[torc]

ok guys...no suggestions about my post? there is any chance to find a program that simulate blur effect outside the freespace program?

[The E]

I do not think this is possible. To do motion blurring correctly, the shader needs to know how each element is moving on screen, which usually requires a more intimate connection to the engine. Same goes for depth of field, for this to work the shader needs information on the distances involved, which is difficult to obtain from the outside. Back when shaders were new and shiny, ATI had something called SmartShaders in their video drivers, which you could use to customize the look of anything rendered by the GPU, but IIRC, these were incapable of doing the stuff you want. (Not to mention that ATI ditched that functionality ages ago, even if you can get the drivers that were able to use them, chances are that you can't get them to work correctly anymore.) But I could be wrong about this, since I'm no coder.

[torc]

thanks anyway...i'll try to simulate this effect followin your suggestions...i'll tell you if  can work...(excuse me but i love a more realistc look)

[newman]

thanks anyway...i'll try to simulate this effect followin your suggestions...i'll tell you if  can work...(excuse me but i love a more realistc look)

Don't bother, it's not going to work, and you'll just create tons of driver problems for yourself. Depth of field in a space fighter sim isn't a too realistic thing anyway - the human eye sees pretty sharp over the distances included. DoF is simulated on renders, usually in interior shots, to simulate bluriness a photographic lens would cause on stuff that is out of focus. It has no place here. What you're calling more realistic is actually less realistic here

[Morwen]

Instead, you could try to come up with something that adds bloom/fakeHDR. I've seen those post effects applied to other games outside of the original engine. The ships are pretty shiny sometimes in BSG, thus bloom would probably look good in the game.

[torc]

in this days i'm just looking for a new pc... do you have any suggestion for a new card to run as best of his qualty freespace with effects i told you before? (the pc is a quad core 2,60 ghz 4giga ram)morwen thanks...newman...try to pass your hand faster near your face or turning around yourself seeing a fix point behind you and tell me there's no shade...i hate new lcd screens too for the big update frequency because for me is non realistic and too much cold...however it's just my point of view an forgive some language error! 

[newman]

...newman...try to pass your hand faster near your face or turning around yourself seeing a fix point behind you and tell me there's no shade...

That's motion blur you're talking about. I was talking about depth of field, those two are entirely different things. My argument still stands.

[torc]

excuse me i can't understand all the words you write... howevwer,do you know a good graphic card that cand offer this options?

[The E]

excuse me i can't understand all the words you write... howevwer,do you know a good graphic card that cand offer this options?

No. As we said, it's an engine problem, and that cannot be fixed by using another GFX-Card, no matter how advanced it may be.

[torc]

thanks anyway...however... for plaiyng diaspora with maximum quality wath kind of computer setup (motherboard,processor,gfx card,etc..)you suggest? thanks for your time,i know,i'm boring! 

[Ace]

On that note I'd like to put a penny in for the humble BoE- but not in the Star wars Style "Fifty ships loafing around, most not even going in the sme direction with fighters buzzing around". I'm not just saying this because I'm from BSG FC and like ordering cruisers around- I have some experiance at fredding and doing diverse cap-ship battles. It was always very difficult. particularily when the main different between capships was less firepower/less hitpoints, and more firepower/more hitpoints/less speed. Essentially floating hunks of metal shooting at each other (not to be too negative about fs/fs2 though!). No mention of manouverability, turing circles and firing arcs. it would be nice to be able to do several missions in a row (in theory-  more than two in a row could be quite boring), with one involving a line ahead formation of battlestars approaching a line abreast of baseships with escorts covering the flanks. They will all retreat if the cover of their blind spots is lost- i.e.: the two escorts at the rear of the formation are lost. Thus, while there may be many ships, the outcome rests on only two= not too much coding.  Another could involve some Cylon escorts trying to cross the T of a colonial line, while a line abreast of colonial cruisers try to intercept them. They are not your concern, but the small elite fighter group in front of you is.  The point would be to give the sense that tactics are an important factor in capships duels and allow you to bring about a turning point in a battle without too much damage scripting or over-relliance on fighters (which I admit can be fun).

One of the big issues in the engine is the limit on projectiles. Oddly enough this has been a bigger barrier than actual polygon counts. This is due to the insane number of turrets on a battlestar. Keep in mind that space is 3-dimensional. In our missions we've generally tried to use the Y axis. Of course the ships, and the show, generally have broadsides.

Perhaps ships that are more distinctive than they were in fs and fs2- if you feel like it you might want to look at some of our ships for inspiration- seeing as capshisp are our business and they have to be abit more different from "big-peice-of-metal"/"small-peice-of-metal".  For example, we have a long-range-Cylon artilliary ship in the works (MVIIE's trying to destroy it before it can get a clear shot at an out-of-visual-range Theseus?) and the Strikestar, which is a small escort that's mostly bow-cannons.

We've been discussing specialized roles for various capships. The ships in R1, including the Bolitho, are pretty generalized though.

Most importantly, it would be nice to see some curved waypoints (that possible?) and ships that don't turn on a dime or stop to do so after traveling at high speed. Perhaps a way to give ships formations in FRED without going over board with waypoints?

We're trying to avoid ballistic motion for capships in the missions.

Perhaps asome missions in which the enmy retreats, and total anhhialation is not the goal. Perhaps some in which you inflict few losses on them, but they are very hard-earned. Heck, perhaps even some in which they fight better than you (i.e.: not fancy new weapons that you're not prepared for) and you have to retreat and survive.

I don't want to say too much but... there's at least one situation in the campaign which doesn't involve you running away screaming while crapping your pants. ...well at least it starts that way.

[Nighteyes]

Hi all! Just found out about the btrl split... and I'm so that the project is still going on! been a long time lurker and even tried a bit of modding on my own
I have a few inputs that I think will help make the mod more like the show, for starters, I think that when you kill a cylon/viper it should instantly explode, with only rare ocassions spinning out and then explodiong...
About flak explosions, add some smoke effect to the animation after the explosion finishes, it will give the battles a more hectic look
Also, if it is possible, if you look on the show, when galactica's cannon/missiles hit a basestar, the explosion is much slower than the normal explosions, and lasts about 8 seconds... that way when round after round hits it gives the impression that the explosions are eating away at the basestar, and when the basestar is finally dead, it has a big and slow explosion, also lasting a long time.
As we all know, in freespace mothership explosions are very fast and leave behind almost nothing, a big contrast to the show
and finally, about the sockwave in freespace, as in BSG there are now shockwaves, its possible to use the 2d shockwave for extra sparks and debries flying off when a cap ship explodes, can be a nice tuch
sorry for all the text what do you think? 

[torc]

good idea man! hope is possible in freespace engine

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

for starters, I think that when you kill a cylon/viper it should instantly explode, with only rare ocassions spinning out and then explodiong...

Not sure if that's possible, but I actually prefer the deathspin more than instant explosion. We'll have to see what others in the team think.

About flak explosions, add some smoke effect to the animation after the explosion finishes, it will give the battles a more hectic look

Not a bad idea, I think DB or I can look into it if we have the time.

Also, if it is possible, if you look on the show, when galactica's cannon/missiles hit a basestar, the explosion is much slower than the normal explosions, and lasts about 8 seconds... that way when round after round hits it gives the impression that the explosions are eating away at the basestar, and when the basestar is finally dead, it has a big and slow explosion, also lasting a long time.

Problem is that fighters and capships use the same explosion effect. Dunno if there have been recent changes that allow ship specific explosions.

As we all know, in freespace mothership explosions are very fast and leave behind almost nothing, a big contrast to the show

When a ship explodes, it leaves behind whatever debris model the artist has had time to create. I think our ships leave behind bigger chunks than the ships in FS2 did, but that's probably the biggest change you are going to see.

and finally, about the sockwave in freespace, as in BSG there are now shockwaves, its possible to use the 2d shockwave for extra sparks and debries flying off when a cap ship explodes, can be a nice tuch

Actually, we have seen shockwaves from nukes in the show.

[Nighteyes]

I know that freespace uses only 2 explosions for capships and fighters, but what im saying is that you can add some more using differnt methods
In Weapons.tbl and weapon_expl.tbl you can see what im speaking of, i meant adding a big and slow explosion when a cannon fire hits anything, you can set epx radius to the apropriate size...
also on fireball.tbl you can set the "4 explosions before a ship explodes"  to an animation of several  scattred slow moving explosions
and about the shockwave I wasn't meaning nuke explosions, these I know you can add the flash/flare in the same way I was sujesting adding an effect to the cannon fire what I meant was to use the shockwave *.eff to add another explosion to the game, one specific to capships, the shockwave radius sets the size of the 2d plane, and the *.eff will be a bunch of nice slow moving explosions
* in the last episode you see about 8 nukes hitting the colony, no shockwaves...

[Deckard]

for starters, I think that when you kill a cylon/viper it should instantly explode, with only rare ocassions spinning out and then explodiong...

Not sure if that's possible, but I actually prefer the deathspin more than instant explosion. We'll have to see what others in the team think.

That's a thought I had long time ago too. I do not remember whether I suggested it to any of the devs or not though. Would be cool to get the guys including both types of death explosions. The ideal way would be to assign one expl depending on the amount of damage taken. But , if you want, I'd be quite happy with just a random death explosion..

EDIT: Although the insta explosion does not look that interesting in MP.. might be too shocking for the end-user.. is that so?.

[karajorma]

Both types are already supported. You hit a ship and it starts rolling, hit it again and it blows up immediately.

[General Battuta]

KARA KARA KARA

I want the missiles to look at least this graceful and curvy!

HOORAY

[karajorma]

Got the table for that? Not that ours aren't graceful already, but it's always nice to check how other people did it.

[General Battuta]

I do not, but Droid803 was the one who posted the screenshot (that's his name, right?) so maybe you could PM him?

Or I can do it.