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Program Announcements / Lightning Lights v1.0 – Beta testers apply…

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Robert The Robot
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Posted: 11th Aug 2007 18:27
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DarkBASIC Classic and DarkBASIC Professional have always been separate, incompatible programming languages – until now. For the first time, a program has been made (in DBC) to produce source code that compiles and runs in both!

Lightning Lights lets you illuminate your 3D game levels and give them stunning visual effects with precision and ease – and all in a matter of minutes! It’s all down to an intuitive Windows environment, combined with almost every standard lighting command that DarkBASIC offers.

Set up your level by loading up to ten .x or .3ds objects, or MagicWorld levels. Apply lighting effects by creating and fully manipulating point lights, spotlights and directional lights. Add fog effects, adjust the ambient light level, even colour the backdrop to transform this:



into something like this:



Then with a few clicks of a button and a handful of keystrokes, you can export all your lighting effects as a .DBA source code file. Just copy the code into your game, compile it and run it, irrespective of whether you use Classic or Professional.

You can download a free, unlimited trial version here:
http://mythrada.distantstar.org.uk/Lightning_Lights_Trial.zip
Only the export source code feature has been disabled, all other functionality is preserved.

Lightning Lights is on sale for just £10.00 (fantastic value for money!) but I would like to put it through beta testing, and so I’m asking for four or five volunteers. You’ll receive the full program absolutely FREE, just post here with your e-mail address and I’ll send you download instructions for an update patch that will convert the installed trial version to the full version.
I must have at least one DBPro user though. All the commands exported by Lightning Lights are present in Pro, but I haven’t been able to actually compile them as I don’t have a copy of DBPro. I did download the trial version of DBPro but because I didn’t have the internet on the computer it was to run on, I couldn’t activate it and so couldn’t compile anything at all...

Feel free to contact me with any comments, criticism, ideas or suggestions, especially any additional file formats you’d like to see added to Lightning Lights. Thanks for reading all this, and I can’t wait to hear from you.

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Xlaydos
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Posted: 13th Aug 2007 00:11
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Looks nice I'll give it a test (DBPro user) and some crit if you would like. Email me at Will8655(at)xxx(dot)com
xxx = hotmail

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Mr Scarab
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Location: Kent, UK
Posted: 13th Aug 2007 01:31 Edited at: 13th Aug 2007 01:34
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I can offer 4 or 5 weeks if that would help. Any longer would have to be on a more part time basis but would love to help out.

I use DBPro but I evolved from a classic user
mike(@)scarabpd.co.uk

Translation: Feng=more money, Shui=than sense.
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Robert The Robot
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Posted: 13th Aug 2007 12:32
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Thanks guys, I really appreciate this! I've just sent out e-mails containing download instructions to you both. Enjoy!

Four or five weeks will be great, Mr Scarab, though I hope testing doesn't take that long! I'd like to submit for next month's newsletter...

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Roxas
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Posted: 13th Aug 2007 17:24
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Heh i can test it too

mailRoxas(at)xxx(dot)com

xxx = gmail

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Robert The Robot
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Posted: 13th Aug 2007 17:51
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Thanks Roxas! An e-mail containing download instructions has just been sent!

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Robert The Robot
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Posted: 21st Aug 2007 19:05
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Just curious how the testing's going - I haven't heard anything from you, Xlaydos, or Roxas. You did get the update patch e-mail OK did you?

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Roxas
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2007 17:40
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Yes i did.

I tested it today (Have been busy a little)

I found no bugs of it.. But the interface was bit hard and i dint know what every button was doing and so on.. And camera and object handling was pretty bad. I prefer more dragin or so.

I cant say how powerfull it is because i dont really know how to use it :/

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Robert The Robot
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2007 00:43
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Oh. Sorry if the interface was a bit of a challenge. Were the text reminders not enough to explain how each tool worked?

Quote: "And camera and object handling was pretty bad"

In what way? Were the keyboard controls awkward to use or was the camera/object motion to rapid (Mr Scarab did comment on these in an e-mail to me).

I've started work on a customiseable keyboard for use with another project, perhaps I should finish that quickly and redesign LL to incorporate it?

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Silvester
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2007 15:35
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Intresting project,very intresting project.Looks good too.


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Roxas
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2007 16:19
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You should make the camera controling that way you can move camera in 3d world studio..

First press key example z key then you enter on fps mode and you can move with wasd and move the crosshair with mouse.

And object moving could be draging or so on or you can just press button place to camera then button place to ground level. or something

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Robert The Robot
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Posted: 25th Aug 2007 15:00 Edited at: 25th Aug 2007 15:01
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If I was to create an FPS mode, what would the WASD keys actually do? Would W and S be forwards and backwards, with A and D as rotate left and right? (Or should A and D be slide left and right, moving along the x-axis?) This may sound a bit of a silly question, but while I'm enjoying the design of computer games I've never really gone in for playing them, and there are a fair few gaps in my knowledge.

As regards the "ground object" button - wouldn't that just be setting the object's y# to zero, so couldn't you just click the y# textbox, type '0' and then press enter?

The "set object to camera" button sounds like a good idea, though it may be a little while before I get round to implementing it. At the moment I'm concentrating on reworking Lightning Lights so you can assign your own keyboard commands to the programs functions. A lot of the complaints I've had seem to have been about my choice of keyboard controls, so I'm going to let users set up their own.

Quote: "And object moving could be draging"


I'm afraid Mouse control like that may be just a little too challenging for me to implement at present. For the time being I'd prefer to keep the program to keyboard control and leave the mouse for just selecting buttons, but I will bear it in mind for the next version.

Finally, a couple of minor issues have been taken care of (thanks for spotting them, Mr Scarab) but I'm going to hang fire on releasing an update patch for a bit in case any other bugs come to light.

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Xlaydos
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Posted: 25th Aug 2007 19:51
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Sorry, i completly forgot about this.

I've been busy so i won't have time to make many comments.

The interface takes a while to get the hang off, click to select, and select and drag would be easier.

A visible light object (maybe just a sphere) would be helpful too.

Overall though its very powerful with many features. Good Work!

i think it would be nice if you implemented a grid view like in model programs.

Keep up the good work, i'll post something else if i think of it
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Robert The Robot
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Posted: 1st Sep 2007 13:01
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Sorry for leaving it so long before I answered you - I've been rather ill these last few days (there isn't a smiley for Grrrr) but I'm over it now and work on Lightning Lights has been resumed .

I had said to Roxas:
Quote: "I'm afraid Mouse control like that may be just a little too challenging for me to implement at present. "

but you both seem to want it so... which mousebuttons would you assign to the various functions?

Quote: "i think it would be nice if you implemented a grid view like in model programs."

How would I go about creating that? Would it be a wireframe view matrix 10,000x10,000 units and 1000x1000 tiles so that each tile is 10 units square?

Would you also be after "Snap to grid" controls as well?

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revenant chaos
DBPro Master
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Posted: 22nd Oct 2007 12:32
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I would be glad to help test this. [email protected]
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Blobby 101
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Posted: 22nd Oct 2007 12:58
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i would also love to test this out. my email: flash-the-snail(at)ntlworld(dot)com


thanks to deathead for the sig!
http://istuff.freepay.com/?r=40618251 - please sign up.
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tha_rami
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2007 07:47
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Whoa, necromancers...


A mod has been erased by your signature because it was larger than 600x120
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Robert The Robot
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Posted: 30th Oct 2007 15:35
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Sorry it's been a week getting back to you guys, but I'd kind of abandoned this thread more than a month ago - I thought there was no interest in Lightning Lights left at all!

Just download this file:
http://mythrada.distantstar.org.uk/Lightning_Lights_Trial.zip

Don't know if you've got it already(I think 11 people downloded it when it first went online), so if you haven't, just unzip it and run the Installer.

This is only the trial of LL V1.0, and it's got almost all of the features of the full version. If you could give me a bit of feedback on that, and then I'll e-mail out the update patch to the full version? (My original beta testers got the update patches straight away, so I know the full version is reasonably OK. It's just that no one ever checked the Trial Version alone...)

I must confess, I don't view this as a finished product. I've found a couple of minor mistakes in it so I plan to put LL back in the shop for a major overhaul, because I keep finding ways to simplify the code and make for more efficient and simpler code!

But don't let that stop you from testing this version - it still works very well...

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