Not really. It's because those programs interact (semi)directly with the hardware, rather than being routed through a scripting engine.

Not sure I understand. As far as I can tell, you either mean:

1) Make an animated image file (gif, mng, whatever) of a light show and then display that instead.
2) Make a light show with only one light.

The second seems a little strange but then so does the first. Please elaborate.

They would be related, yes, though it wouldn't be a linear relationship. Read up on some physics if you want a better explanation - there'll be plenty of models that could suit your purposes.

If I get sufficiently bored in the near future then I'll code up a quick demo for you. It really wouldn't be so complicated.

Well, the lighting in them is amazing. And it has alot to do with the graphics.

The first, actually. It is alot more efficient then using alot of showimg, but then it is more difficult. Well, I don't think it is very hard, but others might.

o_O. I probably understand what you are saying, but just don't realize it :p

I would...really appreciate that.

Perhaps so, but the effects are entirely dynamic. More on this in a second.

The problem is that such an effect is entirely static. It could never react to the player's actions. You could never code, say, some fireworks in this way (without producing hundreds of mngs) because they need to have dynamic attributes such as thrust, color etc. Otherwise they just look the same every time.

Perhaps you are right. I was mainly going for things like nice levels, with great waterfalls, light rays shooting down from the sky, things like that.

Fair enough. It all depends on the scenario. For example: You could use dynamic graphical effects in a script so that it draws spray for any waterfall regardless of width and height. Then you can just lay waterfalls creatively and not have to worry about remaking the spray animation.

o_O care to explain? Sounds like script once again, rather then quality light effects.

Again I get the feeling that we are running perpendicular. You were saying that making static animations was a reasonable alternative for writing dynamic scripts. I just gave an example where a dynamic script would've been more convenient.

Nothing better than Kai finding a new rival in the SuperMegaLongPostsThatNoOneWantsToRead category.. :\

Oh, well, what I am trying to say is light effects need a quality base, to reduce lag. So maybe a waterful can ahve like...10 spray particles going down, but the rest should be done with animation and such. Get what I mean? I don't know, it doesn't really matter...I am just trying things others haven't, after looking at games like never winter nights and dungeon seige, and even older games.