Aura of darkness ?

[Lumina]

I was wondering if a monster could have an aura of darkness even if it's day, aura that could be countered by any source of light that isn't daylight (lantern, miner hat, light bulb on ground, campfire... You got the idea).

Just got the idea and think it could be a cool idea for a monster/another kind of danger, but not sure it's even possible.

It could be very complex/not possible, if it's the case it's not a big deal, was just a small idea

[ImDaMisterL]

I did a few super quick sketches of some of the creatures who could do that:

1 - A creepy spider, that crawls around, an aura of darkness and insanity following it. When it lunges, a few patches of darkness stay for a few seconds where it once was.

2 - Another crawly bug, powered by the purple gem. Where it looks, a flash of darkness is sent. If it sees a player, it'll try to "drown" them in darkness.

3 - Corrupted end tables, with nightmare hands pushing them towards players. They leave darkness trails behind them.

4 - A gem-powered darkness monster, floating around like smoke, trying to embrace players it sees.

[minespatch]

I made a shadow vaccuum earlier this year:

[alainmcd]

Of course you can! Just copy the Nightmare's behaviour - no, wait, that's in NecroDancer.

For an actually "helpful" answer, I don't know if it's possible at all. 

Most of the lighting is handled in the C++ side and AFAIK you can only add light sources (AddLight()), not darkness. A shader, like the mist uses, might help - or not, I don't understand how shaders work. On the Lua side... check that it's not in the radius of a light source (Light:GetCalculatedRadius()), give your entity a pitch black "animation" to simulate darkness, make it very small (Physics:SetHeight(0.01)) and hide (Hide()) all entities within the "darkness" radius that are neither a light source nor within the radius of a light source, rechecking periodically (perhaps this should be done client-side), then tweak the grue component accordingly... maybe? IF that works, it would still be far from perfect, though.

Or ask a dev. It's a really cool idea.

[Lumina]

Hey, @PeterA

Is it actually possible to do something like this ? Or maybe it could become possible in the future ?

I know Klei is still working on the game, maybe it could give you some fun ideas (even if i'm sure you have plenty enough), the potential of coolness of this seems pretty high, judging the reactions here.

[ZupaleX]

What would happen if you tried to do a AddLight() to your entity and then do a Light:SetColor to set the color to black? ^^

[PeterA]

9 hours ago, Lumina said:

Is it actually possible to do something like this ? Or maybe it could become possible in the future ?

I actually added a prototype of this to the renderer/lighting system awhile ago, but ended up not getting used, so we never fully added it to the system. In future updates we may have a use for it and finish fully developing it.

Cool idea!

[alainmcd]

@PeterA, great to hear it might still make it into the game! Is it possible it'll make it even if you don't use it directly? There are some ideas that could IMO considerably improve the modding scene output, for example:

• Darkness as in this idea sounds like a game changer.
• Tools. ImGui was added to the public build with the last update and it's a powerful tool, but it is tied to the dev branch and seemingly crash-prone - can we look forward to keeping it and it being more user-friendly?
• Team play. Auto teaming up based on Steam group or choosing teams when joining, and team scores. It would help create new gameplay modes that rely on teamplay, like the old rabbit football or your gluttony tournament mod. I don't think there are any teamplay-based mods.

I know adding modding tools and APIs is probably very low in the priority list, but one can hope (and ask!).

@ZupaleX, you can't emit black light, black is the absence of light! Light:SetColour(0,0,0) is the same as not emitting any light.

[PeterA]

Thanks for the feedback Alain. Good to know that stuff is useful for ya. I can't make any promises now, but knowing what you need is helpful.

[Lumina]

Thanks for your answer, i'm happy to see that the idea pleases people

 

Would it be useful to have tools to add custom turfs more easily and especially having less conflicts between mods adding turf ? Seems the mods adding turfs are pretty rares, complex and i saw mention of risk of conflict between mod.

Since turfs could be very cool to give unique feeling to a mod, i would like to see a tool for this, but maybe since i'm not a good modder it's easier than i think or not that problematic now.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Lumina

[alainmcd]

Same here, I can't promise I'll use them even if they make it into the game. 

I imagine ImGui wasn't intended to be available to us. I got it to run maybe 10 times and all but once the game crashed within a couple of minutes. Is it really buggy atm or is it just me doing something (terribly) wrong? If it's stable, any chance it'll stay?

[ZupaleX]

50 minutes ago, alainmcd said:

 

@ZupaleX, you can't emit black light, black is the absence of light! Light:SetColour(0,0,0) is the same as not emitting any light.

It was a joke

[alainmcd]

Whoops!

[PeterA]

1 hour ago, alainmcd said:

If it's stable, any chance it'll stay?

Seems to be stable for us in development, so I don't think we'll be removing it.

[minespatch]

I also did a concept based around creatures who chase after ghosts called "nightjerks" which turn ghosts into other nightjerks. Might be a concept for the future:

[alainmcd]

@minespatch, I'm haunted by that Shadow Vacuum. I need to know how it works and if it has made its way into a mod.

(Sorry for repeatedly derailing.)

[EmperorOfTheMankind]

Funny, how I wanted to add aura of darkness to my prefab and then I find this thread that appeared just a day ago

[minespatch]

9 hours ago, alainmcd said:

@minespatch, I'm haunted by that Shadow Vacuum. I need to know how it works and if it has made its way into a mod.

I figured it would collected shadows during the day when you're low on sanity and can convert to refurbished nightmare fuel. So it twists the lantern's use.

[EmperorOfTheMankind]

On 29.07.2017 at 6:01 AM, minespatch said:

I also did a concept based around creatures who chase after ghosts called "nightjerks" which turn ghosts into other nightjerks. Might be a concept for the future:

That is actually quite a great concept. The monster that emits darkness and can actually be a threat to players who are already dead. 

Ps: can be a good counter to ghost trolls on survival servers 

Edited August 3, 2017 by EmperorOfTheMankind

[minespatch]

9 hours ago, EmperorOfTheMankind said:

• That is actually quite a great concept. The monster that emits darkness and can actually be a threat to players who are already dead. 
• Ps: can be a good counter to ghost trolls on survival servers 

I'd give you a devilish reaction if this site had that.

Exactly! I recycled a concept I made for the stitchpunk fandom I used to be a part of, figured this would be cooler. Especially since THEM's creations could be explored. Closest thing to a satyr creature from THEM is the shadow knight, so it'd be cooler to see more.