HailStone lighting

[Feanor]

Ideally HailStone will be able to run even in software mode, although I expect Rage Pro with 6MB and accelerated OpenGL will be the minimum to make it enjoyable. To achieve even this lower level we will have to implement fake lighting. I can probably learn a lot about this from Quake. I don't know other games, but Quake has a method of applying a light level to the texture just as it gets pasted -- the light intensities are stored with the geometry, I believe.

This would mean we'd need some kind of texturing, although I'm thinking of very stylized designs, Tron-style muted solid colours with maybe some highlights: accent lines instead of real details. I'll have to do some photoshop work to give everyone an idea of what I mean. I'll put together another fake level in Quiver, take some screenshots, and then re-colour the whole thing.

[Unregistered]

Quake(and many other FPS games) use lightmaps. They are low resolution unique textures for every part of the level geometry. They are computed with a global illumination algorithm, usually radiosity.

Something like radiosity would probably be a bit ambitious for something like Hailstone. A simple raycasting algorithm might be easier, although given the type of project you are looking at making, I would just stick with standard OpenGL lighting.

Maybe you could precalculate the vertex colors using an algorithm similar to the one OpenGL uses for nonmoving objects, and use OpenGL lighting for moving objects.

[inio]

Fluid Studios has a rather interesting lightmapping/radiosity solution:

http://www.fluidstudios.com/fsrad.html