Cherenkov Radiation: Why Not?

[mcjosh]

So I'm going to assume all of you have no idea what that is. I didn't either until, like, 30 minutes ago. Basically it's a blue glow that exists around liquid-encased nuclear reactors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

Yeah. Beautiful, right? I think IC2 NEEDS this. Reactors with water around them need this. The coolness of this being implemented is incomprehensible. I've always made my reactors by having a mining turtle dig a 5x5 hole down to bedrock and putting the reactor/chambers down at the bottom, with the transformers and power storage behind a reinforced glass window in a "control room". Do you people have any idea how cool it would be to look down the hole and see the blue glow, or even better, see it from the control room? Discuss.

[The_DarthMoogle]

You should recommend this over on Alblaka's IC2 forum.

This would be sick, but Mojang's lighting engine (hahaha) doesn't support coloured lights.

[lukeb28]

This would be sick, but Mojang's lighting engine (hahaha) doesn't support coloured lights.

Maybe... hmm. Almost thought the the reactor could just be given a blue tint when on and touching water but thinking about it that doesn't work. Unless someone want to re-code the entire lighting code of minecraft (or make one in the first place) then this probably will not happen. The concept however is extreamly cool and that would be fantastic if It could be done one day.

[Chefsbrian]

It may be possible using particle effects similar to fireworks to simulate the glow, but I'm not entirely certain they would render properly, and the lag to make enough semi transparent particles would bring systems to their knees

[lukeb28]

It may be possible using particle effects similar to fireworks to simulate the glow, but I'm not entirely certain they would render properly, and the lag to make enough semi transparent particles would bring systems to their knees

That might be a problem ... I'm no moder but that sounds difficult.

[Chefsbrian]

It wouldn't be to hard to create the particle effect. Creating it to behave like it would need to, would be difficult. Most particle effects seem too similar for the system to be flexible enough. I'm no modder either, keep in mind

[SimpleGuy]

So I'm going to assume all of you have no idea what that is.

Sorry to bum you out, but it's one of the first things we learned about as a nuclear engineer, and our university plasters the blue glow picture everywhere (it's the login background on our uni computers all over campus). With our reactor you literally can look down into the open pool of water and see the blue glow, and its glow intensifies proportionally to the amount of power being generated.

[Xylord]

Sorry to bum you out, but it's one of the first things we learned about as a nuclear engineer, and our university plasters the blue glow picture everywhere (it's the login background on our uni computers all over campus). With our reactor you literally can look down into the open pool of water and see the blue glow, and its glow intensifies proportionally to the amount of power being generated.

Sorry to burn you out, but you don't have to literally be a nuclear engineer to know that, a simple interest in nuclear science is enough to know about it. ;)

[mcjosh]

It may be possible using particle effects similar to fireworks to simulate the glow, but I'm not entirely certain they would render properly, and the lag to make enough semi transparent particles would bring systems to their knees

Hmm, yeah. using particles to simulate blue glow would be a bit overwhelming. However, I think light blue "redstone" particles floating in the water would look good in the water, if only from a distance. (like the navy blue particles for the teleporter)

Edit: Another idea is different colored water blocks that emit their own light, like a brown mushroom. So there would be lighter colored water blocks near the reactor, and increasingly dark blue as the light fades.

[Chefsbrian]

That would be difficult to pull, as waters colour is determined by the biome settings, so far as I'm aware. Even then, You'd need far too much water to create a casual enough effect without making it look like the reactor is just covered in ice.

[mcjosh]

That would be difficult to pull, as waters colour is determined by the biome settings, so far as I'm aware. Even then, You'd need far too much water to create a casual enough effect without making it look like the reactor is just covered in ice.

I'm talking blocks with different IDs that imitate water, but have a slightly different color. The reactor would look covered in ice? I don't see how.

[Chefsbrian]

Well most people have reactor designs encased in just a few blocks of water, if any. Either the change would be so small as to be unnoticable, or so sharp and sudden that it would look much like the reactor was encased in a semi-transparent material.

Still, I think this could be a cool idea, assuming we could find a way to make it look right. I'll refrain all "Its bad" or "its awesome" concepts until I was to see it in game.

[SimpleGuy]

Sorry to burn you out, but you don't have to literally be a nuclear engineer to know that, a simple interest in nuclear science is enough to know about it.

I wasn't saying only nookies learnt it, only that as a nookie it's one of the first things explained to us. ;)

[mcjosh]

Well most people have reactor designs encased in just a few blocks of water, if any. Either the change would be so small as to be unnoticable, or so sharp and sudden that it would look much like the reactor was encased in a semi-transparent material.

Still, I think this could be a cool idea, assuming we could find a way to make it look right. I'll refrain all "Its bad" or "its awesome" concepts until I was to see it in game.

Right, I see what you're saying. So our options are 1)Particles and 2)New Lighting Engine

Woah! I just remembered seeing a nether mod that had mushrooms that gave off colored light. I saw the mod on the minecraft forum about a year ago, I believe. I remember distinctly some mushrooms that gave off purple or green light, and lots of it. If we could find this mod, we could find out how he did it.

[Chefsbrian]

Well that mod was also likely done before the lighting engine rewrite, if your time stamp is accepted as fairly accurate. So we have declared particle effects as likely impractical due to lag, and unique water blocks unfeasible due to the usually tight confines of reactors. As for a new lighting engine? Even if such a core edit of minecraft's rendering engine where even possible, the system would essentially need to be able to handle ambient glows, or a simple bloom type effect, to make this look good. Such a system would make minecraft's current memory footprint look like an etch-a-sketch, since none of this could be baked in advance or otherwise optimized well enough.

[Xylord]

Well that mod was also likely done before the lighting engine rewrite, if your time stamp is accepted as fairly accurate. So we have declared particle effects as likely impractical due to lag, and unique water blocks unfeasible due to the usually tight confines of reactors. As for a new lighting engine? Even if such a core edit of minecraft's rendering engine where even possible, the system would essentially need to be able to handle ambient glows, or a simple bloom type effect, to make this look good. Such a system would make minecraft's current memory footprint look like an etch-a-sketch, since none of this could be baked in advance or otherwise optimized well enough.

The latest Tgaumcraft release applies the glowing enchanted effect in various colors directly on blocks, you could check this out.

[Chefsbrian]

The latest Tgaumcraft release applies the glowing enchanted effect in various colors directly on blocks, you could check this out.

I'll take a look, but having each block with a different colour loops us back around to the "Unique Water blocks" Issue again. Maybe there's a way to commandeer the lighting engines smoothing system to make it less drastic though... Alot of effort for some glowing water here XD.

Still, I'm no java programming, I'm just making educated guesses off of what I'm aware of, I wouldn't really know until I tried it myself now, would I?

[racingpro]

Also, with the newer versions of IC2, there's no need to cover the reactor in water, so you'd need to go out of your way to just get this effect in the first place.

[lukeb28]

Also, with the newer versions of IC2, there's no need to cover the reactor in water, so you'd need to go out of your way to just get this effect in the first place.

That kind of make this whole discussion rather pointless then. While unnecessary it would still be amazing to see.

[Kocken926]

Sorry to bum you out, but it's one of the first things we learned about as a nuclear engineer, and our university plasters the blue glow picture everywhere (it's the login background on our uni computers all over campus). With our reactor you literally can look down into the open pool of water and see the blue glow, and its glow intensifies proportionally to the amount of power being generated.

...why aren't the beta particles burning your face off when you do it?

[lukeb28]

...why aren't the beta particles burning your face off when you do it?

I think you missed the time frame for making that joke. Would have been better if that was before Xylord did his bit. Also, pure H2O is excellent at blocking almost all types of radiation and even electricity when there's enough. If you throw a flashlight that's on into one of those reactor chambers it would stay on. Hell you could do it with a phone if you really wanted to.

[Kocken926]

I think you missed the time frame for making that joke. Would have been better if that was before Xylord did his bit. Also, pure H2O is excellent at blocking almost all types of radiation and even electricity when there's enough. If you throw a flashlight that's on into one of those reactor chambers it would stay on. Hell you could do it with a phone if you really wanted to.

Neither I nor Xylord have made a joke in this thread, so I don't know what you mean. Also, no, you can't throw a phone in even 100% pure H2O, it still conducts enough to mess its' chips up.

[lukeb28]

Also, no, you can't throw a phone in even 100% pure H2O, it still conducts enough to mess its' chips up.

Honestly, it doesn't conduct. The only condition is that there cannot be any contaminants what so ever. I do realize that a reactor chamber will have some minute amounts so what I said about the phone is a little far fetched but the example remains the same.

Neither I nor Xylord have made a joke in this thread

I never said that Xylord made a joke. I said a bit which was basically a rip on simpleguy. As for your post not being a joke, sorry. It seemed as if there was some attempt at humor. In any event, I mainly said what I did because you quoted a post from yesterday when 12 messages had passed buy which seems like missing a punch. My most sincere apologies If I insulted your posting expertise. Cheers!

[The_DarthMoogle]

snip.

Why he thought you were joking I have no idea, but basically Beta particles are literally particles. They have mass and charge. So while an atom is mostly empty space, Beta particles will eventually hit a nucleus and get bounced back, or lose its energy. With a large volume of a dense substance such as water or lead, the chances of any travelling particle hitting a nucleus is compounded, dig? Beta particles can only travel a couple of metres in air, so the Beta radiation you'll receive standing over SimpleGuy's reactor will take only a few centuries to give you a decent tan.

Don't have to be a nuclear scientist at all :3

[Kocken926]

banana.

Aren't beta particles electrons, and as such will shy away from molecules that aren't "missing" one? Or are they just too high-powered in this case to give a crap about their charge?

While this was covered in Elementary and re-covered in high-school (or whatever you call it), I didn't remember particle radiation being THAT weak. Although, come to think of it, my teacher did bring in some radioactive materials one day, and we discovered that you could block the particles with a newspaper or two, so sure.

Puny particle radiation aside, what about gamma radiation then? It is a reactor after all.

Honestly, it doesn't conduct.

H2O, even "pure" such, will form ions, and therefore conduct some electricity.