittill spawn 
thread flickeringLight 
end 

flickeringLight: 
while(1) 
{ 
	wait (randomfloat 2)
	$fx_light_01 light 1 1 1 (randomfloat 100+300)
 	$fx_corona_01 show 
	wait (randomfloat 2) 
	$fx_light_01 light 1 1 1 0 //R(0-1) G(0-1) B(0-1) Radius
	$fx_corona_01 hide 
} 
end

Here's this stuff (map+scr) in a zip

Dunno what the randomize parameters do (well, change the values, but how exactly) and I was too lazy to find out.

[[NER-BNL]Veteran]

Thanx wacko, gonna try it out right away!!!

Greetz Veti

[Elgan]

isnt (randomfloat 100+300) the same as (randomfloat 400):S

and flloat

[wacko]

isnt (randomfloat 100+300) the same as (randomfloat 400):S

and flloat

if I only knew i think it does a random number between 300 and 400 or 200 and 400 or dunno. then, there's 'randomint 300 100' which imho does from 300 to 400.
But this is rather embarrassing, cauz prob there are more who know than who don't. All I know is that 'randomflow max' and 'randomint max' return a value between 0 and max and 'randomfloat a b' does something else

[bdbodger]

isnt (randomfloat 100+300) the same as (randomfloat 400):S

and flloat

(randomfloat 100 + 300) is every number between 300 and 399 , randomfloat 400 is every number between 0 and 399 and randomfloat (100 + 300) is the same as randomfloat 400 isn't it ?

[Elgan]

isnt (randomfloat 100+300) the same as (randomfloat 400):S

and flloat

(randomfloat 100 + 300) is every number between 300 and 399 , randomfloat 400 is every number between 0 and 399 and randomfloat (100 + 300) is the same as randomfloat 400 isn't it ?

i guess that wud make sense. didnt know that you could set a min and a max using +:S

[wacko]

sounds good, yes. thnx Bd

So:
randomint and randomfloat do the same but randomint can just handle integers?!
and
randomint (value) gives a result of between 0 and (value)
randomint (value) + anothervalue obviously (now ) a result between (0 + anothervalue) and (value + anothervalue). So it's not a special min and max parameter, but rather simple mathematics, like anynumber + 5 is more than 5 and less than anynumber + 6.

Any objections or coments?

[bdbodger]

not sure how many digits randomfloat goes to 4 maybe ? 300.0000 to 399.9999 ?

[[NER-BNL]Veteran]

This is how i'm sitting behind my comp right now....
Tried the lightbeam tut.. made the texture, but it shows up as a black and blue squared texture... I'm i missing something or... i'm i just being blond again..?

Got a problem with the compiler also... When i compile it starts up mohaa, but console opens, and it reads CAN'T FIND LOCALISATION ENTRY... and COULDN"T LOAD thriller.bsp

(couldn't make a screenie , sinds i haven't got I-net at the moment )

[wacko]

I presume u see black/blue squares in radiant!?

what did u call ur texture, where did u put it?
what is in ur shader file?

[[NER-BNL]Veteran]

shader text was a copy past of your tut, and named the textures the same.. Just put it in my_textures instead of beam... but made only those changes in the text of the shader that reffered to ....\textures\beam

and yes it shows up in black/blue in radiant...

Can't test the map ... cause he can't find the .bsp of my map.... Mbuilder doesn't create it or something

[wacko]

So, u're shader looks like:

Code: Select all

textures/my_textures/beamfade
{ 
qer_editorimage textures/my_textures/beamfade.tga 
qer_keyword utility 
qer_trans .4 
surfaceparm nolightmap 
surfaceparm nonsolid 
surfaceparm trans 
cull none 
sort additive 
{
map textures/my_textures/beamdust.tga 
blendFunc add 
tcMod scroll 0.05 0 
tcMod scale 1 1
nextbundle
map textures/my_textures/beamfade.tga 
}
}

The tga files are 24bit and in mohaa/main/textures/my_textures/beamdust.tga and mohaa/main/textures/my_textures/beamfade.tga

plz check this (typo?)


then 'bout mbuilder.
it does show the map in the map list (lower right)? Then it has found it. Open the 'other options' and check the 'Pause after...'. U will now be able to read what it did in e.g. the bsp stage. There's probably a leak in ur map u'd have to fix first.

[[NER-BNL]Veteran]

oke i'll check it... but even with the simple room it didn't work..
paths are set correctly...

Could it be that i got a soundfix from Wombat installed, my some of my sounds dissappeared after dl'ing a map... used the wombat soundfix to fix it..