[jr2]

Looks like it..

[Pnakotus]

Are the pink Shivan beams intentional?  It weakens the primary colour battle effect, and the 'zomg teh devilz' effect.  Pink? 

[TrashMan]

Didn't you know Shivans are ghey?

[Bobboau]

it makes the beam look 'hotter', otherwise it would be the same shade of red most of the way through.

[IPAndrews]

Actually, and forgive me Bobboau because you know I love some of your new effects, in this case it really does just look gay

[m2258734a]

The design of the beam is outstanding, and it also makes sense to have pink near the outer boundaries of the white core to establish a transition between white light and red light. If I am not mistaken, I think what some people are having problems with is that the regions beyond the lightning bolts don’t look red enough. Maybe if you can redden that region and eliminate the pinkish hue which should reside near the center of the beam and not the outside, the color combination of the beam might satisfy those who disagreed with it in the first place.

Your new designs are incredible. I haven't played Freespace SCP in a while and my laptop that I am using right now is nowhere near capable of running the game smoothly, so may I ask what are the beams that your new designs intended to replace? I see what your BFGreen looks like, and SVas and BVas, but I am not sure of the others. Also, are you also planning on redoing the AAA beams, as well?

[Herra Tohtori]

No, it doesn't make sense to have pink in there in my opinion. Light red is not pink, it's just a colour where there is less green and blue than red.

Pink is a colour where there is amount X of red (usually full 100%), and then more blue than green. Like this:
RED #ff0000
BLUE #0000ff
MAGENTA #ff00ff
PINK #ff55ff

Pink requires more blue than green to exist in the RGB colour mix to create magenta... and that isn't really viable in beams, unless canon supports pink in beams, which it doesn't (thank the lords of Kobol). The Shivan beams have two kinds of gradients: From white to red (for the core) and from red to transparent (for the edges). In this case, the fade from white to red to transparent in the edges goes like this - in hex codes, the colour scale for shivan beam should be from #ffffff to #ff0000 to #000000.

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

When there's full red component (#ffXXXX) in the colour, green and blue components should be equal. If there's a difference between green and blue components, the beam becomes more yellow or more magenta (or pink). That's in my opinion not necessary - or at least the beamglows should then be toned to have similar amount of blue in them to create the same relative amount of blue to result in pink in edges. I prefer the red ones, though. After all - no one is suggesting that the green beams should have some cyan, yellow or magenta in the edges, which would be the same thing as saying that red beams should have pink (essentially magenta) in edges...


Incidentally, I had a slight problem when I was meddling with beam textures. The vasudan beams too easily became 100% brighter than AAA, Shivan and Terran beams, only because they were yellow and thus had the advantage of using two thirds of a pixel luminence in computer screen on the edges of the beam, because yellow #ffff00 is a mix of red and green, whereas red, green or blue beams could only use one third of it on the beam edges...

EDIT: I'm not saying that the beams should have a linear transition. Increased detail practically requires that there are some different colours present - but I would prefer some slightly orange streaks or lightnings around Shivan beams instead of magenta. It would also fit canon better than pink beam edges... considering that cutscene Lucifer beams were orange more than red.

[m2258734a]

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I was mistaking light red to be very similar to light pink in hue, and I never took into consideration the differences in RGB between the two colors. Assuming that pink was actually light red, it would make sense to have that color near the center of the beam, but not near the "edge" to make that transition between white light and red light. Thanks for clearing up my misconception.

I have no problem with the current color scheme of the beam, and I believe the beam and the beamglow fit together perfectly since they were both created by Bobboau:

http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/SbeamWA.avi

While I'm content with the current scheme, I would prefer to see less pink and more red, or any other possible color combination other than pink; regardless, excellent job. 

[CKid]

I downloaded the most updated full effect pack created by Bobboau but I am not sure where to put some of the files.

I know the .dds files go into mediavp/data/maps
.ibx files go into mediavp/data/cache
.tbm files go into mediavp/data/tables
.tga files go into mediavp/data/effects

but do the .eff files go?

Any help would be great, thanks.

[Herra Tohtori]

If an image (TGA/DDS/<choose filetype>) is used as a weapon effect, shield effect or engine glow effect etc. , it goes to ../<mod>/data/effects/; if an image is used as a model's texture, it goes to ../<mod>/data/maps/. In this case, mod being the mediavp folder.

EFF files are essentially used as animation pointers for both cases (they point the game to use images as frames), but they go to the same folder that their respective image files go. Thus in this case, you put them to the effects folder along with the frame images. If you were to use animated texture for some model - like the 3D shockwave model for example - the frame images and the EFF file would go to maps, because the 3D shockwave is actually a textured model instead of an effect texture rendered in a layer.

[Cobra]

Ugh, Bob's .tbm is riddled with parsing errors.

[EDIT] OK. Bob, there was no need for all of the #Ends and #Secondary Weapons thing. It works perfectly without 'em. (In your build, anyway) One #End is enough.

[CKid]

Ok, I changed the .tbm file to remove all but the last #Ends and the #Secondary Weapons, by opening the file with word pad but how do I save it without changing it into a .txt file?

[Edit] Nevermind, I just had to open the file with note pad.

[Bobboau]

well the beam can be changed easily enough, the "pink" is in one section, but I didn't save the script for the glow, so that's got to be changed somehow. however, you guys were playing with shivans that had engine glows that looked like lit farts the turned dark purple when the went realy fast for the last year, and I never heard any complaints about that, I don't see why having a small amount of blue in the core of the beams it such a big deal, I certainly don't see how it's 'gehy' shivan beams that have absolutely no color variation are boring, simple as that, I think if you just stop with the bandwagon spazing about something different for a moment you'll see its a good idea, but if your so set against it feel free to modify and redistribute it, who's ever is best will become dominant, that's how evolution works after all.

[Raven2001]

I rly dont c a prob with the pinkish hue on the beam... sure, deviates a bit from cannon, but so what?! Looks cool anyways, gives more "vivacity" to the beam.
So thumbs up on it imo

[m2258734a]

I don't see a problem with it either; I was only providing a suggestion that might satisfy those who were a little discontent with the color scheme from the beginning. VA posted a YouTube video for comparison purposes so we can decide what beams we want in the next media VPs. So far, your Shivan beams are dominating

I said before that I would probably prefer to see a different combination of colors, but after watching the video the color choice really blends in and looks great. I agree with the vivacity, and the pink hue IMO really defines the plasma-like appearance of the beam. It reminds me of the light emission we see when running a current through hydrogen gas at low pressure.

I would like to ask one question though; was it intentional for the LRed and SRed to have the same beam design and color scheme (unless my eyes are deceiving me)? I ask simply because the beams within species that you've shown us so far all look different from one another. Thanks.

[DaBrain]

I like your effects a lot.

There is one thing I hope you can fix though:
The beamglows are too cloud-ish and lack a ... 'powerful-looking' center.

Don't forget that FS2 will use multiple glows at once for one beam. You should make the glow more 'transparent', or give it a softer gradient to the edges.


Edit: Hmmm your program seems to be perfect to create shield effects too... Just an idea.
Also, I think it's good you're promoting it this way. 

[Bobboau]

yeah it could do shield effects and thrusters and shockwaves and explosions, I'll probably get around to it sometime soon(er or later).

most of the other beam I was trying to make a distinction between each one, with the shivans I though it might be better it there wasn't as much of a difference between them (they would all look more or less like the same weapon but on different power levels) it makes the shivens more distinct by there beams being the only set that seems so similar, and with all the beams looking so similar no one beam stands out, unlike the terran and vasudan beams, so you have a horde like effect on there personality, but that's my take on it, and if someone thinks they need to be different and the majority agrees then we can do it that way. now there are differences but they are extremely sudle, the most distinct of the shivan beams is the BFRed(that was included in the latest pack right?), as it has a second energy layer, but the basic structure is just a bigger version of the other two.

and there really isn't any other way to go other than magenta ("pink") if you add green it'll look more yellow and orange and that's too much like the vasudan color scheme. so all there is other than that is adding a little bit of blue.

[DaBrain]

Imho the shivan beam looks 'too' good.
You'll have to upgrade the other beams too. With a nice secondary effects, like the shivan beam has.

[m2258734a]

Thanks for answering my question. Your reason behind the Shivan beams is what I had in mind, and your reason is justified. I was wondering if you have done similar upgrades to all other beams in the game, including the AAA and the ones that we do not see in the regular FS2 campaign. Also, have you made upgrades to the "slasher" beams, as well? I'd check your beam packs myself, but I can't run Freespace SCP on this laptop or any other computer in my vicinity.

[Bobboau]

not yet