[ShadowWolf_IH]

here's a wip, I'm not happy with the opacity on the poofs, so i'll be working on them more tomorrow.

[T-Man]

Out of interest is this in a nebula mission or with a nebula background (assuming former)? I notice you can see the Orion a lot better than you would in retail; i like it.

[MatthTheGeek]

I think it's both, nebula mission with a nebula background.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

A nebula skybox, and full neb poofs.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Yo dawg, I heard you like nebulae, so we put nebula inside your nebula, so that you can fly in a nebula while surrounded by a nebula.

Jokes aside, I like that green-ish nebula. People have been making beautiful nebulae lately.

[JGZinv]

yeah I like it....

[z64555]

Hey, your Orion radar icon is backwards

Nebula cloud-lets look smooth, but I can't tell if I like the overall effect or not... 

[Droid803]

Uh, what's causing that weird dark artefacting on the upper left area?
Some weird interaction between the poofs and the skybox?

[Cyker]

How does it look up close?

Current SCP nebula is broken IMHO as when you're right next to something, the nebula is still obscuring your vision at the same degree and real fog does not work like that!

It's really annoying as I can't even read decals or see turrets clearly even if my fighter's nose is right next to it!


The original retail nebula was a lot better for that, although it had much more obvious fog planes which spoilt the effect somewhat.

This one does look nice tho'

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Droid, I'm not really sure what you mean.  It is either the dark nebs, which are now gone, or a trick played on the eyes due to this being a still shot taken from something moving.

I still have to play with poof coloring (never should have messed with it).

Cyker, I hope this answers your questions.  I think that your problem isn't with the SCP stuff, but with poof opacity.  In this incarnation I used 50% opacity on the poofs.  If you look down the hull in the second pic, you can see that the forward turrets are much more obscurred than the closer one.  I hope I am right in this.

Far away Orion:


Close up Orion:

[Cyker]

Oh yes! That looks a bazillion times better!

[ShadowWolf_IH]

The SCP thing, as near as I figure, simply controls how far out the fogging of the models happens.  In these images we are too close for the fogging to take place, the only thing obscurring the model is the poofs.  Lowering the opacity does the trick, and it lets the skybox come through a bit.

These are easy as eating ice cream to do, just don't do it too fast or you'll end up with a brain freeze.

[Scourge of Ages]

This is incredible. That's all.

[Droid803]

I was talking about the dark green bits that look like someone took a grunge brush on pencil mode and clicked on the screen a few times.

Well, the artefacting appears to be gone in the newer 2 screens so whatever.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Droid I'm going to be honest with you, I have no idea what you mean, mostly because I don't know the terms.  Talking to me in the terms of the trade is like taking a 5 year old and telling them that the race car needs a round of wedge put in because it is developing a push in turn 4.  I just don't have the terms, so if I come off as rude, I don't mean to, I just have no idea what people are talking about at times.

Before you tel me to look it up....this what I found at freedictionary...artefacting - no dictionary results

[BlasterNT]

I think he means the dark nebula as seen in http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=81249.0

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Oh ok, well yeah, I decided to forego the darkneb layer this last time around.  I think it was a good decision, the nebula looks a good deal better without it. 

Once I get some time (yeah right), I may just make a slew of these for downloads to any and all who want them.  The main problem is that we can only have 6 poofs.  I am trying to get that changed in Fred via SCP, same as the number of nback.  Which means that currently each one would have to be a package in and of itself.  That should give me the practice I need to put out something that looks good.  This is a whole new process for me.  Take the last incarnation.  I specifically chose colors from the skybox and made the poofs using those colors.  Now they kind of drown out the skybox, with the exception of the stars in the nursery.  So lesson learned, paint the poofs a few shades off of the skybox colors, or desaturate them a bit, or something, not sure what yet.  I'll figure it out and quit being the ameteur of backgrounds.

[jr2]

I see you got it, but:



Maybe if you just increased the dark nebula opacity or something, but it looks great without it I think.

[Droid803]

I thought it may have been an image compression issue due to the pixellation (be it of the poofs skybox, or the image itself), thus (compression) aretfacts.
Guess it's just that the poofs/fog are playing weird with a layer on the skybox.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Yeah that's what it was, the dark layers.  Sorry that you need to dumb down the convo for me

Now that I have added a new word to my vocabulary, I think I am done with this one since I redid the poof colors and set them to the same opacity as the previous incarnation.  I think that choosing a base color from the skybox and using it to make the bitmap for the lightning bolts would probably be the way to go for lightning if it is desired.