Stage Lighting / Theatrical lights

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One thing I fell in love with Planet Coaster is the lights. I could not have imagined we could go this far in a sandbox game!
I’m especially in love with the spotlights:

Yy2ckOu.jpg

(Pic by http://www.shyguysworld.com/index.php/topic,18463.msg421844.html#msg421844]LostThought)

But now, and as a big fan on theatrical lighting, I’m wondering if we could go further into customization, and I started to imagine a few options that would pop-up in a window, similar to the one for path options:

VNv7znM.jpg

(Screnshot from Youtube)

Instead, you woulb be able to edit the followings:

- Color
- Brightness
- Sharpness / Focus
- Shape

The color option is pretty obvious: Using a color palette, you woulb simply change the color of your light.
The brightness is a slider that let you modify how intense your light is. Either almost transparent and subtle, or up to dazzling.

For the second slider, there could be two methods:
Either the slider simply acts on the sharpness. No matter what, it will make the edges of your projected light either sharp and clear, or on the opposite blurred to a point you cannot really distinguish the shape.
Or either the slider acts on the focusing of the light. It’s no longer a value, but a distance, just like a real life. That second option is more realistic as it will for instance lights up two walls that are relatively far apart, and have one of them on focus while the other being blurred. But that might be intimidating for the user, and in the end frustrating.

The last option might be the most complex one. So far, only one shape is available: a circle.
Two options would allow the player to make anything he wants.

The first one being an in-game editor. You click the shape button, and this appears on screen:

JvqgOqL.jpg

(Pic by http://www.shyguysworld.com/index.php/topic,18463.msg421844.html#msg421844]LostThought)

It’s a basic vector drawing tool on which you could move the handles around (they always stay in the same plane anyway) and the shape automatically adapt itself. Double-click on the white circle and you add another handle. There would also be an option to made an handle either as an angle, a corner ; or as a tangent to have smooth curves.

The second shape editor would let you load a black and white image from your computer. Not a grey-scale image, but a pure white and pure black image. For instance, you would be able to import such image to create a great logo:

Mr7B2ht.jpg

(Source)

All the white is light, the black is non-light. The sharpness, color, brightness then apply to this.

-

Now you might even extend that by having the possibility to project a real, mutli-colored image, like if you were using a gelatin filter in real-life.


What do you guys think?
I really believe in the lighting system in Planet Coaster, and can’t wait to see or to make great dark-rides!
 
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Yes! This would be good! I already love the lighting system and this would be a great addition.

However (like i posted before) I would also like a time interval to turn the light on and off. To make it flicker. In my opinion this would be great in haunted houses or dark rides.
 
As an amateur theatrical Lighting Designer, I would love to be able to have more freedom for creativity with the lighting in this game. I know that I would use such tools to an insane degree.

I really have wanted to adjust the colors, like with a color wheel, to get the perfect look. I also have wanted the ability to adjust the brightness and sharpness of my lights, allowing me to be able to better hide the lighting instruments in my scenery and still get the look I want. And shape (gobos, for those who know stage lighting) would be amazing.

I would add one thing to the list; the vertical rotation of the lights, however this could be irrelevant if the developers decide to allow us to rotate objects on the x, y, and z axis. It would allow us to hide our lighting instruments better if we could aim (focus) the light to a certain object from any angle.

Thank you for the marvelous suggestion +KingRCT3

[up][big grin]
 
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As an amateur theatrical Lighting Designer, I would love to be able to have more freedom for creativity with the lighting in this game. I know that I would use such tools to an insane degree.
My brother now works in that field as well, and since then, I see dark-ride lighting in a whole new level and would love to play with that in game!

As for the vertical rotation, I figured out that we don't have much freedom because it's an alpha, and enventually we will either have more objects, or a customizable spotlight.

"Gobos"! That's exactly what I was thinking about! Thanks The8erRPG for reminding me the name, it slipped out of my mind for some reasons.
 
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Moving and triggered lights are yet another realm, which I think could be covered by having MixMaster(s)-like attached to things, just like buildings are at the moment. Imagine a MixMaster linked to a coaster that would start in sync with the train!

I know the MixMaster isn't in their priorities yet, but it had so much potential in RCT3 - in fact, it was already perfect minus a few UI kinks (copy-paste, anyone?). RCT3's fireworks were actually prettier than those on professionnal softwares such as FWsim.
 
Moving and triggered lights are yet another realm, which I think could be covered by having MixMaster(s)-like attached to things, just like buildings are at the moment. Imagine a MixMaster linked to a coaster that would start in sync with the train!

I know the MixMaster isn't in their priorities yet, but it had so much potential in RCT3 - in fact, it was already perfect minus a few UI kinks (copy-paste, anyone?). RCT3's fireworks were actually prettier than those on professionnal softwares such as FWsim.



Like these?
http://www.martin.com/en-us/product-details/automated-lights/led

Iwould like something that can be rotated on both axis as the ground rotation is all well and good but to be able to point the light from any point up and down has a huge benefit especially as the light throw currently is so tight you could have some real dramatic lighting with those basic principles

Anything closer to the real thing is a huge plus but while this is all buzzing our imaginations we all need to remember this will come down to game play

From what ive seen and read the peoples react to good scenery etc so if it gets to complex it would have to be aesthetic only as to AI advanced lighting would take longer than writing the core code.

But if there was any scope to achieve what we all lust for im behind it. Why not just make each light addressable like DMX and just use virtual bridge for hardcore fans of the scening.

Id also like to think that while this game will be released officially i hope it wont be a "thats all folks" as this platform opens up so much creativity it will last the test of time.
 
I think this all sounds like a good idea!

The last Youtube Webcast had me thinking about how desperately we need controllable lighting: just look at the tricks people have to resort to to get some kind of timing on their lights to work. Yes, triggers work up to a degree, but for flatrides it would be fun to add a bit of custom lighting to it too. A DMX linke system, gobo's and moving head spots, scanners, etc. would be so awesome!

consider this my +1 :D
 
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