Well, I have no real experience in 3d modelling, and absolutely none in lighting, so I can't tell what would be doable. I can, however, say what I think would be awesome/ideal, if it can be done in the first place, without going into a level of complexity that would make big complicated forts difficult to view because of the complexity.
First off, if DF ever gets torches/lanterns/lamps or anything, I'd simply make the sun or, in night mode, the moon (with maybe a third or half the light and a blue overtone) be a main light source but then have any torches not in sunlight be lit for a smaller light source, with ordinary realistic shadows (nothing fancy, just light doesn't go through things), and then for the caverns make underground moss/fungi and presumed algae in underground rivers all glow for another underground light source (at least at the first layer of cavern I know this works -- it'd be amusing to have it only on the floor because that's where it is in DF, btw -- I haven't found the other two cavern layers quite yet, but have heard tales of eerie glowing pits at the bottom of the world that would also work nicely as lights).
Until then, my ideal balance is a little less simple and I don't know if it could be done or not, but it sure would be nice... The moon in night mode would do what the sun does now but one third the light and a blue overtone. In day mode, I'd try to program an easy way to distinguish between above-ground and below-ground areas (DF does distinguish between constructed walls and floor and natural ones, so I suspect in theory there could be a way to figure it out if the results can be used to label a surface for the renderer somehow). The light from the sun would be full power until it has to pass through an above-ground surface, the first of which reduces it to two thirds the brightness. This would not be cumulative; straight above a three story tower, the sun would light the bottom floor 2/3 just like the second (and, if it's roofed, the third). Then, natural ground surfaces (including walls as well as floors; didn't mean "ground" as in "floor") would block the sunlight completely, but anywhere that sunlight was prevented from reaching I'd have lit by some kind of non-directional light at 1/3 the brightness of the above-ground light.
That way the inside of a fort is slightly darker, and the caverns are a good bit darker and don't have shadows in different places based on the position of a sun that's not visible from there anyway. If the natural ground changing the light completely like that isn't doable, I'd take the principle of the above-ground surfaces casting a non-cumulative shadow and reduce the light to a whole 1/2 instead of by a third to 2/3; it wouldn't be quite as awesome, but I'd expect it to be doable and to nicely set the tone for inside/underground areas.
On the other hand, if you wanted to go a true DF-based model, you could have the sun and moon always be directly above in the sky and have light technically just come straight down... 8^)
Like I said, no idea if that's anything like doable, but since you asked it's my suggestion for an overall design that would work out nicely if it worked. I imagine the after-torch-and-or-lamp-addition plan would probably be easier to program though it might actually take more processing power. I'd love if I knew enough about 3d graphical programming to help in any way... Oh well, it's like watching Dwarf Fortress itself develop and being able to make suggestions but not do much to make them materialize (aside from the occassional animal sponsorship drive).
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Topic: Fortress Overseer 0.70.1 - !Open Source! 3D Visualizer - 31.25-34.11 Support (Read 373469 times)