Can clouds cover up the sun?

[Platinum]

Hello,

I was just looking at this screenshot ( http://www.halflife2.net/news//1092567513_phl_season_1.jpg ) ... and I was wondering if clouds shown in that picture could cover up the light from the sun. I think that random absences of light would be pretty cool. But if not , thats cool too ... Does anyone know??

By the way... What are the address' for some of the developers of Valve? Like the people who answer emails and stuff ... Thanks

 

[commando]

THOSE clouds might not move. mignt just be still clouds *would be FAB though"

 

[ZeeM]

well, [email protected] ?

 

[LordXizor]

Not in the game, but I suppose it could be done in a mod...........

Just kidding guys, I never paid attention to this while watching the videos, maybe you could ask someone at Valve....

 

[Platinum]

asdf

but i thought they HL2 had "3d skybox's" ... what exactly does that mean anyway? that the clouds move??

 

[commando]

i know the clouds can move in game for deff. but covering the sun.. hmmm i dont think so but hey who knows

 

[LordXizor]

I don't know where they mentioned "3d skyboxes," but this would mean that clouds are rendered as actual relevant entities in the game, leading me to believe that they would interact and dynamically affect lighting from the sun.

 

[Hazar]

hmm interesting question. I don't think that they move myself.

here's all the people that work on valve: http://www.valvesoftware.com/people.php

 

[EVIL]

the clouds move as is answered in one of the e-mailes. I think they can cover up the sun but i dont think it would leave big shadows from the clowds on the surface so much effect it wont have

 

[sHm0zY]

Looks liek they are covering the sun there

 

[chriso20]

As far as i can see, the "3d skybox" (being a skybox [box to show sky] in 3d ) is just a picture. and so cannot move the clouds in it. If you rendered the clouds as sorta smoke puffs (like from grenades) then im sure they'd take a good chunk of CPU+graphics(when looking at them).

However, they might be able to have a picture of a cloud floating over the top, sepperately, the edges might look a bit weird (unless they can use PNG pictures) but once the cloud passes, the sun will glare you and so you wont notice it.

I highly doubt that though, i think it'l just be fixed pictures.

 

[CHiLLaXen]

but i thought they HL2 had "3d skybox's" ... what exactly does that mean anyway? that the clouds move??

a 3D skybox has 3-dimentional object in the background...for example, say your in this city, and look across the city, it looks like it goes on forever. But in relality, you can only go so far till there is something in the way (eg. a tall building.). 2D skyboxes are like the ones in Counter-Strike.

*edit* if you look at some of the screenshots from half-life 2 and see that really tall building. Its actually in the background and you can never reach it, but its three dimentional, hense 3D skybox.

 

[traesko]

Gah! I read this thread and hoped for some philosofy.. but ney.. some random gargl about skyboxes.. =(

and i remember someone saying that skies will be static in the game.. not moving that is.

 

[P43.2/1Gig/X800P]

Hello,

I was just looking at this screenshot ( http://www.halflife2.net/news//1092567513_phl_season_1.jpg ) ... and I was wondering if clouds shown in that picture could cover up the light from the sun. I think that random absences of light would be pretty cool. But if not , thats cool too ... Does anyone know??

By the way... What are the address' for some of the developers of Valve? Like the people who answer emails and stuff ... Thanks

that is a in game shot........WOW :thumbs:

 

[|_HeLL_|]

Well, in Xpand Rally Demo the clouds can cover up the sun, and it's a dx9 game. From a first look I would say that's a 3d skybox. Even the clouds move around slowly and cast soft-edged shadows in terrain, surely it uses a trick like farcry or unreal tournament but it's very nice.

 

[Brian Damage]

Couldn't you just write a routine to detect when the sun object/light source is obscured by cloud from the player's viewpoint, and then just globally dim all parts of the lightmap affected by sunlight?

 

[|_HeLL_|]

That's one way to do the trick that I'm saying. In farcry for example palms cast soft edged shadows in your weapon even if the palm moves a little because the wind, but it doesn't hit fps because it's done with a trick which uses a very simple calculation.

 

[Dead-Inside]

@LordXizor
Honored to be your hero

Anyway, the skies will be, uh.. dynamic, so well, if the cloud moves in front of the sun, I'd be surprised if it didn't affect the light... =/

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Um, I'm pretty sure that they didn't model a little sun up there and some low-poly clouds that can move and cover it. The sky is just a very nice looking texture.

 

[Crusader]

The skies are dynamic and clouds and so on can move over the sun, however I doubt that would affect the pre-calculated lighting of the map.

 

[Brian Damage]

Well, the sunlight comes from a predefined source, so if a cloud texture obscures it, as seen from the player's viewpoint, I reckon it'd be pretty easy to dim the sunlit parts of the level lightmap.

 

[Krusty]

If you're from the UK then you know that clouds can cover up the sun

 

[jonnyapps]

If you're from the UK then you know that clouds can cover up the sun

haha -----^

 

[Brian Damage]

Same here in Melbourne. For months at a time.

 

[chriso20]

In far cry they did something sorta different.

If you look up at the sun, it glares at you, you look slightly down it obviously doesnt glare you but its still 'out'. But you look away (but can still see where it is, the sun dissapears and you can see the cloud it looks like it was behind)

 

[SaL]

This FAQ might answer some questions...for HL2 fans nice read!

http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?faq=source_mod_faq

How do 3D skyboxes work? Can I animate a skybox?

The 3D skybox is a part of the level at a different scale that the rest of the level. You can place entities in the 3D skybox (like flying objects, etc). There is a "normal" skybox on the outside of the 3D skybox as well. We also have animated cloud layers, and I could see a mod going nuts with this. That would be great!