FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

I'm building a baseball stadium based on a real life location, and my goal is to keep the map simple enough that a beginner can install it. Right now I just require one mod, VanessaE's home decor. However, the lights are not bright enough. Stadiums have lights maybe 75 to 100 blocks/meters/yards high lighting up the entire field. In minetest I can't light the lower bleachers well at night from the bottom of the mezzanine section, even when I tried super glow blocks from the moreblocks mod.


So is it even possible to make a mod that has an extended range for light blocks? If not, is there any likelihood of a future update allowing mods to extend the range of light blocks? Even if I did understand lua, which I don't, I wouldn't want to require beginning users to reprogram their games to see my stadium at night. And adding light blocks onto the field and other places they don't belong would significantly alter the stadium further from the original than I would like to do.

I would like stronger lights, too.

While the range of light does not seem to be changeable, there's something you might do: Place your lights *below* the floor. If you want special nodes for the floor, use slabs turned upside-down. If you place a powerful light source below them (even torches may be enough), then you'll have light shimmering through from below. Works especially well with armchairs, sofas and beds lighted this way from below. Might also work with your playing field. You can still add a light source up in the sky. It won't be responsible for the light on the field, but who'd care :) Just remember to only use nodebox-like nodes as floor nodes.

You can't do it with nodes (yet). I haven't really tried it, but you MIGHT be able to "fake it" using the new VoxelManip. I think it's "set_lighting" or "set_light_data" methods would let you set the light level in a region despite whatever actual lit nodes are around. I'm not sure what causes such lighting to be reset though (probably any placement/digging of nodes which produce light at the least), so a mod might need to periodically reset the lighting to keep it fresh.

Well, I'm not sure how good light levels manipulated via VoxelManip would work if he wants to export his stadium or map.

Perhaps a special air/glass node that gives off light might be more appropriate?

Thank you all for your responses. Here is a pic of 4 rows of steps lighted from underneath. That should help for the seats. I'll have to experiment with that.


As for VoxelManip, does that involve pasting lines into lua? I don't want to require anything adjusted in lua for this map, although if I could figure it out that would be an impressive screenshot.

superschizo wrote:As for VoxelManip, does that involve pasting lines into lua? I don't want to require anything adjusted in lua for this map, although if I could figure it out that would be an impressive screenshot.

Yes. If you went that way, you'd want a new mod. Maybe one where you place a node somewhere and it automatically sets the light level in a certain region around it or something. Huh! Maybe that's worth making a general-purpose mod for, actually. I may consider doing that.... Call it "arealighting" maybe, if there isn't already such a thing.

The uniform fullbright lighting that can be done in voxelmanip looks bad though, you're best off with lights in or under the floor as you are now doing. Lighting code in MT is relatively simple, lightweight and limited to a range of 16 nodes, so inherently fairly dark.