I was wondering, will lighting eventually be implamented into CC at some point? It could add more diversity to the gameplay and depth to visuals, such as solid materials or charactors would cast shadows on the environment, dark underground caves (unless lit) or in a bunker where the power is cut or the lights are switched off.

I know, if solid materials block light, that would mean that sedements of rock or soil deeper down the grounds' surface area wouldn't be able to be seen, but perhaps there could be some kind of resonance mapping drone which the player can buy in order to map the geometory or materials which lay deeper down; or that close backgrounds or surface areas would be the only thing which applies to lighting.

In unlit bunkers or dark caves, a robot could navigate it with nightvision or be able to spot enemies hiding in the dark; as an additional gameplay feature that could also be used for tactics or strategy. Perhaps some actors/characters wouldn't posess nightvision, instead factions like Ronin or the Browncoats would need flashlights instead to see in dark places.
However, using nightvision could have disadvantages aswell, such as bright places appearing virtually unintelligible. Or, using nightvision can give the charactor away to the enemy who would see two green eyes glowing in the dark.

As an alternative to nightvision, some charactors would also posess thermal vision, but which has a limited field of view (or range). The Ronin would display a very explicit heat signature, while the browncoats would have no heat signature due to their insulated suits, but no heat or thermal vision either and can equally stand out in contrast to a warmer background as a cold blue blob or silhouette (allthough not as easily). And some would instead have a much smaller or feinter heat point, such as the Dummies who would only have a warm spot or areas in their torso and head.

Thermal vision could also be useful for seeing through walls or objects aswell.

Being able to install lights in caves for mining or excavation might also be an interesting feature.

I don't know if this has been considered or is planned for a future release, but I think it would make the gameplay more interesting and dynamic if implamented.

If not, has this been suggested before? Might be worth mentioning to Data about it.

The idea is a good one, and would add a lovely new depth to gameplay, but there are a couple issues with it.

First, altering the perception of the player is a little odd in third-person games. In example, the thermal visor from Metroid Prime was awesome, but would look odd on any of the 2D Metroid games. The same applies here; would your screen suddenly change drastically if you switch to a character with different vision than the previous one? Wouldn't that become wholly disorienting?

The other issue is that Cortex Command is not necessarily a game about depth, except in the most literal sense. Especially considering how much trouble it has processing what it already has, it would be a bit much to have to calculate light sources, shadows, and all the changes that different visor systems or whatever would bring to that.

Pardon my waist-high wall of text.

Nono, I didn't mean the lighting would be subjective to the actor; unless the charactor you're switching from or to is using nightvision, if you siwtched to a charactor which isn't, all it would do is turn it off nightvision mode for your view, but the charactor you left would still be able to see in the dark.



Well, the game isn't finished yet; I don't think the game is properly optimised at this point (not that it's that bad for me right now anyway).

Also, adding it to the literal sense of things is sortof what I meant, I wasn't suggesting to make the game more complicated in that manner, but to integrate it in uniform with its' current concept, without changing or distorting the nature of it.

I really doubt this will happen, mostly because CC's engine really isn't built to deal with this kind of thing. The closest thing you'll be getting to it is the fog of war that Data has said he's implementing.

What about sprite/fake lighting instead then? As in, when a certain translucent sprite is placed somewhere, acts like a window and reveals something in a dark area?

Translucent sprites, aside from glows, aren't really possible. The engine is built to use 8-bit, opaque sprites.

I kindof meant, an invisible sprite which when placed against a dark area, would reveal whatever is there. Let's say the darkness is simply another black sprite or a cover to appear in the foreground, then the area which the light making sprite would cover would act like a window in order to see through that cover, with slight blurrs around the egdes.

Well, in theory, the fog of war will have a function to disperse it (as hinted by this), so it will likely be possible to imitate something like that.

i think transparency is possible for mosrs.
There must be some basic transparency support in the engine, just look at the bunker placer mode, note that the bunker bits/actors you place are semitransparent.

That's hardcoded in the game, and also notice that the transparency still makes use of the same palette as normal CC stuff. That means that if you were to use a lighting gradient, it would look really bad. The only way around that is for Data to code an entirely new part of the engine, and well... I just don't see that happening.

you sure he couldn't add something like 'istransparent = 1' to .ini modding that refrenced the hardcoded effect and applied it to an object.[FKINGSHIFTKEYISBROKENAGAINRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHIFKINGHATETOSHIBA]
if not for lighting, just for the sake of having some basic transparency on actors. even without adjustable levels of transparency, making something have that effect could be very useful.

I'm sure he could, but again, I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Speaking of transparency, that reminds me that I also thought of making a windows for some rooms in one of my maps showing the background.

I also wanted to add lenseflares to it, or some kind of hazy directional spotlight outside of the base/bunker in my map. Would transparency be needed for that?

lenseflares might be acheved via lua trickery, and you could make a bunkermodule with a hole in the middle of it in the shape of a window, and a aemitter that spawns a faint glow in the shape of the window. this might lag some, however.

Windows are easy to accomplish if you just leave the MAT file purple where you want it to be. Of course, it's either opaque or fully transparent, but a little trickery can fix that.
A spotlight is harder, but with a whole lot of Lua you could pull it off. It's a matter of using glows. You'd have to limit its size, though.