[Vasudan Admiral]

Right, I think I've finished with the terran glows now:


Not a terribly good pic, but it gives you the basic idea.

I've redone the afterburner trail, and all 6 actual glows, including getting rid of the apparently unpopular teal burner.
All glows for normal and burner glows seem to mesh together quite well, and look reasonably good from all angles now.

So, have a look at them for yourself in-game:

http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/TerranThrusterGlows.zip

(they've all been left as TGAs to fit into a small zip, but if people like them enough to go into the media VPs, I *think* they should be changed to dds? Some of them could probably be halved in size with little quality loss)

Hope you like them.
Shivan glows or the HTL Zeus are next. Haven't decided.

Edit: Made the glows 20% smaller so they better match the sizes of the engines they come from.

Edit: Changed the pic and download link.

[Shade]

I like those last ones. A lot.

[MetalDestroyer]

Thank god !! Your HTL Freespace 2 models are totally awesome !! Is there a good chance to see them into the next Media VP 3.6.9 ?

[Vasudan Admiral]

Not all of them sorry. The Zeus probably will, but the Valk needs a new texture that doesn't assign the largest area on the ship an scrap of texture the size of a thumbnail. :\

[Pnakotus]

VA, that's neat.  I must test them, oh yes.

DaB, I know the textured cones are old retail - but I think redone, with a new mesh and new textures (nb I don't know how they're done) they would look heaps better for fighters.  I don't think they'd be good for caps, though, I think the solid, stretchy taylor cone looks better for that.  But I'll have more thoughts when I'm done testing the hell out of VA's latest.

[Bobboau]

well I'm still using the old reliable.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Bobboau]

cont...

[attachment deleted by admin]

[DaBrain]

VA, that's neat.  I must test them, oh yes.

DaB, I know the textured cones are old retail - but I think redone, with a new mesh and new textures (nb I don't know how they're done) they would look heaps better for fighters.  I don't think they'd be good for caps, though, I think the solid, stretchy taylor cone looks better for that.  But I'll have more thoughts when I'm done testing the hell out of VA's latest.

I just wanted to point out, that the 3d thrusters are there in both versions. You can't 'turn them off', unless you remove their textures.



Hmm I like VA's and Bob's glows a lot...

[CP5670]

It looks I'm using the old ones from two or three years ago. They look similar to Taylor's thrusters but are larger. I'll need to give these newer ones a try and see how they look ingame.

[neoterran]

I like VA's new ones, especially the color

[Wanderer]

3D cones can be turned off if that is wanted... IIRC 3.6.8 zeta mediavps turn the modeled cones off.

[taylor]

They look similar to Taylor's thrusters but are larger.

Yeah, I resized the ones that I use to be a little smaller.

[Pnakotus]

DaB, do you mean that the old 3d ones are 'under' taylors cones?  Wierd.

Not knowing much about the code for thrusters, I'm not sure what can be done with them.  It's surprising to me how many are using really old cones, though... 

[DaBrain]

I thought so... but maybe I was wrong... I don't really know anymore.

MediaVPs spreaded chaos on my whole (new) PC.

Anyway, I think I'll pick the best glows of the posted stuff and add it.


Second issue:
The animated shivan beam.
Not the beam glow, but the beam.

Some people even thought it was a bug... I quite like the 'flashyness' of the animation

[Turey]

Second issue:
The animated shivan beam.
Not the beam glow, but the beam.

Some people even thought it was a bug... I quite like the 'flashyness' of the animation

* Turey has no idea what this is, needs pics to compare.

[Pnakotus]

Second issue:
The animated shivan beam.
Not the beam glow, but the beam.

Some people even thought it was a bug... I quite like the 'flashyness' of the animation

Oh, is this a 'feature'?

For clarification, on all the systems I've tried the Shivan beams have sharply constrasted red/white components, instead of the blended white/colour of the GTVA beams.  I thought it was a bug, because it looks like ass (especially when you're being shot at yourself, and can pick the individual elements out as the hit your windscreen).



My non-Shivan beams look like everyone elses.  If this is what he's asking, then I think the effect needs more work. 

[Trivial Psychic]

Personally, I do not like this look.  AFAIC (As Far As I'm Concerned), all the beams should be their brightest at their core, nearly white, transitioning into the designated color for its edges.  Basically, I like it the way :V: had it, though with some slight shimmering, flickering, and even marginal degrees of thickness of variation.  This thing with the deep color at the core, flanked by white strips, makes me think that either there's more than one beam being fired, or that this beam isn't particularly well focused and thus not very destructive.

[Pnakotus]

Or that it's made of candy canes.   I'm with you: I'd prefer an FS2-ish look to all the beams, not just the GTVA ones.  These red beams are even worse moving, as the solid red/white parts move in a 'fake' way, making it look like a bad special effect.

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, I'll most likely keep using my own beams anyway along with mediaVP's, so it doesn't matter much to me if that beam goes in or not, but I have to see that I agree that it looks like it's inverted. The brightest part of the beam should be in the middle and the colour should deepen towards the edges.

Are the Cain/Lilith textures fixed, by the way? Looks like it by the picture.

[Shade]

To be honest I've so far preferred the original [V] beams to any animated versions I've seen. I especially dislike the current adveffects beams that split up. They need to look focused and powerful, almost solid. Not flashy and jumping about. Also, I agree with TP about the colours - Definitely need to be brightest in the center, anything else just looks wrong.