From a technical perspective, very simple. Something like the Underdark vision would most likely require fairly low-res textures. So the alternate textures, (and texture coordinates if needed) could already be loaded. It would just a matter of switching the shader and other rendering parameters.

On the other hand, it might be an interesting design decision to "white out" the scene for a couple seconds after the lights were turned on, before the player''s vision adjusted.

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"Sneftel is correct, if rather vulgar." --Flarelocke

Yeah I was thinking about that. I''d better get busy... oh wait... sleep... damnit... I hate these choices!

I am reminded of Alien vs Predator, suddenly.
You say you cant imagine people playing with thermal vision (infravision, that is) turned on for the whole game.
Yet in AvP (1 and 2) I played most of the time in thermal/electric vision with the predator. And that was my favourite mode of play. I dont remember using the "normal" vision with the Predator, in fact.

I dont think you should worry too much, but rather make the experience of the infravision an interesting one.
If you mix infavision and darkvision, you would probably have room for a lot of nice things.
Then add in lots of ambient lighting. Who told you the world HAD to be pitch dark ? You could have tons of phosphorescent mushrooms, glowing for no reason crystals, luminescent underground rivers, lava (overused but always effective), etc.

Look at ANY movie, since colour exist in movies, that had night sequences or underground sequences. They always end up with blue ambient lights to show "darkness". What about the classic "light behind a fan that projects a moody shadow in the corridor" effect. A classic that you can probably somehow reuse.

You can also look at Neverwinter nights, which I thought handled darkvision and infravision in a rather simple but nice way. If you have darkvision, whenever you enter in a darker area, your eyes adapt and the brightness level is increased. If you have darkvision, IIRC, creatures become redish to highlight them (or was that in Baldur''s gate ?)

Anyway, plenty of solutions there, just look a bit harder

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Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

That reminds me of a line from a book, I can''t remeber what book but the lines went something like this. "While dwarfs and trolls can see underground because they are used to living. A human adventure will always just so happen to find caves filled with an abudunce of glowing moss and rock formations."

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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

I have a camcorder with "nightspot" infrared on it. The image shown is black and white but some liquids that appear clear in normal color show up really dark with this on. The camcorder emits infrared light, so objects that are closer are very bright and washed out and fade quickly as they recede into the darkness. People''s eyes are really freaky. The iris is very bright even if their eyes are normally dark brown.

Thats Nightvision it isn''t infrared. Night vision works by amplifing light. Infrared is seeing things in the infrared spectrum of light. Essentialy you see the heat an radiation an object emits. You would not be able to discern distinct textures or facial features such a mole on person face.

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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

quote:

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Original post by TechnoGoth
Thats Nightvision it isn''t infrared. Night vision works by amplifing light. Infrared is seeing things in the infrared spectrum of light. Essentialy you see the heat an radiation an object emits. You would not be able to discern distinct textures or facial features such a mole on person face.

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Not true

quote:

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excerpt:
Sony''s Nightshot system uses infrared light to capture images invisible to the human eye. You can shoot subjects like sleeping babies up to 10 feet away in total darkness. Invented by Sony, the Nightshot system is available on every new Sony Handycam camcorder. With the optional HVL-IRC Nightshot light, you can even capture images from up to 100 feet away!

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