[gevatter Lars]

Today I have got an idea for the shild effect.
Wing Commander used only little "spots" when you hit the shild.
So my idea is this:
We could use the shild-hit-effect instead of the normal explosion-effect of weapons that hit the hull. That would work as long as the shilds are up. Now comes the tricky part for the coders. You must implement a question that ask the programm if the shilds are up or down.  Maybe you could use the one already existing for fighters. The changes you must made is "simple" let the program change the explosion Ani, when the shilds are down.

I know that it sounds quite simple from my point of view, but I know coding and it is harder than it sounds. Hope that who ever codes will find a way to do so.

[LtNarol]

ummm, there really is a much easier way to do this, all you'd have to do is make a shield mesh for a capital ship and voila.  Its already supported by the engine, just not used.

[gevatter Lars]

Yes I have heard of that, but isn't is so that the result is that when you fire at the ship the shild-effect is quite huge? I only want a small impact zone, like in Privateer2 or Wing Commander. Not the Nebula like effect of Freespace.

[Kitsune]

The reason the 'hit area' is usually quite large is because of the number of polies used to create the shield.  
If you were to run meshsmooth or something on the shield mesh a few times you would get a much smoother shield with smaller polies to light up with weapon fire.

But unfortunately to get the size of polies we're talking about (something small, around fighter-sized) per 'hit', it would increase the polycount up to the max subobject limit or past it.

I've never done this myself, but I can imagine that for something the size of the colossus the polycount would be about 1.5k to make a semi form-fitting shield with the above mentioned.

[LAW ENFORCER]

couldn't you just change that in code?

[EdrickV]

The trick about changing limits is that, aside from the fact that they often have very good reasons for them, they often affect eachother so to be sure you don't break anything you need to make sure what all a particular limit is used in and for. (For example, DTP found that raising one limit I can't think of right now too high would break multiplayer due to the size of data packets sent from one computer to another.)

[Killfrenzy]

As for impact sizes, I like the idea of large anis for cap ship shields. It gives the impression that the energy is being dissipated over a wide area, and looks cool!

[IceFire]

As for impact sizes, I like the idea of large anis for cap ship shields. It gives the impression that the energy is being dissipated over a wide area, and looks cool!

Actually...it feels kind of low res.

I think we could take a note from WCP for instance and display a bitmap at the impact point on the shield.  Or a different ANI or something.

[gevatter Lars]

At last someone who exactly knows what I have tried to say.
Is that possible? Would be great if it so!

[an0n]

*jumps Lars, smashes open his skull and eats his brains*

~-=! Mmmmm. Taste like chikin !=-~

*stumbles off in search of more brains (and kidneys)*

[DTP]

Originally posted by EdrickV
The trick about changing limits is that, aside from the fact that they often have very good reasons for them, they often affect eachother so to be sure you don't break anything you need to make sure what all a particular limit is used in and for. (For example, DTP found that raising one limit I can't think of right now too high would break multiplayer due to the size of data packets sent from one computer to another.)

max_ship_types
max_packet_size 512

safe limit tested so far 200, a nice number to remember too.

if (max_ship_types + every other piece of stats data send when a player leaves battlearea >max_packet_size)

Then Crash FS2 modification.

I'm not completely sure if that packet size limit is hard-ware dictated, but will test it in the near future.

[Galemp]

Originally posted by an0n
*jumps Lars, smashes open his skull and eats his brains*

~-=! Mmmmm. Taste like chikin !=-~

*stumbles off in search of more brains (and kidneys)*

That is definitely the weirdest thing I have yet read on these forums.

[Darkage]

Inferno has stable shielded capships whit out any SC changes.

[IceFire]

Inferno has stable shielded capships whit out any SC changes.

Yes, but you can't see the ship when you shoot at it because the shield is a freaking big WHITE FLARE

[Darkage]

Originally posted by IceFire

Yes, but you can't see the ship when you shoot at it because the shield is a freaking big WHITE FLARE

It's mostly the inner part of the shield where the lasers/missiles hit, the other edges look as they should be. You also get the same whit fighters, but ofcourse the surfaces of those shields are smaller.

[Raven2001]

Wouldn't it be much easier to make a kind of thing (with SC twaek of course...) that, when you hit a certain ship without a shield mesh, the shield .ani would play where the laser or missile hit on the ship??? What I mean is something like in Privateer 2... when you hit a cap, a shield .ani is played where you hit it... even better would be the game making the shield .ani of the same size of tthe size of the laser blob or missile (or perhaps bigger, but its the same function, with some added values, methinks...)

[DTP]

mind refreshment

http://home19.inet.tele.dk/dtp/images/fastone.html

cough; Galactic Emperor, you know that port update, cough .

----------
forgot those where early beta pics. hit area effects are much smaller now.

[LtNarol]

easier just to make a high poly shield mesh and glue it on the ship than it is to actually add it into the source code, this definitely isnt worth the time and effort of coding when it can be done so easily with what the engine already supports.  And i for one am not much of a fan for ships that light up with shield effects every time you get through the shields and hit the hull.

[Shrike]

I wonder if there's a way to have the shield impact ani be the same size as the hull impact ani.

[DTP]

the hull impact ani is a fixed size and does not conform to the hull.

the shield impact ani is conformed to area of the shield mesh where it hits, and the size varies according to the size of the shield mesh polygon that was hit.

so it is projected on the mesh as it where a texture, but it is not using the mesh`s texture cordinates which would be a nice way to solve the to many polygon problem.

The best way do solve the Shield ani "bloop" effect on large warships should be to let the artist of the shield mesh determine how the shield should look when hit in a certain area, by using UV map cordinates.