Lightning Effect

Lightning effects were something I wanted to have in D2X-XL for a long time. They aren't really good for much except for looking just great. Actually I didn't really know what to use them for after having added the code to D2X-XL, but I got some ideas after a while, and some applications are way cool, like the new weapon effect for the mighty Omega cannon replacing the somewhat pathetic white globes it shoots. You can also turn on environmental effects for player ships making energy discharges go out from them in energy and repair centers, or have some extra effects for certain robots like the E-Bandit. Damaged robots can have static discharges creep over them. Last but not least you can add static lightning effects to the mine using DLE-XP. Lightnings can have fixed or random end points and spawn forks. They can have different appearances, from erratic over jaggy to rather smoothe. the backdraw is that having a lot of lightning effects has a hefty impact on frame rate due to the high CPU load they create when new lightning paths have to be computed. You can tone down lightning quality and enforce certain styles to make things more speedy again though.

I had to change a lot of things in the renderer to make them work well with D2X-XL, but that makes them worth two times as much, because the engine changes have proved to be really useful, as you can read in my previous worklog entries.

Another improvement that went with my working over the transparency renderer are improved light trails for energy weapons that look way better than the old ones. Latest insights in 3D projection math have made this possible. Without further ado something for the eyes now.

The first picture shows a static red lightning effect with an opening angle of 30 degrees
and random ends, mixed with thick dark smoke coming from the lava.

This picture shows blue lightnings forming a sphere around their emitter (which is part of the level - I just parked the ship on it to make it look like it was producing all the lightning bolts).

This is the cool new Omega lightning effect.

The next two pictures show the improved weapon light trails.

Last but not least there's a short video clip showing the lightning effects in action.