Just toying with blitz3d again...for a bit...
Brill to see Blitz3D still cutting the old mustard, great graphics and narrative - these spaceships wouldn't be out of place in Homeworld!
I'd be watching out for bogies on my 6..... as well as on the horizon :o 8)
@Matty >>
i suppose that you use 2 surfaces (and 2 textures) per spaceship, one with no fx (0) (for the directx / vertex lighting shading) and one with fullbright fx (1) (for the lighting effect ?)
i used a similar method for the body ( surface with no fx (0) ), and for the eyes / nose / mouth ( surface with fullbright fx (1) ), of the pumpkins, in my small halloween game :
http://rd-stuff.fr/blitz3d/one-surface-nothingfx-one-surface-fullbrightfx.png
is there another way ?
I do it differently RemiD.
The spaceships have 3 textures, a color texture, an illumination texture, and a specular texture.
I render the ship in two passes, the first applies the color and specular texture by blending two identical meshes, one using multiply blending.
The second pass uses additive blending with the same mesh with the illumination texture.
And the glow effect is done by rendering the glow mesh / texture to a smaller texture, blurring it, and then overlaying it over the screen with an additive blend.
@Matty>>
i see, i have also coded a routine to capture a small render of only the glowing parts in fullbright and the others things in black, then blur it, then blend the result with 'add' blend mode using several 'screen meshes'. but i don't think that it look as precise as per pixel glow, and the add blend makes it too 'white' in the center of the glow shape...
after some experiments i think that a nice baked texture of the glow effect, with maybe a flare, looks as good and is much easier to manage and faster to render...
about the specular effect, i don't notice it, what is it ? a kind of reflection ?
RemiD (and others)
If you want to try the executable...and muck around with it a bit yourself and see how it looks in action then you can download a simple demo version from my webspace:
Link to files (https://mattiesgames.com/assets/space_war.zip)
itch.io page
https://matty77.itch.io/solar-conflict
(https://mattiesgames.com/life.gif)