Any tips for billboards

[Shev]

I'm trying to use billboards to make light beams you see coming out of windows, and I can't do it for the life of me. They always look paper thin and just bad.

Edit:
So far I've found fixed axis at various sizes and angles with a extremely dim color, and spam them all over the window works well, although it doesn't look amazingly good (some randomly bright lines that don't flow nearly as smoothly as the ones in game)

[Austums]

I have the same problem; paper thing billboards. Here's what they look like.

[MrBigzy]

You can change the type if you look at the options; usually point is the one you want.

[Anxt]

I use multiple billboards to make it look less flat, although I haven't perfected the art so I won't go around giving false pointers.

[Austums]

You're right, but then you get some weird looking, half-opaque light blue floating block.

Note: The window on the left is on a FixedAxis

[MrBigzy]

Yea, point makes it, well, a point lol. Can't rotate it or anything. And the axis ones make it look flat. I'll go look at some of the game maps.

[Anxt]

Axis is bad because it spins with the player, and looks very, very horrible when passing through it. It may not always be that way, but my experience has been very bad with axis.

Fixed Axis keeps it steady, but again, makes it look very flat.

Again, I haven't found a solid way to do it yet. I think the billboards I HAVE used are "meh" at best. I'm sure I could vastly improve on them.

Edit: I may have it reversed, but either way, I don't like the one that spins with you.

[MrBigzy]

Yea, they did what Anxt did, a lot of fixed axis ones in slightly different directions, to give off a bunch of rays.

[Anxt]

I just did it incorrectly, but with some minor revisions I could probably fix them to look better.

[palistov]

Not to brag or anything, but I make some mean window rays (check out my Backhall feature in the Showcase forum)!

The best window rays are comprised of multiple billboards (fixed axis, pointing in the direction of your spotlight) rotated so that the player can see them when not directly in front of the window, and also see them "glowing" outwards while oriented directly in front of the window. (I can upload screenies if this is confusing)

Change the color of each billboard to 0.05 to 0.1 for each R, G, and B value. This will fade it so it isn't so blindingly bright, causing the rays to be EXTREMELY bright when they overlap), and so that you wont see the billboard "cut in" to your window. To help avoid this, move the billboards so that they begin at the floor (or as far away as you want them to go), and end just before the window. If you don't understand what I mean, I can post some screenshots of good and bad billboard compounds.

I also add a billboard that is oriented parallel to the window, so the window has a sort of glow to it. This also helps avoid billboards "cutting in" to the window.

In the screenies I also noticed your spotlights gobo map is upside down. Just rotate your spotlight so it is oriented correctly