Author Topic: [Committed] Auto Spread Shields  (Read 6847 times)

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Offline Goober5000

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Re: [Committed] Auto Spread Shields
I missed this the first time around.  This is pretty cool. :)


Ooh.  I don't suppose there's a way to do some auto-topology magic so that shield impacts could be projected?

Actually I don't think it would be terribly hard to do by just playing the impact animation on a flat quad, positioned on the point of impact and oriented along the hull. Simulating fancier geometry than that would be much harder.

That sounds like the best approach.  I took a look at the shield hit display code back when surface-shields were added, and it is utterly inscrutable.

 

Offline Fury

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At first I thought this just automatically pressed "Q" all the time, but now that I see it... It's infinitely better than surface shields :)
That's what I thought too. And even now I don't immediately see what's the advantage over old surface shields. Perhaps I'm just missing something really obvious here, wouldn't be the first time.

I missed this the first time around.  This is pretty cool. :)


Ooh.  I don't suppose there's a way to do some auto-topology magic so that shield impacts could be projected?

Actually I don't think it would be terribly hard to do by just playing the impact animation on a flat quad, positioned on the point of impact and oriented along the hull. Simulating fancier geometry than that would be much harder.

That sounds like the best approach.  I took a look at the shield hit display code back when surface-shields were added, and it is utterly inscrutable.
Each weapon already has $Impact explosion and $Impact radius defined in weapons.tbl or tbm, why not just use those for shield hit but replace $Impact explosion with $Shield impact from ships.tbl or tbm? That way shield impact could vary from ship to ship but impact radius is same as it would be when weapon hits hull.

 

Offline The E

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Re: [Committed] Auto Spread Shields
That's what I thought too. And even now I don't immediately see what's the advantage over old surface shields. Perhaps I'm just missing something really obvious here, wouldn't be the first time.

It allows you to have traditional "shield bubble" behaviour without having to define a shield model. Given the issues we've had with bad shield models (holes etc), and the difficulties inherent in testing them, this is a definitive improvement.
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Offline Fury

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Re: [Committed] Auto Spread Shields
Alrighty, I can see that. Now it just needs this impact effect problem figured out and it's golden.

 

Offline Goober5000

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Each weapon already has $Impact explosion and $Impact radius defined in weapons.tbl or tbm, why not just use those for shield hit but replace $Impact explosion with $Shield impact from ships.tbl or tbm? That way shield impact could vary from ship to ship but impact radius is same as it would be when weapon hits hull.

It's not the graphics that are the problem, it's the displaying of them.  The shield code draws shield effect animations on the shield mesh using an array of triangles.  The particular shield effects to flash on or off are indicated by flagging a collection of triangles in the array corresponding to the location of the shield hit.  The array is heavily tied into the POF model code, and doesn't lend itself well to either inspection or expansion.  It would probably take less coding effort to code up a new routine than to modify the existing one.

 

Offline Bryan See

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Re: [Committed] Auto Spread Shields
There's a discussion on whether the shielding code can be improved. It is located here
Bryan See - My FreeSpace Wiki User Page (Talk, Contributions)

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Offline karajorma

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Re: [Committed] Auto Spread Shields
Don't bump old threads to discuss new ones!
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

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