Author Topic: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?  (Read 59190 times)

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Offline -Norbert-

  • 211
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
There you are wrong. While I have yet to see any pictures that convince me that the Brakiri fire orange beams (supposedly in ACTA), you can clearly see an Avioki fire white blobs with a bit of pink in them, including muzzleflashes, in "Into the fire".
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=34453.msg712750#msg712750

While the poor-quality screenshots I made years ago leave a little room for doubt wether the shots really come from the Avioki, watching the scene in the TV series itself doesn't.

 

Offline Slasher

  • 29
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
There's room for compromise on the issue of the Brakiri pule weapons while still remaining faithful to what little we've seen of them.  All but two of the Avioki's pulse weapon emplacements are actually defined as Narn weapons in the table file, and there are two types of Brakiri capital ship pulse weapons available in the table files.  Theoretically, we could do both yellow and white.

Here's the other problem: we don't really have any good shots of Narn pulse weapons.  I think the only time they're seen firing is during the opening of Acts of Sacrifice and the ISN feed in And Now For A Word.

 

Offline Vidmaster

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
I still don't look that that image as evidence...    whatever, I am not the person deciding :-)  Public development is personal development.
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 karajorma

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
There you are wrong. While I have yet to see any pictures that convince me that the Brakiri fire orange beams (supposedly in ACTA), you can clearly see an Avioki fire white blobs with a bit of pink in them, including muzzleflashes, in "Into the fire".

There's more than 5 years between those two episodes. It's easily possible that the Avioki started with one and was upgraded to the other during that time.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

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Offline Skullar

  • 29
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
I'd like to see 3d-Cockpit.

 

Offline Slasher

  • 29
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Made a new version of the Vree bolt weapon with muzzle flash.  The old one was a nice blob that thirty seconds in the table could probably have fixed, but since I had to break open GIMP for the muzzle flash graphics anyway I figured I would do a complete overhaul. 

 

Offline -Norbert-

  • 211
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Now if only we could get the AI to properly use the actual Vree way of fighting (massive barrage from the bottom middle of the ship)...

 

Offline emi_100

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Very good as always Slasher! keep the hard work!
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

  • 29
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Yeah, I noticed in-game the bottom turret rarely ever fired for some reason.  For the test mission I had to give the saucer a bunch of additional bolt cannons which was seriously annoying because the Xill has like 20+ of them.  Oddly, under default configurations, the side turret "spines" are equipped with EA pulse weapons.

There was some discussion in the Updated Omega thread about the EA laser effects.  I was thinking of reducing the prominence of the white "core" of the beam (probably the uppermost layer) so it was redder.  Shots from Seasons 2, 3, and 4 respectively hopefully illustrate what I'm talking about:





A comparison shot using the current TBP 3.4 effect is available in the Updated Omega thread for anyone curious.  In any event, it's just a tentative idea that can always be dropped if there's widespread opposition or something.

Another issue brought up very recently were burn/damage decals for pulse weapons were possible.  According to the wiki they were possible at one point but the code has apparently been removed.  Forum searches have revealed that the decal code caused problems with the game that were unsolvable at the time, but if TBP is still running if/when damage decals are reimplemented we can certainly use it.

Progress is continuing and I can now say that a test release of weapon upgrade effects will be out early summer if not before. 

 

Offline wesp5

  • 29
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
I was thinking of reducing the prominence of the white "core" of the beam (probably the uppermost layer) so it was redder.

That sounds like a good plan! I don't know how this is handled in TBP, but I'm pretty sure the red EA and Narn beams in the show were exactly the same, because they stated that the EA bought weapons from the Narn during the Earth-Minbari war.

 

Offline emi_100

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Quote
Another issue brought up very recently were burn/damage decals for pulse weapons were possible.  According to the wiki they were possible at one point but the code has apparently been removed.  Forum searches have revealed that the decal code caused problems with the game that were unsolvable at the time, but if TBP is still running if/when damage decals are reimplemented we can certainly use it.
You have my total support on this feature, if is anything i can do let me know
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

  • 29
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Last month I actually tried a couple of methods of simulating "damage glows" on ships and was so close to pulling it off.  Unfortunately there are some limitations keeping me from getting there.

1.)  The first thing I did was edit the ship tables so that the particle spews last longer and had zero velocity.  This way the little "smoke trails" were limited to being glowing dots at the point of weapon impact.  I changed the graphic so there wasn't any of the grey smoke, just a glowing animation given a relatively long (~8-30 second) lifetime in the table file.  This actually looked pretty decent for fighter guns.  Here are some examples of the aftermath of one of my strafing runs on an Omega's engine block and the nameplate section:






Unfortunately, giving the particles zero velocity means they hang in space at the point of impact too.  This is fine for a totally static space station, but as soon as the target starts to move those hit graphics just stay there.  The zero velocity impact spews also didn't stick to rotating subobjects so the Omega's habitation section left a nice circular trail of glows as it spun.

2.)  So, disappointed, I tried to edit the weapon hit effects themselves.  Impact animations can be specified per individual weapon now thanks to code modifications and this is done via the weapons tables.  I figured I would just use an existing hit animation and edit the .eff file so it had a really long duration (10-20 seconds).  This actually looked really faithful to the show's damage effects!  Unfortunately it suffered from the same problem as the hit effects from pulse weapons didn't follow a moving target and just stayed, and faded, at the point of impact, leaving the animation essentially floating in empty space.  There might be a way of gimmicking the tables to make this work; I noticed that the new beam slash effects seem to follow a moving target so there must be a way to get the impact effects from every type of weapon to follow the ship they hit...

 

Offline Slasher

  • 29
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Gonna do a quick screenshot dump since it'll be awhile before there's another update.

New Narn anti-fighter pulse weapon.  Got rid of the squiggly line from before.  The final effect won't change much from this incarnation, if at all. 


Finally changed the Earth Alliance's Minbari War-era weapons.  No more ovoid blobs or "energy sperms" hopefully...



Fighters can have different countermeasures now!  While the actual gameplay effect of the countermeasure will remain unchanged from TBP 3.4b for balance reasons, the actual graphic will vary from species to species now.  The Earthers will no longer use the same exact looking countermeasure that the Minbari do, which also happens to be the same looking one the Dilgar use, etc.  Here's some pictures of an EA fighter spamming flares:



Beginning of a Centauri bombardment.  The little ruby orange glows with the long trails are the Palos missiles that the Vorchan and Secondus are armed with.  They originally lacked the glow and the trail they left was a translucent white that I felt had to be changed.  The adjustments make them just as visible as before so there should be no balance issues.



Something else the Secondus can do:




I tried to get the asteroid to spin just like in the show but my understanding is this is impossible without changing the mass driver to a secondary weapon, which it really should have been in the first place.  Changing it to a secondary weapon could ruin backwards compatibility with any mission that customizes the Secondus' weapons, unfortunately.  FRED2 cannot override primary/secondary weapon emplacements on ships, so going from one to the other could break a mission in this case.  I tried to make up for it by giving the asteroid model an animated glow map and obviously the particle spews, the latter of which needs some fine tuning to make it look less like the comet from the opening of Deep Space Nine episodes.

 

Offline Vidmaster

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Its perfect.

Currently occupied with my thesis but I certainly need to build something again for TBP...
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 Angelus

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
Its perfect.

Currently occupied with my thesis but I certainly need to build something again for TBP...


Word.

 

Offline Vidmaster

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
FUBAR and I talked a lot about a TBP_mediavps mod on top of Zathras. Releasing all this awesome stuff like that seems the best way to me.
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 Fury

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
I think that is going to add a lot of unnecessary complexity. Why not just add the stuff to Zathras and be done with it? If there is a chance of breaking existing missions, then either change it not to or don't release it in official or semi-official manner. Public separate and unofficial download issued by the author should be enough in that case.

 

Offline Vidmaster

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
We thought (and still think if I am not mistaken, need to PM him again) that new visuals should always be optional.
However, the plan was to release an updated version (also on DVD) once the Fortune Hunters Voice Acting project is done, that comes with newest Zathras and Visual Patch active by default and should include only a selected few campaigns that are 100% compatible and voice acted.

the issue is that the FHVAP has been totally dead the last two months and I am still trying to reestablish contact with my two previously active main char actors.
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 Fury

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Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
new visuals should always be optional.
Sense this does not make.

 

Offline -Norbert-

  • 211
Re: If TBP could have new effects, what would you want to see?
I does, if they are more hardware intensive or change mission balance (apart from visibility I can't really imagine visuals having an impact here). Otherwise though I have to agree with Fury.