Jump to content

Geospace enhancement : Night city lights


Recommended Posts

Hi

In order to make the world more of a 'living' thing would it be possible to make the cities light up in the "night".

It would be best if it would fade in and fade out according to time

It would only need to be somewhat visible, not to interfere with UI, but just enough to make it feel that something changes.

And possibly scale with years and population increase, unless aliens kill too many humans.

If it is not possible for release, could it be a mod?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi

In order to make the world more of a 'living' thing would it be possible to make the cities light up in the "night".

It would be best if it would fade in and fade out according to time

It would only need to be somewhat visible, not to interfere with UI, but just enough to make it feel that something changes.

And possibly scale with years and population increase, unless aliens kill too many humans.

If it is not possible for release, could it be a mod?

Bloody hell, what an idea. This would be awesome!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it would be impossible to mod (modding Xenonauts will have to be done almost entirely though xml editing and I don't think you could add that without going into the core code.) and from what I've been told about the engine it could be a slight bit more then a simple task or it could be impossible.

Right now its a static image with a transparent shadow sweeping over it. The night lights would require altering the static image as the shadow passes over it. And I have been led to believe the engine can't handle that.

PS: wonder if this has been brought up before?

Hmm could only find this thread: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/1092-Geoscape-Add-Seasonal-Changes-Of-Light.?highlight=geoscape+night

Edited by Gorlom
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Couldn't the lights be another transparent layer that moves across the Geoscape in sync with the shadow? It'd be a real shame if this isn't implemented, the current Geoscape is missing something, and I think this may be it. Would give a real feeling of life to the geoscape.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chris is in a difficult position. As the producer of Xenonauts it's his job to prevent too much feature creep. He has to see the game feature complete from the original design document before he can really start adding new things. Those new things he is most likely to add are those things that X-Com had, or UI updates that improve usability. But for something cosmetic like night-lights, those things are way down the list in comparison to getting an effective suppression mechanic or bleeding mechanic working.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Couldn't the lights be another transparent layer that moves across the Geoscape in sync with the shadow? It'd be a real shame if this isn't implemented, the current Geoscape is missing something, and I think this may be it. Would give a real feeling of life to the geoscape.

That would be how I do it and probably the simplist way of doing it in my mind, as you're essentially just reusing existing code.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought thats common sense you have to have lights on during the night... Look at UFO Cydonias Fall before it was canceled. They had a great concept and design of the night lights in the geoscape, make me wanna cry now lmao!

Its a real shame we wont have the lights at night. thats what I meant by realistic in the other thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Couldn't the lights be another transparent layer that moves across the Geoscape in sync with the shadow? It'd be a real shame if this isn't implemented, the current Geoscape is missing something, and I think this may be it. Would give a real feeling of life to the geoscape.

I'm having trouble imagining how that would work without having the lights sweep across the ocean in a very confusing way.

I'm probably misunderstanding you but, the engine cant draw new stuff on the fly which means the lights has to be there somehow... which doesn't really work with the sweeping image.

Goldhawk is right now having trouble with showing units behind walls so I'm assuming making things transparant in the geoscape is going to be just as difficult. Perhaps even more so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought thats common sense you have to have lights on during the night... Look at UFO Cydonias Fall before it was canceled. They had a great concept and design of the night lights in the geoscape, make me wanna cry now lmao!

Lights are typically kept off during wartime to make bombing more difficult so...I dunno, use your imagination. :P

Better yet, think of the geoscape as a strategic display in the Xenonauts HQ (which it pretty much is anyway). Showing the distribution of artificial lighting isn't exactly a needed feature for a device like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It has been suggested a few times now, at least two threads that I can think of.

It would be possible to do but I reckon it wouldn't be high on the nice to have list because it is a purely cosmetic thing.

If it is easy to do though then Chris does have a habit of slipping these little details in when he can though.

For example if the two images can be displayed together then the night arc can be an alpha channel, to allow the night time one to show through the day time image.

It could look a bit messy and cluttered which in turn may make it harder to see what is going on, would need to see the image to decide on that.

The other thing is that the night time lighting would need to reflect the 1979 cities rather than the current city sizes.

I don't know if there are good quality satellite images (as good as the current geoscape) of night images from that era, never taken the time to look for them!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...