Hard Light Productions Forums

Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: Pnakotus on July 13, 2006, 11:28:38 pm

Title: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: Pnakotus on July 13, 2006, 11:28:38 pm
I'm using Taylors vp patches, and the missiles in the loadout screen rotate around the center of the model now, which is neat.  However, the small model used for loading isn't centered anymore.  I imagine these are related: is it possible to have my cake and eat it too? :)

Also, I'm still noticing the beam fx sometimes going all 'candy cane'.  Instead of bright core fading to coloured edges, the beams are occasionally solid bits of white and green/red all jumbled together.  It occurs most often on Shivan AAAf beams, but sometimes on green beams too.  Terran AAAfs, however, always look 'proper'.  Any ideas?

I'm using the most recent vp release with Taylors second patches. (the 710s).
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: taylor on July 14, 2006, 12:01:35 am
I'm using Taylors vp patches, and the missiles in the loadout screen rotate around the center of the model now, which is neat.  However, the small model used for loading isn't centered anymore.  I imagine these are related: is it possible to have my cake and eat it too? :)
Hmm, never even tested that myself.  WMC may have just hacked in code to correctly display the broken models, but not fully take into account models which were actually setup properly.  Got the icons fixed already, and I'll take care of the rotating models tomorrow.
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: Zacam on July 14, 2006, 02:21:20 am
How is it you have all your missiles rotating properly, but I only have the Hornet and Cyclops?

*edit*
In looking at the F3 screen and selecting "View Pivot Points" I see that there are more missiles established like the Hornet and Cyclops but they're still not displaying or acting like them.
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: WMCoolmon on July 14, 2006, 02:45:20 am
Mmm, more or less. The intent with the current code was to find the center of the actual missile submodel and center on it, but I was never happy with it.
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: taylor on July 14, 2006, 07:10:47 am
The loadout screens will actually use the special *_tech versions of some of the missiles, and those work a little differently (for some reason).  In the F3 screen it uses the normal versions of the missiles and those work fine.  I'll get it fixed to work with both types just as well though.
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: FireCrack on July 14, 2006, 07:45:07 pm
Excelent, i have a few more of those coming up...
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: taylor on July 14, 2006, 09:28:18 pm
Excelent, i have a few more of those coming up...
The special *_tech versions you mean?  Did you make the first ones (I can't remember)?  I'm actually having a problem with them that I can't figure out.  It looks kinda like they are modified to rotate on a center point, without autocenter.  If I add an autocenter, and it looks ok in modview, then it's way off in-game.  If I change the autocen values to one-quarter of the distance from the back of the model then it renders ok.  Is there a reason for that?

Otherwise though I have all of the rest of them fixed.  The loadout screen will show the icons correctly, and the rotating models (except for the _tech versions) will rotate on the center axes.  The models that don't have an autocen specified will have one made automatically.  The lab will still show them wrong (though it's just a model_render() flag that fixes it) so that we can still know which missiles are without the autocen.  If it wasn't for those friggin tech models that I can't figure out (but then I'm POF-stupid, so what else would you expect from me on that subject) I'd commit the fixes already.  :(
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: FireCrack on July 14, 2006, 10:37:08 pm
Uhh yeah, I think I did that.... do you know how I should be setting these up?
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: taylor on July 15, 2006, 12:43:23 am
Like a normal in-game missile (however that is) but you can add the autocenter stuff, or not, and it will render properly in the new code.  Just let the techroom autocenter thing do the centering since trying to make it work otherwise actually breaks how the code works, and I can't figure out how to get around that.  But with autocentering set correctly it will render/rotate properly in the lab, the techroom, the loadout screens, and the hud target box.  Without autocentering set it will work correctly in everything but the lab, since that's a quick way to tell what missiles still don't have autocentering.
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: Ares III on July 29, 2006, 08:51:48 am
The reason the beams are now so ugly is that white sections are now typically animated, and the animations are usually a pair of merging and splitting white beams. This can only be "fixed" by means of hacking the table files, which I have taken the liberty of doing. The wierdly splitting beams have been in there for quite a while.
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: Pnakotus on July 29, 2006, 04:18:43 pm
Yes, I remember mentioning it to DaBrain when they were new, but they went away and I figured they were fixed.  Care to share the table hacks? :)
Title: Re: Two Graphics Questions
Post by: Zacam on July 30, 2006, 01:55:29 pm
I've tried farking around with the _tech.pof files and they're not going to center. I can get centered loadout missiles by using the regular POF (removing the call to the $Tech Model: blah_tech.pof) but then the icons themselves are no longer centered, even though the model display part is.

For now, I'm living with perfectly centered tech models, irregardless of Icon state, since that's less frustrating visually.

I've noted though, that all the normal, non-modeled missiles (Rockeye, Tempest, etc) don't spin on center in the F3 screen. Did they at one point? I'm going to run through builds and see if there is one where they are and see what it does to the modeled missiles. (By modeled missiles, I mean the belial (Cyclops) crossbow (Harpoon), Helios, Hornet, Trebuchet and StilettoII).

I think the "animation" fix was more done by the exe code than anything else. Then, rather like the textures issues was "fixed" to how it was supposed to work vs how the files were made, so now they're "broken". (this of course is nothing more than a wild guess on my part and I'm likely wrong). The "more sane animated beamglows" work perfectly fine. No surprise, they're not ANI's. Though there are "beam-blah#.ani" in adveffects still.