Animating Emit and Other Material/Texture Properties in GE for Dark Environments

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
1

Hi All,
I’ve got a problem which I am trying to solve, I have a level with many rooms and each room needs to appear as if it has it’s own light source which can be turned on and off by a wall switch. I can’t use lamps or dynamic lighting as I have too many rooms (over 20). Also all the rooms are part of one mesh.
SO I guess I will have to bake a lightmap onto the mesh. But once I’ve done this, how might I go about making ech room independently ‘lightable’. I was thinking of animating Emit for the internal faces of each room. However emit is already at zero, and changing it has no effect. There is a texture on the walls, but even when I check Emit in Map To it still doesn’t work.
Any ideas?

Many thanks
Rob

2

are you using the official 2.46 or the latest apricot build?

3

I’m using 2.46, not sure about what the apricot build is:o

4

You can use only one lamp which can be replaced each time you enter new room. So if you enter Room 5, the light source will be replaced from Room 4 by scripting method setPosition(). You can make a global variable, which can remember each room light setting.

5

That’s a good idea, but would that not mean that the room would appear darkened if you were standing outside of it and looking in? Also, there seem to be issues with light leaking through the mesh walls of the room which it doesn’t appear there is any ‘cure’ for when using a lamp.
The environment I am using is intended as a VR psychological assessment tool, and turning the lights on and off as you enter and leave a room is one of the major tasks, so it’s quite important that it is as realistic as possible. Given the limited number of lamps, and the many different rooms the player will be going in and out of I don’t think that having one relocated lamp is a viable option (although a good idea which I probably wouldn’t have had!!)
Of all the things that could have brought me to a complete standstill I didn’t think turning the lights on and off would have been the one!
Any further ideas?
ROb

6

Any reason you can’t separate the 6 planes that make up the interior of each room from the hallway? If you can than you can apply a material ipo to each room and animate the light change. Here is a quick example Press spacebar to turn on and off the lights http://www.mediafire.com/?yzjkymvm2dn