[Rodo]

from what I see from the Vid looks kinda off when you get close, the explotion expands too slow in that case.

but if you are afar then it looks awesome, the glow is just superb! great work hey ya!

now I'm feeling the presure of having my mother burned up! I want to test this so bad 

[General Battuta]

Nighteyes, the texture corruption issue isn't due to laser hits, shield hits, or anything 'stupid' like you suggest. For example, your effects all work beautifully in retail, as well as in Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius.

The problem is that once you start introducing large numbers of new ships and new weapons, particularly texture-inefficient ships like Steve-O's Hyperion or Federal Fighter pack, things get really dicey.

[Nighteyes]

Nighteyes, the texture corruption issue isn't due to laser hits, shield hits, or anything 'stupid' like you suggest. For example, your effects all work beautifully in retail, as well as in Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius.

The problem is that once you start introducing large numbers of new ships and new weapons, particularly texture-inefficient ships like Steve-O's Hyperion or Federal Fighter pack, things get really dicey.

Don't take it personally  by 'stupid' I meant not important as these for overall graphics quality...
When you think about it, these new texture-inefficient ships, they use animated glow maps, just like lasers and shield hits, the overall frame count of all of them is calculated, with laser hits and shield hit, explosions and such, and when it reaches its max it starts with the texture corruption...
some glowmaps, laser hits and shield hit take as much as 100 frames, just reducing a few of them is enough to make sure there wont be texture corruption...

* on a side note, anyone who finds the flak effect too slow, open its *.eff file with notepad, and make the FPS higher, I just prefer seeing the smoke for a longer time, while not making the actual effect 500 frames to do so... 

[General Battuta]

Nighteyes, the texture corruption issue isn't due to laser hits, shield hits, or anything 'stupid' like you suggest. For example, your effects all work beautifully in retail, as well as in Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius.

The problem is that once you start introducing large numbers of new ships and new weapons, particularly texture-inefficient ships like Steve-O's Hyperion or Federal Fighter pack, things get really dicey.

Don't take it personally  by 'stupid' I meant not important as these for overall graphics quality...
When you think about it, these new texture-inefficient ships, they use animated glow maps, just like lasers and shield hits, the overall frame count of all of them is calculated, with laser hits and shield hit, explosions and such, and when it reaches its max it starts with the texture corruption...
some glowmaps, laser hits and shield hit take as much as 100 frames, just reducing a few of them is enough to make sure there wont be texture corruption...

* on a side note, anyone who finds the flak effect too slow, open its *.eff file with notepad, and make the FPS higher, I just prefer seeing the smoke for a longer time, while not making the actual effect 500 frames to do so... 

I don't believe these vessels use animated glowmaps, but they do use a lot of textures for the diffuse maps, and then there are new weapons. When you have Steve-O's ships, StratComm's fleetpack ships, MediaVP ships, a skybox, and twenty new types of weapons being used at once in a big battle, PLUS the new high-frame explosions, it pushes things into texture corruption almost instantaneously, I'm afraid.

However, removing explosion_10 (the 600 frame one) seems to help out a lot!

[falcon2105]

WOW, i forgot I was watching freespace for a bit there. That smoke looks damn cool, although being flak as was stated earlier, I thought it should expand/explode quicker. How much experience did you have with this kinda of stuff before you started? I know you got a lot of help from the guys here, and I was interested in trying to make this stuff too.

[Nighteyes]

WOW, i forgot I was watching freespace for a bit there. That smoke looks damn cool, although being flak as was stated earlier, I thought it should expand/explode quicker. How much experience did you have with this kinda of stuff before you started? I know you got a lot of help from the guys here, and I was interested in trying to make this stuff too.

No previuse modding experiance, and I started using after effects about a month ago... I did have experiance in 3d programs and photoshop... that helped understand how after effects works(very similar to photoshop)
I like seeing the explosion for a long period of time, that way space dosn't seem so empty as it usually does in freespace... and I do need to think about the frame count of the effects... if there was no limit, id make a 1000 frame flak effect, with the smoke staying for much longer, and as the battle goes on the battlefield becomes clouded with soft smoke 

General Battuta: explosion_10 was meant to be a test one... maybe ill edit it\new one with a low number of frames, and that will make everything good 

[General Battuta]

That 1000 frame effect thing would be awesome. *sigh* If only there was some practical way for the coders to raise that limit.

Hey, Nighteyes, it sounds like Diaspora could really use you. That mod is even bigger than Earth Defense, so if you could split your efforts, that would be awesome.

[Nighteyes]

That 1000 frame effect thing would be awesome. *sigh* If only there was some practical way for the coders to raise that limit.

Hey, Nighteyes, it sounds like Diaspora could really use you. That mod is even bigger than Earth Defense, so if you could split your efforts, that would be awesome.

All in good time... look where we are now, give it some time and we will have 1000 frame effects in the game,  if I'm not mistaking the diaspora team is having major problems with the object cap when the galactica fires its turrets, maybe once they up that limit it will affect the limit of frames for effects? 
I love BSG, but nobody from Diaspora contacted me, so I'm guessing they don't need me
And, I think that once we will release the mod, it will become a must play for any freespace fan 

[General Battuta]

I think Earth Defense is great; I'm just talking about in terms of the built-in fanbase.

And go check out the Diaspora forum - they just posted a recruitment thread for effects people.