I''ve been trying to figure out how to simulate lighting in DirectDraw the way westwood does with C&C2. Some people say theres a way to do it with D3D, but I dont have a clue on where to begin with that. Can anyone help me out?

It''s called point lighting, and is pretty damn nifty. I''ve no idea how Direct 3D works though but obviously it can be pulled off in software(C&C2).

Whoa i get to answer one! Ok, see, directdraw is 2d, and direct3d is 3d, right? Well you can use direct3d as only 2d too if you want. You just make a surface that covers the whole screen or many small ones or whatever. This is advantageous because than you can do things like alpha blending in hardware or *drumroll* lighting. However, I doubt that''s the best way to do what you want. I mean, doing it like this in D3D is good because of the alpha blending, but i dont think using it''s lighting system is that good an idea. It''d probably be better to just rig up an image filtering system to lighten what you want lit.

What you can do is use 2D in Direct3D. Make your terrain a texture map on to some polygons, and you can get some really cool effects like lighting, anti-aliasing, and some other funky 3D things.

If you make all your guys sprites and stuff, more cool effects. Get into Direct3D, it''s worth it.