Flare Effect
A flare effect renders a billboarded flare around a central point. It can be created in the World Editor by using the Flare Effect tool in the Effects Page. The difference between a flare effect and a quad effect is that the flare effect does not use depth testing, but instead uses an occlusion query to determine how bright it is.
Flare Effect Settings
A flare effect can be configured under the Flare tab in the Node Info window. The specific settings are described in the following table.
Setting |
Description |
Flare Settings |
|
Flare color |
The color of the flare effect. |
Texture map name |
The name of the texture map applied to the flare. This texture map is multiplied by the flare color. The alpha channel of the texture map should be zero at the edges to avoid a visible boundary. |
Occlusion radius |
Specifies the radius of the occlusion quad that's rendered before the flare to determine how bright the flare is. The brightness of the flare rendered later is proportional to the visible area of this occlusion quad. |
Rotation radius |
Specifies the radius of the sphere on which the occlusion quad is rendered. This causes the occlusion quad to be offset from the center of the flare effect so that geometry near the center does not interfere with the occlusion test. |
Render with fog |
Specifies whether fog is applied to the flare effect. |
Render at infinity |
If checked, the flare effect is rendered at infinity in the direction of its −z axis. In this case, the position of the flare effect node has no meaning. |