Lightning Anyone?

After a long time of off-and-on development, I finaly have a functional, decent looking(IMHO) lightning effect for the Torque Shader Engine bounty packaged and submitted! It's taken about 5 major code reversions to get the current system. I experimented with more than a few object setups and rendering methods untill I came up with something solid enough for a general solution.


Currently the lightning is lacking some important features(such as SM 1.x support), but I think it's ready to be used. I've uploaded an initial version that can be dropped right into a TSE HEAD build. The download can be found on the TSE Lightning Bounty page. I'm waiting on some feedback from GarageGames and from the community before starting the next level of development.

More screenshots:
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static.flickr.com/91/260032608_aab82b507e_o.png
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From the lightning.h source file:

Quote:
The new lightning system uses a 2 datablock setup; one to define
a certain type of lightning strike, the other to define an actual
lightning object (or storm). I chose to go with this route as it
allows for mixing and matching of strikes and sounds (and other data)
inbetween different lightning object datablocks. It also allows for
for more control over a specific type of strike, and supports upto
eight different lightning strike types in a single object/storm instance.

Lightning objects themselves are SceneObjects that can now be placed
and moved anywhere in the map. The lightning strikes inside of the
object's scaled bounding box, so it can be confined to certain sections
of terrain, or even inside interiors. If need be, an option to use the
mission area as the strike zone could be added.

Lightning strikes are rendered via static vertex buffers(one buffer for each strike) that are built and filled when a strike is created. All information the strike needs is stored in the vertex buffer and is used by a custom shader. This includes: bolt size/width, power(or intensity), and life cycle times. Indexing is not used as it poses complications, so drawPrimitive is called for every lightning bolt/split tri-strip segment. Using triangle lists might produce better performance, but I haven't tested that yet.

I ask any TSE owners to go check out the code and post your comments here, on the bounty page, or in the forums.