Disco Light

I am looking for a way to add some light FX to a CSS map I am making called fy_lasertag.

I have done a search for Dicso, Disco Lights, and light FX and either the site I go to does not have the link or the link they give is broken.

So I am wondering if any of you have some suggestions for some nice FX I can do to give that Lasertag field feel.

Well, I have an old original HL2 map from way back when that someone made. It's a crappy single player map, but I recall it having this neat disco ball effect (it was a skating ring with zombies moving about it and the theme was: 'Save the Zombies!' It was a big file (58mg) because the guy included all these mp3 songs for the map (he made a brush-based juke-box player with buttons to change the song in the skate ring), but anyhow, in the center at the top there was this huge disco-ball that was just reflecting the nearest cubemap and out of it came three different colors of light that were obviously connected to invisible func_rotators that spun with about 12 point_spotlights (the ones with the halo effect) with their dynamic light turned on (so you could see the lights moving about the skating ring) and the each of the three func_rotators were moving in the opposite direction so it looked very cool. I still have the map (I just got through playing it after searching for it on my old HDD). It's a neat effect but not worth it unless it's a centerpiece in the map you're planning to include it in.

Here's what I would do instead. Build a model with the reflections built in (transparent beams of light gradients fading from the disco ball like reflections. Include sprites so when the player looks at it, they get flashed a little (as it would be spinning) and give it a completely silver finish with a high reflectivity rate for the nearest cubemap. This would be cheaper (B/C you wouldn't have to worry about dynamic lights)

-That's my thought anyway...

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Get me a screen shot RIVEN please.. I need an idea of how to do it.. the model is easy.. the code is the part I am unsure of. Or hey draw me a few pictures and give me a better idea of how to do it. And when I get'er done, I will post it here for everyone to use. I happen to need a nice center piece.. and this may fit the bill nicely.

Alrighty, here are some screenshots from the map itself: Don't make yours look like that one; it looks terrible, but for your model, There really isn't any code required (maybe if you consider the .vmt files code).

But by code I assume you mean, the entity I/O setup in Hammer?
There's really not much to it; it's all self-explanatory. If you want lights to rotate, or in this case, the model to rotate, you can either give it a rotation animation in your modeling package, or parent it to a func_rotator to get it moving. You can use cone shaped polygons in you model to make the light halos instead of actually using point_spotlights like this guy here did in the pictures of the map I posted. -No coding necessary; CSS should be able to do this fine

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

If I make a ball with a reflective texture and aim a light source at it, will it bounce off?

Like so?

http://www.boogiewonderland.com/misc/disco-ball-photo.jpg

Negative;

-That is, there will not be more light in the room because of the reflection. The texture will simply reflect whatever image the cubemap has captured. If the image the cubemap has captured has a lot of bright colors in it, the reflective surface will only project that image and the surface will appear brighter, but it will not bounce the brightness of the image onto other surfaces. That is clearly something radiosity cannot do in BSP levels. You will have to simulate that effect with similar means I've already mentioned...

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202