Revisiting the "Visible Lights Issue"

[Pliny]

As some may have noticed, there's an odd quirk with Blockland lights: You can only see a few at a time. Eksi visited this issue in a topic a couple of months back talking about it, but it didn't revieve much attention, and I'm reposting it here.

http://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=114603.0

This is an oddly hindering aspect of the game because of the fact that it can destroy light-based ambiances, and easily makes builds utilizing many lights suddenly ugly or have obtrusive amounts of flashing. It also doesn't seem to serve much of a reason if it was purposely placed within the game. As stated by Eksi, an increase in the number of lights visible, or an option to increase this number, would be pretty useful and allow for much greater use of ambiance and light effects.

Post opinions and suggestions on the matter here since Eksi's thread is now too old to post in.

In simpler terms: If you have more than seven lights on your screen at once or around you, you will only see the flares of some, while the actual light is not seen.

[Ad Bot]

[alex dude]

Yeah, i'd like it if the ambiance distance could be adjusted by a slider in advanced options, that would do me.

[Reactor Worker]

The argument could be applied to any number of graphical/quality settings in the game.

• Limited number of lights
• No native anti-aliasing
• Highly restricted draw distance
• Limited number of "physics" bricks at a time
• Limited events
• Limited bricks

...and the list goes on. As far as I can tell, all of the above are restricted or none existent because having them causes Badspot considerable support headaches. Players with insufficient hardware trying to run at the top settings complaining of poor performance is not a fun thing to deal with. It is frustrating when those of us with decent hardware are being held back by the "lowest common denominator" but it's just the easiest way for him to reduce user frustrations and support calls.

It annoys me too, but I can't see any major incentive for him to lift these restrictions or add in the additional features.

[alex dude]

Hm, he could make the defaults the lowest possible settings though incase some users hardware cannot support it.

[Pliny]

It is frustrating when those of us with decent hardware are being held back by the "lowest common denominator" but it's just the easiest way for him to reduce user frustrations and support calls.

It annoys me too, but I can't see any major incentive for him to lift these restrictions or add in the additional features.

Maybe it would be a good idea to make the amount of visible lights a preference, making it open to all players. However, it is true that Baddy doesn't have too much of an incentive to increase the number, or to make it a tune-able option at all. Still, it would be good for those who can, and could even make it easier for those who can't.

[Rookie]

I really, really, really, really, REALLY think lights shouldn't be able to travel through walls :c

[Reactor Worker]

I really, really, really, really, REALLY think lights shouldn't be able to travel through walls :c

Well, that is actually the result of a legitimate technical issue. If every brick could cast shadows the game would be much more difficult to run, even for powerful computers. One of the reasons why we can even conceive of being able to use 256,000 bricks is that each has a minimal "cost" to run. Adding shadows, or physics, or other physical properties to every brick is just not an option.

[Rookie]

would some sort of lod system help

[Reactor Worker]

would some sort of lod system help

I doubt it. You can easily get into situations where a distance-based system fails miserably. For instance, what if you had a massive baseplate cube hanging over a city casting a large shadow over it, if you got too far away from the cube but were still in the shadowed part of the city, suddenly the lighting would change for no apparent reason. It'd be as bad as the lights currently disappearing or the fact that bricks appear out of the fog long before the surrounding terrain does.

A more modern engine might make some or all of this possible, but again, there is little incentive for Badspot to drastically alter the game to tailor to the demands of a small constituency of his customers. We've payed our money, and I doubt there are people emailing him saying they won't purchase it due to lack of a certain graphical fidelity setting.

[Rookie]

I doubt it. You can easily get into situations where a distance-based system fails miserably. For instance, what if you had a massive baseplate cube hanging over a city casting a large shadow over it, if you got too far away from the cube but were still in the shadowed part of the city, suddenly the lighting would change for no apparent reason. It'd be as bad as the lights currently disappearing or the fact that bricks appear out of the fog long before the surrounding terrain does.

A more modern engine might make some or all of this possible, but again, there is little incentive for Badspot to drastically alter the game to tailor to the demands of a small constituency of his customers. We've payed our money, and I doubt there are people emailing him saying they won't purchase it due to lack of a certain graphical fidelity setting.

But I mean, if it only colors the bricks lighter and bounces off bricks, followed by updating only once evey 5 seconds would it still be laggy


im just going off logic I have no idea what is possible and what is not

[Pliny]

Back to the topic that was supposed to be at hand.

[Camooninja]

• No native anti-aliasing

Some people prefer anti-aliasing as opposed to antiscopic xWhatever , but I prefer none because, even though my laptop is built to support heavy graphic loads and large programs, it lags it.

[Shocklink]

Fact that it should be an option like how by default you don't download the music files for audio bricks.

If you were an advance user and know what you are doing, you should be givin the option to tweek it the way you want it to be, atleast for single player.

Fact that the majority of nice effects (Like bricks creating shadows) is the limited bandwidth that is available... Maybe in the future when we have a more powerful engine and/or internet speed (Where DSL is considered "dial-up") but till then... Shadows casted by bricks is impossible but the lighting should be an option with default setting on what we have now (Lets say 0%).

[Reactor Worker]

Some people prefer anti-aliasing as opposed to antiscopic xWhatever , but I prefer none because, even though my laptop is built to support heavy graphic loads and large programs, it lags it.

Anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are two very different things. They aren't mutually exclusive, you can use both at the same time if you wish. The point was that Blockland doesn't have a native anti-aliasing option to begin with.

Fact that the majority of nice effects (Like bricks creating shadows) is the limited bandwidth that is available... Maybe in the future when we have a more powerful engine and/or internet speed (Where DSL is considered "dial-up") but till then... Shadows casted by bricks is impossible but the lighting should be an option with default setting on what we have now (Lets say 0%).

If bricks were to cast shadows, it would be handled by the client just like all rendering tasks. It isn't limited by bandwidth, it's limited by the processing power of the players' computers.

[Jubel]

I covered a 16x16 with 1x1's with lights before.
They all lit up.

(I did this because fakekilling.)