Black Hole

[FiringSquad]

How about an area that is pitch black once you enter it, but will light up if it contains an active bullet.
Bullets allow you to see for as long as they last, but you have to watch out for ricos.
Radar only works when there is an active bullet in the region.
Your radar can't see in from outside and once inside you can't see outside (unless you have the seer flag).
It could add an element of sneaking and also provide interesting places to hide flags.

What do you think?

[F687/s]

> How about an area that is pitch black once you enter it,
> but will light up if it contains an active bullet.

As what? A zone, flag, plugin?

One concern of mine is how much would need to be rewired in order for this to work. An easy way to do this would be to make an area completely boxed-in with black walls; however, nearly all world objects give off light which kinda ruins the effect (IIRC). And you can't turn off object lighting for a map (the same reason why light sources as world objects have been shot down).

As for the other things (such as radar limits), it might be possible to pseudo-pull these off if you made the black holes as separate "maps" (like Spazzy did in one of his maps), but the real challenge would be pulling it off without it looking cheesy.

[flying_popcorn]

And you can't turn off object lighting for a map

You can put nolighting in a material

[optic delusion]

I have a half-finished map that I call "The Hole of Justice"
If anybody wants to work on it, send me a message, I'll send you the map.

I looks really wild with spheremap texturing.

[JeffM]

The bzflag graphics system does not support volumetric lighting or shadows.

[FiringSquad]

I wasn't thinking of anything that complex.
Just a drive-through (and optionally shoot-through) box, that once inside, your screen goes black.
If you shoot then you can see, for as long as the bullet exists inside the box.
If any bullet is inside this box then you can see normally.
Once inside you are hidden from radar but your radar is limited to the confines of the box.
If you have the seer flag, then the box has no effect for you, but you are still hidden from radar for anyone outside the box.
From outside, it would look like a solid black box.

As an option the opacity of the box could be configured so that a completely transparent box would allow you to see while inside but you would still be invisible to radar and your radar could not see outside.
50% opacity would mean that your screen goes 50% darker when inside.

Think of it like a stealth-box. Radar cannot penetrate it, but if you are inside you can see within the box.

Other than the radar restriction and the screen darkening, the functionality should already be in the client (i.e. Stealth & Invisible bullets)

I think it could add a new level of playability to BZFlag.

I don't imagine it would be that difficult to implement, though I could be wrong, not having tried to implement anything yet.

If others found the idea interesting and if there is enough time to implement it before the next client release then I will try implementing it myself.

So, does anyone else think it might be interesting?
How much time would I have to get it working in order to have it included in the next major client release?

[??? Lauria]

You could just screw around with teleports to get a similar effect. Make teleports around the area, and go to corresponding teleports in a completely different area that are inside a dark-surfaced environment.

Done correctly, it would make it seem like you haven't even gone anywhere, just a different area of the map activated.

[JeffM]

FiringSquad
what you are describing is a VOLUME ( the box) that has a visual effect in it. That would be volumetric lighting. I know it sounds easy when you describe it, but with the way 3d graphics work, it is not trivial.