Lighting script preference?

[mlogan]

Hey, just curious if anyone has any preferences on lighting scripts? There seem to be a few main ones - Victor, Khas, Lanthanum. They all look like gibberish to me at this point  so I was wondering what those of you who've tried them thought and if you have a personal preference.

 

[Galenmereth]

Personally I tried all of those you listed a long time ago—and some others—and Victor's came out on top because it worked the best. Especially since his fog script plays nice with his light script, which was really important to me. But performance wise, usability wise—how easy it is to actually use with notetags, and how customizable it is through those,—and code structure wise, Victor's was also a clear winner in my opinion.

 

[??????]

How could you not have made my uber basic pokemon style flash lighting script && character lanterns script thats fully compatible with all lighting systems - even non RPG Maker ones (ok that bit is a lie)

http://dekitarpg.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/d13x-flash-style-light/

http://dekitarpg.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/d13x-character-lanterns/

 

[mlogan]

They're not on the master script list.

 

[??????]

lol thats cause I have better things to do than update the master script list lol. 

Anyway, I like Khas Awesome Lights the most. Only works well on a good cpu though, otherwise you will lag like crap : /

 

[Matseb2611]

I've used Khas' one in a couple of games and it worked out really well and gives a very realistic lighting effect. I also tried Victor's one, though I spent ages trying to get it to work and couldn't really achieve what I wanted with it, so in terms of user-friendliness I'd go with Khas' one personally. To be honest neither of them are user-friendly, but I managed to figure out Khas' one because he has a demo, so you can always check that and see what he did there to get things to work a certain way. I don't think Victor's one had a demo (though I could be wrong), so it might be harder to figure out if you're not a scripter yourself. And I've never tried that third one you mentioned, so can't comment on that.

Overall though, lighting scripts seem to often give problems with lag (as Dekita mentioned above) as they are somewhat demanding on the system, so it's worth considering in case you want the players with weaker machines to be able to play your game.

 

[??????]

Khas lights are the most demanding imo. Due to the way it works - making all the shadows and such, it uses alot more than normal lighting scripts would. :/

Great script though

 

[cabfe]

If the lighting is static (torches mounted on walls etc) I prefer to make it with Gimp.

My CPU is so old that using a lighting script often kills my framerate, especially Khas' script

Pictures can also be used for dynamic sources, but will require a little more work.

In the end, this looks better (in my opinion) and adds almost no lag to the game.

I'm not convinced of lighting scripts but maybe I'm too used to making my own lighting since my 3DStudio days.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

The only ones I tried was Khas and mines (Lanthanum), and mainly it was because Khas' script was doing a lot more than what I need and also doesn't quite do some things that I need that led me to making my own... Anyway, afaik, Khas' doesn't have a "frame skip" option for the lighting updates + it has dynamic shadows which I think also updates always so it can really cause lags... so I placed a frame skip option on mine to ease the lag...

never got to try Victor's cause I rarely use his scripts

and oh well, dynamic lighting in RM as far as I'm concerned does really take quite a lot of processing power coz of the base methodology to make it work

My suggestion is that unless you need dynamic ambient lighting and dynamic lights, it might be better to just stay away from these scripts, performance wise.

 

[Galenmereth]

Victor's isn't dynamic—there are no fancy shadows drawn or any of that—but it's a lot easier than making lighted areas and darkness as images and overlaying it. It's also very performant, even on slow cpu's from what I've found. Here's an example of what I use Victor's Fog + Light to achieve, which is as simple as adding a notetag to the map (for the darkness) and notetags to the events that should have lights:

 

[cabfe]

Yes, for simple lights it's certainly easier to set up a notetag or whatever system rather than creating an overlay.

And it's also easier to modify if you change the layout of the map later.

But script lights don't stop at walls, which can look strange if you have light sources near a wall.

That's why I use overlays. Unless there is an "intelligent" script that can do that:

Really, if this exists it would save me quite some time   

 

[??????]

Khas lights recognizes what a wall is and that light cannot pass through it..

 

[cabfe]

At a tremendous cost...

 

[??????]

^ [ like ]

(I have reached my quota of positive votes for the day :/)

Yep, at a HUGE cost.

 

[Galenmereth]

Yeah, that's the reason I went with Victor's—I wouldn't mind that kind of "dynamic" shadows, but the cost is too great. I also worked around the whole "light through walls" issue by making light graphics that are cut off at the sides, so that I can have light shining from unseen fixtures on left/right/bottom walls without the light shining on top of said wall

One script I want to make in the future is a "baked" light script. So that you can have shadows and lights be aware of walls from light fixtures but not calculate it during runtime, and instead layer it on top as a static filter which is calculated and pre-rendered during game testing/compiling. I'd still want realtime calculations for movable lights, but I believe the performance cost could be cut quite drastically by prebaking all other light sources.

 

[mlogan]

Okay, so a couple of more questions kinda sorta related. (And thanks for all of the input so far.)

First off, I really only have one map I want to use it on. Most of my areas are very brightly mapped areas, intended to be bright, so it doesn't seem to need lighting effects.

One map is an underground area, this is really where I wanted to use the lighting script. Would you find it weird to not be used consistently through the game or would you understand that this is a darker area?

Is it worth it to mess with a script for just one map? Also, it seems like since I have a simple need perhaps Victor's might be best if I do? (It's just some lights on the wall, nothing fancy.)

And really, I normally don't feel the need for lighting scripts, I think I'm partly feeling like my maps are a bit substandard compared to ones with lighting and that it needs it to feel more polished. Maybe I', just being insecure?

 

[Galenmereth]

Would you find it weird to not be used consistently through the game or would you understand that this is a darker area?

As long as it's consistently used in darker areas, I wouldn't find it weird. I use the light effects mostly like that myself: in dark indoor areas—like pubs, heh—and caves. I do use some fog overlays for "clouds" and such outdoors, but no light effects.

Is it worth it to mess with a script for just one map? Also, it seems like since I have a simple need perhaps Victor's might be best if I do? (It's just some lights on the wall, nothing fancy.)

And really, I normally don't feel the need for lighting scripts, I think I'm partly feeling like my maps are a bit substandard compared to ones with lighting and that it needs it to feel more polished. Maybe I', just being insecure?

Keep in mind that Victor's scripts require a commercial license, which might affect how you feel about using them for just one map. Other than that, I would say Victor's would be the best choice.

As for needing it, that's a difficult question. Since you're only using it for one map, it's all about what you feel like in terms of mood and overall game feel. Personally, I have no issue with caves without any light effects in them

 

[cabfe]

For a single map and fixed light sources, maybe an event displaying a semi-transparent glow would be enough?

 

[Kes]

Following on from cabfe, Busted Ed has a tutorial for doing that, and the demo includes all the graphics for it as well.  Whether you use that or something else, I personally think that an evented system is going to be all you need, as it is just one map.

 

[mlogan]

Great idea! I think I'll try that for now and see how much lag it causes - hopefully not too much.