I was wondering if I could get some advice on the best way to approach this.
I'm in the process of writing an emulator that runs old UK arcade fruit machines games that have 'feature boards'. The machines are similar to US slots. The actual board consists of many semi-transparent squares that are lit from behind (see image for an example). Image
What I'm looking to do is render a 3D representation of a machine by (preferably) using an open source 3D engine. What I'm not sure of is how best to approach the 'backlighting' effect of the individual squares of the feature board. A square can be individually turned on or off and dimmed to any level. I'm very experienced with C++ and assembly but fairly new to directx/opengl.
Bearing in mind there could be up to 512 lamps flashing/dimming individually, I'm guessing that using 'normal' lights behind semi-transparent textures would be too intensive? I've read up about pixel and vertex shaders, and was wondering if this would be the best way to approach the effect? (eg split the feature board up into individual textured polygons for each square, but join them all together so it looks as one)
Thanks for any advice