If anyone's interested in making a credits screen or some on-screen display
(like in Descent, Tie Fighter etc.), here's an idea I have used with
success.

Get Chris Colefax's lens effects .inc . Find the line

#declare _LE_baseobj  = disc {0, z, .999 finish ... etc.

and comment it out (there is no problem according to the copyright info in
lnsefcts.txt chapter 6.0). Save the modified file under a different name
(say mylens.inc) Then in your .pov you #declare _LE_baseobj yourself, it
being credits, ship info, whatever. See the enclosed zip for an example (it
is a part of an anim I am doing, so please ask if you're to use it... the
tilt indicator is buggy anyway, any ideas?). The text (or other objects)
should be in the x-y plane, and as flat as possible. Experiment to see. As
far as I remember a box { <-2.25,-1.55,-0.00001>, <2.25,1.55,0.0000001> }
covers almost a full screen, but that's very easy to check out.

Hope I made myself clear.

Is this of any help?

--Peter

pet### [at] usanet

P.S. You'll need Chris Colefax's spline.inc to run the example (and any
files I forgot to include... :-)

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Attachments:
Download 'screen.zip' (4 KB)

Peter Popov wrote:
> 
> If anyone's interested in making a credits screen or some on-screen display
> (like in Descent, Tie Fighter etc.), here's an idea I have used with
> success.
> 
> Get Chris Colefax's lens effects .inc . Find the line
> 
> #declare _LE_baseobj  = disc {0, z, .999 finish ... etc.
> 
> and comment it out (there is no problem according to the copyright info in
> lnsefcts.txt chapter 6.0). Save the modified file under a different name
> (say mylens.inc) Then in your .pov you #declare _LE_baseobj yourself, it
> being credits, ship info, whatever. See the enclosed zip for an example (it
> is a part of an anim I am doing, so please ask if you're to use it... the
> tilt indicator is buggy anyway, any ideas?). The text (or other objects)
> should be in the x-y plane, and as flat as possible. Experiment to see. As
> far as I remember a box { <-2.25,-1.55,-0.00001>, <2.25,1.55,0.0000001> }
> covers almost a full screen, but that's very easy to check out.

While it's true I have no problem with people using my include files in
this way, it is actually possible to do exactly what you describe
without having to modify the main LNSEFCTS.INC file at all.  Although I
would usually recommend using _LE_baseobj when creating custom lens
flares, glows and the like, there's no reason why you have to use this
object.  Instead, you can place your desired objects (text, CSG,
triangles, image_mapped polygons, etc.) directly into your custom
effects file.  Similarly, you don't have to use the suggested transmit
pow(x, _LE_intensity) when texturing your objects - all of these aspects
are entirely up to you.

The important thing when creating a custom effect is to scale the
object(s) by the _LE_scale value first (which will make sure it remains
at the correct size, regardless of the camera angle/direction).  Then,
you must translate it by _LE_translate if you want the custom effect to
move as you change the effect_location.  If you don't want to move the
effect using the effect_location (ie. you want to position the effect in
the same place, as the camera moves) you should translate it so it sits
at z = 1, eg. to place some text in the bottom-right corner of the
image:

   text {ttf "Arial", "Title", .1, 0
      texture {P_Silver1}
      scale .1 translate <.8, -.6, 0>

      scale _LE_scale translate z}

Finally, the scale _LE_lensscale #declare _LE_lensscale... is required
if you want the custom effect to work like the built-in effects, using
the effect_always_on_top option.  This will make sure that the custom
effect objects don't interfere with any other objects in the scene.  If,
on the other hand, you always want the custom effect a certain distance
from the camera, you can just scale by this distance instead, eg. scale
.5 at the end of the above object would mean that the text is always
half a unit in front of the camera.

As you show in the scene you attached, *.LFX files can be used for a
great many camera related effects, not just the traditional flares and
glows.  If you (or anyone else) want more information about how to
create custom effect files I'd be quite happy to help as best I can.

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Yeah, it seems I missed a lot of the details like _LE_lensscale etc... I was
scared to death the only time I dared to actually try to understand the math
in the lensflare include... I gave up. Anyway, trial and error proved that
the code I included worked in my case (a ship flying through a misty
landscape, the landscape and the fog didn't com "in-between" the text object
and the camera). Thank you for your advice and the corrections you've made
to mine.

Regards,

--Peter

pet### [at] usanet

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