Ok, I had this idea for a long time, but I dunno if it's possible... as I dunno anything about cogging:

Now, would it be possible to have a corona sprite 3DO that is always rendered and viewable, even when it's ghost position isn't visible? (i.e. thru walls, in other rooms)

If so, when the ghost position is visible, would it be possible to have this 3do zoom up toward the player a ways (so the corona isn't blocked partially by local archi)?

In turn, is it then possible to have the 3do shoot away at an extremely far and no longer visible distance when the ghost possition is no longer visible?

Could these have transitions of about 0.25 seconds between these 2 states? You know, so they don't appear too sudden?


Enlighten me.

Translation:
Coronas that increase/decrease with distance as in UT. Further away is a larger corona, closer is a smaller corona. That's not what he said but that's what it should be.

And why would you want it visible through walls? Once the light source of a corona isn't visible, neither is the corona.

Well that's not really my point, but yes... that effect should happen too.

Lemme try another approach... you know how in newer games, coronas aren't blocked or clipped by it's surrounding archi if any of the light source is visible? This effect would be easy if it were possible to have 3DO always rendered (even thru walls).

The problem is what do you do when the light source (ghost thing) is no longer visible? Well, you can have the 3do zoom away from the player to a point where it would be so far, it's no longer visible.... and zoom back into place when it is viewable... this shouldn't be an instant transistion either... the zoom should take about 0.25 seconds between each state.

Make sense yet?

Ah, I see what you're saying. But just FYI...in newer games, once the light source is no longer visible, the corona fades. Strafe back and forth in any UT game to see what I mean. The corona will overlap edges if the source is still visible, but once the point of source is blocked, the corona fades. The reason it's still visible is because the corona is an effect of the viewer/camera, not of the light itself.

You'd have to pull the corona closer to the camera to get it to overlap, and at the same time shrink the actual object proportionally. Technically you can do this in JK, but it's ugly.

Yea, I know all this.... infact, it's what I was trying to articulate in my last 2 posts.... but thats exactly what I want.... crappy, but better than what JK currently has.... and it can be done then?

Couldn't you just draw sprites on the screen like the method used to draw in-game menus and such? They wouldn't have to be actually spaced out in 3d, just appear that way