Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: aldo_14 on June 22, 2001, 04:03:00 pm
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I have an idea for a ship with a cloak (activated / deactivated by SEXPs) - the only thing is, I need a way to remove engine glows when the ship cloaks for it to work properly... is there a way to do this without disabling the ship?
Maybe if I have 2 engine subsystems, one with a thruster of 0 radius, which are switched on/off during the cloak?
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Doesn't FS2 cloak the glows with the SEXP?????
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Originally posted by Raven2001:
Doesn't FS2 cloak the glows with the SEXP?????
No, they'd still show up as the game doesn't know that the ship is (semi) invisible. So I need to find a way to turn them off manually, without disabling the ship.
BTW, do you have ICQ Raven?
[This message has been edited by aldo_14 (edited 06-22-2001).]
[This message has been edited by aldo_14 (edited 06-22-2001).]
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Ehh!!! Wrong!! this is what I did to a herc 2 to get only the rear 2 thrusters... rename the textures from thruster01 to invisble. Works like a charm... andthey won't collide either...
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yep, but that's definitive, you can't have the thrusters back when uncloaked, then
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I think i can get it if I use 2 engine subsytems and use some heavy SEXPs.
Basically, engine01 will be the normal engine glow. Engine02 will have a 0 radius (or 0.1 if necessarry). When the cloak activates, engine01 deactivates, and is invisible. This should work.
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Well, I have a working cloak;
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/g.white19/clk1.jpg)
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/g.white19/clk2.jpg)
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/g.white19/clk3.jpg)
The only problems are;
- I need to get the ship to re-appear (very difficult, and I'm not even sure it's possible) by rebuilding the visible subsystem
- I need to make a new semi transparent map, as the invisible texture seems to disable collision detection, plus it's too hard to see (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Still, i have an alternative (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif) method idea.
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Team Member of The Ghost and the Darkness ("http://uk.geocities.com/gunnery_control/index.html")
[email protected]
ICQ: 119819902
"Why does it always rain on me?
Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?
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Even when the sun is shining, I can't avoid the lightning.."
(c)1999 Travis
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Make a sexp,
when
is destroyed delay
[name of ship]
[name of subsystem]
1
Set subsystem strength
100
no?
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I had something similar, along the lines of;
-when button pressed
- [
- 1
-set subsytem strength
- Beta 1
- cloak
- 100
and;
-when button pressed
- ]
- 1
-repair subsystem
_ Beta 1
- cloak
- 101
But it didn't work for repairing. I also tried various different ways of repairing the subsystem, and alternate activation / deactivation keys, but it still doesn't work.
It's probably not possible with visible / physical sub-systems.
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What happened when a hygeia docked with it?
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Originally posted by Snipes:
What happened when a hygeia docked with it?
didn't try it... it was a custom model with no dockpoints, anyway.
The basic idea is that the main hull is a fully transparent ship outline. Inside is the cloak sub-system, which is a (slightly smaller) ship object. So when you activate the cloak, you are destroying the visible part of the hull.
It works pretty well (as far as appearances go), the main problem is that i need to use fairly simple hull models (196 faces each at the mo) because I have to use two of them for each LOD.
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Well, it's definately impossible to do it the way i want (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif) .
Basically, I can't replace a physical susbsystem once it is destroyed. i make a ship that can cloak itself, or a ship that can decloak, but not one that does both (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)
However, if i do some playing about, I think I cna make a fighter which can cloak / decloak once. Poly count may be a bit dodgy, though.
[This message has been edited by aldo_14 (edited 06-23-2001).]
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Make a transparent model of the ship and a textured version of the fighter/ship around the transparent named "Cloak" then you destroy the subsystem (textured) by pressing one button and repair with another.
Try it, you know you want to.
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Posted by SomeoneAbove:
The only problems are;
- I need to get the ship to re-appear (very difficult, and I'm not even sure it's possible) by rebuilding the visible subsystem
- I need to make a new semi transparent map, as the invisible texture seems to disable collision detection, plus it's too hard to see
Phasing cloak. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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Well, iknow I can't fix a visible sub-system (i.e. turret, cloak object) once destroyed. However, I cna put to gether a fighter with 3 objects;
outer hull, cloak, inner hull
Destroying the outer hull reveals the cloak, destroying the cloak shows the inner hull - hence I can cloak / decloak.
the main problem is that there is clipping between the hull objects because, although they are resize, there is still no clear space between them. So I'll need to fix this (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)
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make the second hull a destroied vertion of the cloak "cloak-destroyed", the cloak is invisable and the destroied vertion is never there as long as the cloak is still there, make the main hull into a physical subobject (you'll need to make an invisable objectas the LOD0 geometry or the game will probly crash when one of these is destroied) of the LOD0 geometry.
then you start out with both the normal hull and the cloak (wich is invisable) visable, then you destroy the hull subobject to cloak, then the cloak object to decloak.
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Bobboau, bringing you products that work.............. in theory
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Originally posted by Bobboau:
make the second hull a destroied vertion of the cloak "cloak-destroyed", the cloak is invisable and the destroied vertion is never there as long as the cloak is still there, make the main hull into a physical subobject (you'll need to make an invisable objectas the LOD0 geometry or the game will probly crash when one of these is destroied) of the LOD0 geometry.
then you start out with both the normal hull and the cloak (wich is invisable) visable, then you destroy the hull subobject to cloak, then the cloak object to decloak.
But won't the game crash as the destroyed version of the cloak is over 100 polys?
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well i tell ya aldo_14 i can be used as a targetable waypoint. Well lets say you are doing a mission and you want to fire a warning beam shot across the ship, well all you do is just make your ship indestrucable and bingo. well it could and would be useful to the mod that am apart.
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Roy Fokker member of Roboteh Mod ("http://robotechlan.com/freespace2/")
Mission designer for Hidden terror ("http://www.hiddenterror.f2s.com/") and Inferno ("http://www.3dap.com/hlp/inferno/index.html")
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Hey everyone, I found this topic to be the most interesting and most feasable formula for cloaking a fighter. I think that aldo is overlooking something small here.
If I am correct, if you destroy a hull, it can't come back. If you destroy a subsystem, it will build back up.
So here is what you do.
1. Take a fighter, make two skins of it. One a cloak and the other the main textured version. Set up the cloaked version as a subsystem that is slightly "larger" (underline that)than the main hull so that the subsytem actually surrounds the ship.
2. Now set it up so that one of the faces on the back of the cloaked model is flipped toward the inside and you can shoot the flipped face from the inside of the model.
3.Now, set up a weapon such as a black beam cannon or even a regular energy weapon and make it black. (black energy weapons can be seen through and are pretty much invisible) and make sure that it has the capability to damage the cloak subsystem and knock it down to 5%.
4. Place this particular cannon on the back of the ship at an angle that faces the exact face that has been flipped on the cloaked subsystem model.
Now, when you fire that particular energy weapon, the subsystem (cloaked) should dissapear until it reaches 100% again and the subsystem will re-appear, thus you are decloaked when you fire and cloaked when it charges back up (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
The only problem I can think of is, will the subsysem dissapear when it gets to 5% automatically or can it be programmed to do this?
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Originally posted by WS-Thunder:
Hey everyone, I found this topic to be the most interesting and most feasable formula for cloaking a fighter. I think that aldo is overlooking something small here.
If I am correct, if you destroy a hull, it can't come back. If you destroy a subsystem, it will build back up.
So here is what you do.
1. Take a fighter, make two skins of it. One a cloak and the other the main textured version. Set up the cloaked version as a subsystem that is slightly "larger" (underline that)than the main hull so that the subsytem actually surrounds the ship.
2. Now set it up so that one of the faces on the back of the cloaked model is flipped toward the inside and you can shoot the flipped face from the inside of the model.
3.Now, set up a weapon such as a black beam cannon or even a regular energy weapon and make it black. (black energy weapons can be seen through and are pretty much invisible) and make sure that it has the capability to damage the cloak subsystem and knock it down to 5%.
4. Place this particular cannon on the back of the ship at an angle that faces the exact face that has been flipped on the cloaked subsystem model.
Now, when you fire that particular energy weapon, the subsystem (cloaked) should dissapear until it reaches 100% again and the subsystem will re-appear, thus you are decloaked when you fire and cloaked when it charges back up (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
The only problem I can think of is, will the subsysem dissapear when it gets to 5% automatically or can it be programmed to do this?
sorry to disapoint you, but even if the subsystem can heal back, the submodel won't reappear. This has been tested a lot with the transforming veritech.
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Hmmmm... what about through coding? Would it be possible to make a beam cannon trigger the cloak?
Also, if there is a model under the cloak, how come it isn't visible?
How many polys doese FS2 allow for ships maximum?
If a black beam cannon is made inside the fighter, would it cause the ship to cloak since FS2 sees black as see through suposedly?
Another alternative I was thinking of, is to use the engine glow texture. Yep, engine glow. I noticed on the comet that there are many different shades of engine glow throughout the models. I was thinking that if you could make one of these engine glow textures so you for the most part can't see it, you would have another way to cloak that anyone could see. Or even the black ship meathod could work.
Someone also mentioned a phasing cloak. Is this possible? If you can decide the ammount of time it takes between phasing, then I could use that meathod for the AI controled version of the fighter.
If nothing else I will try the decloaked/cloak/decloak meathod.
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I don't think it's really worth the effort & compromise for cloaked ships, IMHO.
Oh, and WS-Thunder, I accidently moved you to my ignore list (didn't realise it was your ICQ username)... I'll edit my thingy if I can to remove it.
Sorry.
Oh, and I did a wee post related to this one ages ago about some possible cloaking methods. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
[This message has been edited by aldo_14 (edited 12-07-2001).]
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Hey aldo,
Actually this is one of the most important elements in my campaign at the moment. This is the big nemisis ship in the game so it needs to be in this form. This procedure will be done only to one fighter, however it will be used many times during the game.