Can a searchlight be made that projects an image?

[Bedlam Ansome]

Can a searchlight be made that projects an image a bit like the Bat Signal?

[Jaylin Wytchwood]

No, for something like a BatSignal you would maybe use a long transparent cone prim (if the beam is visible), and maybe a flat one at the end with the displayed symbol.

A Prim can be made to give off light, but does so in all directions and not as a spotlight or so (and is not stopped by intervening prims, no raytracing), so you have to trick.

 

 

 

[Kaiser Bogomil]

if you project it on a flat surface (there is math involved) .. you can can kind of with a bit of scripting.

[Dora Gustafson]

Yes it can if you enable Develop/Rendering/Lighting and Shadows (Viewer 2.5 menu)

It requires you have a Video Card strong enough to do that and it require all viewers set like this to see it.

Then you can make a prim project a picture from one of the prim's faces to the world.

---

Bedlam Ansome wrote:

Can a searchlight be made that projects an image a bit like the Bat Signal?

---

[Bedlam Ansome]

I am using Phoenix....is that Develop/Rendering/Lighting and Shadows available on this viewer?

[Jenni Darkwatch]

v2 render pipeline can do that (easily), v1 render pipeline can't. Or put differently, Phoenix probably can't - I doubt they backported it. Below is a capture with dynamic, projected shadows. The orange glowy circle has a light source above it that projects downward. You can see the shadows on the back of my avi and on the ground. Since the circle is animated, the shadow below is also animated.

The catch? It requires projector support, and it requires a halfway up-to-date computer.

[Void Singer]

 

---

Jenni Darkwatch wrote:

[...]Phoenix probably can't - I doubt they backported it. [...]

---

AFAIK all the phoenix shadow code was built on Kirstens work... which was stopped before projectors were made available (since Kirsten moved to a v2 code base). I can confirm that phoenix does not see projectors in any easily accessible way (and probably not at all)

 

of course the OP's desire can be faked a few ways (vulmetrically lit beams sketching out the negative space on the default cload layer would be one)

 

[Paladin Pinion]

It's a theoretical solution since I haven't actually tried it, but...

Create an elongated cone for the light beam and put a particle script in it that uses the image you want. Set the particle settings so that the lifespan of the particle is marginally longer than the refresh rate. That gives you a seemingly solid image (I've done this many times so I know this part works.)

Your script can turn off the particle system when the light beam goes out, but that will cause the projected image to remain until its life span elapses. That would be the main glitch. To get around that you'd have to experiment with different ages and refresh rates to get the closest possible match so that the age of the particle isn't much longer than the refresh rate. Then when the light beam should go out, have the script wait for the same amount of time as the refresh rate before disappearing. The beam won't have an instantaneous "off" but it might be possible to synch it well enough to give the right illusion.

None of this would require any special settings in the viewer.

[Dora Gustafson]

To give an idea what Viewer 2.5.2 can do with projectors I took these pictures.
The one has a scene lit by the projector only and the other is lit by the midday sun and the projector.
The projector is the dark red box in the top of the picture.
The projected texture is my 'Studio Dora' logo.