Disco Ball?

[Groovy_Duck]

Is it possible to create a disco ball, or the effect of one, with spinning lights in a room? thanks

[ffejnosliw]

I don't see why not. A light function using a material that sparkles should probably be able to handle that.

[Groovy_Duck]

Any idea on how to get that started? I'm working on my first major project... All help is greatly appreciated!!

[Wyldhunt]

This is a good question. I've yet to figure out how to make custom dynamic light effects.
The only way I could think of to do this is via toggling lights on and off and spinning the object in matinée.

If it's possible to make a custom light effect that would sparkle or be at all dynamic in real time, I'd love to know how.

If you had a disco ball and placed a point light inside of the disco ball...
You could make an opacity channel and set the material to translucent.
If the alpha had the edges of each plane opaque, and the face was about 50% translucent, then the light would be able to shine through. Then spin the ball via matinée. that wouldn't look perfect, but it would be something.

[ffejnosliw]

Anything you can do in a material's Emissive channel can be projected by a light dynamically by using a light function.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/Light...ht%20Functions

[Wyldhunt]

This flexible technique can be used to create all manner of effects from disco ball reflections to light shining in from a stained-glass window.

That's awesome. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Groovy_Duck]

sweet, that worked perfectly! thanks a lot

[Groovy_Duck]

one more thing I'm noticing though....I prett much made a quick material that had a black background and a bunch of white, emissive dots. I attached it to the Light Function, but when I go to rotate the light, as in a disco ball, the dots stretch out on the walls. It seems to be a linear light patch instead of radial...is there a way to switch that?

[Star Weaver]

I used that option once to create the shadows from car headlights shining through a chain-link fence (which wouldn't cast shadows itself) back in UT3; never really thought about them being ainmated. Cool.

Groovy: Don't reflections from a real disco ball stretch out as they move away from the closest point on a straight wall? Isn't that just a property of ... angles, and cones and stuff? Or is it super-unnatural? *confused*

[Groovy_Duck]

yeah....it doesn't seem to be centered around the light or something... It is stretching really badly like it's only facing one direction instead of shooting out in all directions from the light

[SHOT]http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/1108/discostretchn.jpg[/SHOT]

[Wyldhunt]

This is probably a dumb question, but...

It is a point light, right? Not a directional light or any of the other light types??

[Groovy_Duck]

yes, lol, it's a point light. Also...it doesn't seem to be showing up in the actual game...only in the editor...

[Wyldhunt]

I never even knew this functionality existed until just now, so these are all just random ideas that I'm throwing out.
But...
It looks like you're using BSP surfaces. You may need to tweak your BSP lightmap settings. There was another thread that just figured out how odd your lights can look if it's not adjusted here: http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=745356

Also, it was recently mentioned that lightshafts will appear in the editor but not in the game if you enable lightshafts on a static light source. The lightshafts are dynamic, so the source must also be. I haven't verified that, but it seems reasonable.

So, if you're not already, try using a moveable light and see if it'll show up in the game.

EDIT:
Oh... And I've had similar problems with stuff not showing up in game if I Played in Editor without saving my packages first. Make sure your package with your materials and textures are saved before you PIE.

[ffejnosliw]

Create a TextureCube and apply the sparkle texture to all the faces of it and use that with a CameraVector connected to its UVs input. That will make it show on all the walls properly. Also, make sure you check Used As Light Function in the materials properties.

[Groovy_Duck]

yep, I'm already using a PointLightMoveable. I just can't figure out why the material only faces one direction....when I rotate the light 90 degrees, the other wall looks fine, but the good one is now stretched...