Moving Alpha Lights¶
The original game includes a little-known flag that allows all
ObjectTypes (anything placeable on the map - Projectiles, Trees,
Overlays, Smudges (not the IsometricTileTypes), Aircraft, Infantry,
Vehicles and Buildings) to have a lighting effect displayed on them.
[ObjectType]â–ºAlphaImage=ALPHATST instructs the game to display
ALPHATST.shp on the object as a lighting effect. The SHP must be saved
without any compression (just like mouse.sha).
Ares adds the following improvements to this feature:
- The lighting effect will follow the object around as it moves, rather than staying where the object was created.
- The effect will be inactive when a unit is cloaked, disguised as a terrain object or moving below the surface.
- If the SHP has multiple frames then it is interpreted as a multi-facing image, and the largest N frames in the image are used as facing-specific versions (in this case, N is the largest power of 2 that is less than or equal to the number of frames in the SHP, e.g. 2/4/8/16/32/64...). This is supported only for TechnoTypes.
Note
Alpha Lights on moving objects are a potential source of lag.
Note
Only TechnoTypes are fully supported. Animations are supported since Ares 0.5.
New in version 0.1.
Changed in version 0.5.