Author Topic: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?  (Read 59349 times)

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Offline Slasher

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
That shadow effect is a massive improvement, though I think that it could stand to be a bit quicker.

I haven't experimented with the effect a whole lot, but in its current form it can be de/activated via SEXP making this very convenient to configure, down to the length of time the effect takes to do its magic. 

*coughdontwasteyourtimewiththatomegatherearethingsinprogrescough*

:eek:  ...seems like somebody beat me to the punch!  If it's who I suspect, then he's far more qualified to do this kind of thing than I am anyway. :D

 

Offline wesp5

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
A question about the new Shadows decloaking effect. Once this is finished, will it automatically work for all old missions or does it needs to be activated for each event?

 

Offline -Norbert-

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
That nebula in front of the Omega in the last screenshot looks like a massive muzzle flash coming out of the big red front cannon (i.e. the Hangar)  :lol:

  

Offline The E

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
A question about the new Shadows decloaking effect. Once this is finished, will it automatically work for all old missions or does it needs to be activated for each event?

The way these effects work unfortunately means that old missions will have to be redone to have them. They're triggered via sexp.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline Vidmaster

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
I'd update mine  :)
Devoted member of the Official Karajorma Fan Club (Founded and Led by Mobius).

Does crazy Software Engineering for a living, until he finally musters the courage to start building games for real. Might never happen.

 

Offline wesp5

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
The way these effects work unfortunately means that old missions will have to be redone to have them. They're triggered via sexp.

Okay, if there is an explanation somewhere on what has to be changed, I will update my patch for MAGs great Star Fury missions...

 

Offline The E

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Okay, first, you need to either update the main shaders to include these effects, or delete them altogether (thus causing the engine to fall back onto the built-in default shaders). Second would be to enable them using post_processing.tbl (or delete the existing one to use the built-in default), see this for details.

Now, to use these effects in a mission, the following things need to be done:

(I am assuming for the purposes of this tutorial that you have a mission where a shadow ship decloaks, strikes, and cloaks again).

1. Place the shadow ship. Open the ships editor, and mark the "Cloaked" checkbox in the Misc dialogue.
2. Open the events editor. Create an event using the ship-effect sexp, and select "Decloak" as the effect, with a duration of your liking.
3. To cloak a ship again, use the ship-effect sexp once more, only this time using the "Cloak" effect.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline wesp5

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Okay, first, you need to either update the main shaders to include these effects, or delete them altogether (thus causing the engine to fall back onto the built-in default shaders). Second would be to enable them using post_processing.tbl (or delete the existing one to use the built-in default), see this for details.

Isn't this going to end up in the next release of Zathras? I won't tinker with it myself...

Quote
2. Open the events editor. Create an event using the ship-effect sexp, and select "Decloak" as the effect, with a duration of your liking.
3. To cloak a ship again, use the ship-effect sexp once more, only this time using the "Cloak" effect.

How is the decloaking and cloaking of Shadow ships done right now? And what would happen if someone plays the changed missions with a setup using only the old effects?

 

Offline The E

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
I think (with the caveat that I haven't looked at the mission files in question) that Shadow ships are being warped in without a warp effect.

One thing to know about this cloaking effect is that it does not rely on external effect files, it's all done using the shader built into the engine. If someone plays an altered mission with a build that does not support these effects (basically anything older than a nightly build revision 75xx, I think), they'll get an "unknown sexp" parsing error when trying to load that mission.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline Slasher

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Maybe you could tyr contacting Emi100 about normal maps. Maybe he still has them.

emi100 said he would look for them, but that was a while ago.  Still holding out hope though.  Since I've been working on Brakiri weapons I tried to do a bump map for the Avioki:

Interesting note about the Avioki.  In TBP it uses mostly Narn weaponry.  This still works since Narn pulse weapons are seen to be fairly indistinct white blurs in the show (I haven't finished them for the upgrade though).  Nonetheless, TBP provides the Brakiri with their own proprietary pulse weapons anyways which are used mostly on the light Tashkat frigate.  I went ahead and made them mostly indistinct white blurs too (well, there's a little detail there, but hard to see in these shots), but I might give them a very faint orange glow in the table file later to identify them as distinct weapons. 


I made the Drazi beam more yellow and used the tile/translation features in the table file so it now appears animated, or as animated as a beam weapon can look.


Finally, I added the slash/penetration effects to some of the other beam weapons (Centauri, EA, Whitestar).  I tried to write an infinity symbol on the back of Drakh cruiser:

I'm using a smaller penetration effect for the younger races than what was seen for the Shadows in one of the earlier videos. 

 

Offline wesp5

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Very cool effects :)! So when can we expect them and in what form? Will Zathras 3.0 include all of this?

 

Offline Vidmaster

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
really good
Devoted member of the Official Karajorma Fan Club (Founded and Led by Mobius).

Does crazy Software Engineering for a living, until he finally musters the courage to start building games for real. Might never happen.

 

Offline Slasher

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Very cool effects :)! So when can we expect them and in what form? Will Zathras 3.0 include all of this?

I don't know what FUBAR's timetable on Zathras 3.0 is like, so it's hard to say.  More advanced effects like the Shadow fade-in/out, beam penetration/damage marking, and some particle stuff aren't available using the vanilla 3.6.12 executables so including those without a full fledged Zathras 3.0 release is trickier and I'm open to suggestions. 

The files that update only pulse/laser graphics could easily be released as soon as they're done, since they are completely compatible with Zathras without an independent executable download.  They utilize features that are already available in 3.6.12 (muzzle flashes, beam tiling, maybe others I'm forgetting). 

As for when they're done I can't say for certain.  Some effects I think almost suffice the way they are, possibly only requiring a muzzle flash table entry/graphics for completeness.  On the other hand, many other effects still require actual attention/creation.  TBP has a lot of entries in the weapons.tbl, partly owing to the number of races represented in-game and the different weapons at their disposal.  Granted, I'm obviously reusing effects wherever possible. 

I'm thinking some kind of beta release in October though, just to bug hunt and get feedback from the real deal as opposed to static screenshots. 

 

Offline Vidmaster

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Zathras Updates depend on available community content and SCPbuilds.
Devoted member of the Official Karajorma Fan Club (Founded and Led by Mobius).

Does crazy Software Engineering for a living, until he finally musters the courage to start building games for real. Might never happen.

 

Offline emi_100

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
I would like to see the TV Serie's lens flare (lightwave) effect on suns.. and if is possible when jump points are opened. That would help feel the b5's atmosphere on gameplay and be awesome.

« Last Edit: October 30, 2011, 09:11:23 am by emi_100 »
DEDICATED TO ALL THE
PEOPLE WHO PREDICTED
THAT THE BABYLON
PROJECT WOULD FAIL IN
IT'S MISSION.

-------FAITH MANAGES------
  • Normal Maps for -The Babylon Project-
  • "Battle at ..." (Campaign) You can't choose when, but you will choose where... and you will fight! GO NOW!
  • "One Mistake" (Third Space Campaign)
  • "Each Night I Dream of Home" (Crusade Single Mision)

 

Offline emi_100

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
I have textures files of the Lightwave's lensflare. If anyone know more about using them on FS2 than THIS wiki article, please contac me.
DEDICATED TO ALL THE
PEOPLE WHO PREDICTED
THAT THE BABYLON
PROJECT WOULD FAIL IN
IT'S MISSION.

-------FAITH MANAGES------
  • Normal Maps for -The Babylon Project-
  • "Battle at ..." (Campaign) You can't choose when, but you will choose where... and you will fight! GO NOW!
  • "One Mistake" (Third Space Campaign)
  • "Each Night I Dream of Home" (Crusade Single Mision)

 

Offline Slasher

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
"B5 style" lens flare would be a great homage to the show.  It looks like you've actually got it in-game already.  Is it available for download anywhere?

 

Offline emi_100

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
No yet, i will pack it and I send you the link ASAP if you want to test it.
The slash/penetration effects look awasome, and the correction/add of the weapons fx too. Can i donwload it anywhere?
DEDICATED TO ALL THE
PEOPLE WHO PREDICTED
THAT THE BABYLON
PROJECT WOULD FAIL IN
IT'S MISSION.

-------FAITH MANAGES------
  • Normal Maps for -The Babylon Project-
  • "Battle at ..." (Campaign) You can't choose when, but you will choose where... and you will fight! GO NOW!
  • "One Mistake" (Third Space Campaign)
  • "Each Night I Dream of Home" (Crusade Single Mision)

 

Offline Slasher

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Couple questions:

Does anyone have good caps of the Narn cruiser firing its dorsal turret at the beginning of Acts of Sacrifice?  All I can see are somewhat indiscriminate blurs.  Not impossible to recreate, but frankly that low level of resolution works better in a TV show where you see it for a few seconds as opposed to a game where you might see it all the time.

Also, do we ever hear the Brakiri weapons firing?  I've noticed during testing that the sound effect for the Brakiri non-beam weaponry is really faint so I'm looking to either match up a sound effect we already heavy to them, or maybe capture one from the show itself.

 

Offline Vidmaster

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
in the show, we NEVER SEE OR HEAR BRAKIRI WEAPONS.
In the large battle at the end of season three, there are a lot of yellow/white shots flying around but we never see a ship fire, therefore they could all have been fired from the Drazi or other vessels as well. I'd still say yellow is a good color for the Brakiri
Devoted member of the Official Karajorma Fan Club (Founded and Led by Mobius).

Does crazy Software Engineering for a living, until he finally musters the courage to start building games for real. Might never happen.