You should make it so theres a clock on the screen like in Grand Theft Auto where the minets go by in seconds. So the screen so it turns into night at certain times and , rain, or sun so it forces people to use stratagy, and timeing and have night vision... Also this is off topic but there should be a third person view of when you die and it shows you falliing and depending on where your shot it shows you holding that area and rolling...
Source isn't capable of night-day cycles at the moment (or at least not in any good-looking way). The weather is a possibility, buuuut I'm not sure how it could really affect gameplay other than screwing with the friction of surfaces.
Sun/darkness would be very difficult (though I imagine possible if you spend the time doing it, and people spend the time downloading the map which would become huge, and then spend the time playing though the lag) but, weather like rain would be quite easy to implement.
You could always just make a night map allow lights to be built, not much for day/night cycles but it'd add a little more fun to the game.
I like the idea of buildable lights for night maps. Should be limited though because the dynamic light is quite expensive performance wise. Day/Night cycle is impossible atm. because the Source Engine relies on precalculated static Lightmaps for most of the lighting. It's possible to "animate" those lightmaps, but that's quite expensive, too, used in a large margin and easily multiplys the Maps final file size. I'm pretty sure Krenzo could do this but since most matches don't even last 60 Minutes it would be a waste anyways.
One way to fix the dynamic light could be to only allow lights to be built at certain spots on the map and have it so its precompiled for light at the spot where its allowed. Aren't dynamic lights only intensive if they use shadows?
This would be possible. A skybox feature would have to be coded, like the idea that has been suggested for other mods in the past of being able to change the skybox without reloading the map or anything. Just like the fade textures - define two skyboxes. One primary (to start with) skybox, and the secondary. It should be also controlled wether it would be automatic transitions or scripted (also known by triggering). If it is automatic, the mapper should be given the right to define the interval between when the transitions begin, and how long a transition to the next skybox should be. Then if at all, define how it is to transition - instantly, or blend + fading? Now there is the problem of fog and lighting. Dynamic features would have to be given to both - and no, not a light_dynamic. If dynamic skyboxes were enabled, the light_environment would have a functional option of being able to have a secondary ambience/brightness/color/etc, and again, would have the same options of how it transitions, when, etc. Fog would be the same, pretty much. Dynamic weathering? :S That's something that would need to be coded in for the precipitation entity or whatever. The ability of it to dynamically follow a train track or whatever. Maybe that might do it?
Normal light entities can fade in/out, why should it be impossible to implement that with light_environments?
Well Spirit of Halflife accomplished quite much on the Goldsource engine; there are even more possibilities, I'm sure, on the Source engine to open up different fields of perspective. However, you are limited to DirectX, so you can't go as far as you can with OpenGL. I don't think DirectX or OpenGL have anything to do with implementing these features. I would conclude these features are possible, and would probably require some shaders. DirectX7 users might experience transitions a little nastier.
i know a minimod for hl2 garry'smod who done it its an rp mod from gemodcentral they say its without lag wat so ever becous it is 90 % player client calculated the server yust basically says how late it is, and your own computer loads a diffrent lightning "pallet" for each half hour (rp time) it couses allmost no framerate dropp, (3.5 % on a low end pc, only for 1 second when lights are changing) and no lag video download http://forums.gmodcentral.com/showthread.php?t=2671 and btw "jesus" is the server owner, they dont mean the cult starter
I'm sure there must be a way of implementing this that has just been overlooked. Just look at what the team managed on the battlefield engine; they should be able to create day/night cycles in source before breakfast!
