[Solved kind of] Sun Glare

empirepro · Post by **empirepro** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:52 am

How would I go about producing sun glare? You would be flying around in 3D space so the sun's location wouldn't always be in the same location like it is in some land based games. I am guessing you would use billboards with a alpha texture but how about the location problem? Thanks for any help you can provide!

Edit: I found a lens flare scene node however I am having problems getting it to work.

JP · Post by JP » Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:46 am

sun glare as in a lens flare? or a halo around the sun?

someone did a lens flare scene node before so you can probably search for it, i don't know if source was provided but they may have explained it.

a halo would be done with a glow shader perhaps.

what do you mean about the location problem? what is the problem, can you explain a bit better?

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:55 am

That technique is commonly (by which I mean always) called "lens flare". Here's your free search result; if that doesn't do what you want, then the search function will provide alternatives.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:58 am

Oh, you've already found it. It's customary to re-title your posts with [solved] once you've figured something out, so that people don't waste their time helping you. It's not a bottomless well.

torleif · Post by **torleif** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:01 pm

I just fixed up LensFlareSceneNode for irrlicht 1.4.1 and put it in a zip to make it easier to use. Copy it to your code and read readme.txt

You can download the camera flare for irrlicht here (ZIP, 11.4 KB)

JP · Post by JP » Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:10 pm

Nice one, maybe this can go in IrrExt!

kornwaretm · Post by **kornwaretm** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:04 pm

lens flare != sun glare
when sun light hit clouds, some of the light energy will be absorb by the cloud.
It makes the clouds looks brighter, and the sun looks so glaring.

I think its about making post processing shader effect.

pera · Post by **pera** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:51 am

my friend was always frustrated by lens flare effect in games, he said it was caused by imperfection of camera lenses, you dont see it when you look around with your eyes, and when you play the game, your character generally dont go around with camera on his face. so how about that?

torleif · Post by **torleif** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:16 am

You're right pera.

However, it depends if your game is in first person perspective. If the character is looking using eyes, you shouldn't use camera flare. There are exceptions, such as air craft simulators where sun blindness is a real factor. It can be used as a tactic and thus is a feature, not an annoying piece of eye candy.

If the game is a third person you would expect there to be a camera. Mario 64 took this one step further by actually having a character floating on a cloud with a camera, so flare would be expected

But when it all boils down to it, you really need to ask yourself does camera flare do my game any good?. If it enhances the theme (ie, outside in the wilderness, sun flare would be a great spit shine) or in the middle of a smoggy Chernobyl reactor where there's too many clouds.

JP · Post by JP » Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:22 am

you're right pera, i get annoyed at lens flare being used when a camera clearly isn't present due to a first person perspective being used and clearly no camera, but hey, it's a cool looking feature if done properly so i guess devs want to stick it to go oh hay ahm kewl.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:50 am

Remember that every AAA FPS has to feature a protagonist who is a space ninja vampire cyborg pirate marine, and who therefore has built-in optics capable of experiencing lens flare.