Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Wing Commander Saga => Topic started by: Bobboau on April 16, 2004, 11:10:24 pm
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I was told that you needed the sheild rendering system tweaked, try this (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/fs2_open_r_sheildtest.zip), now it won't be perfict, but it should make the shields on capships a little less ugly, though I don't have anything to test it on currently so I can't be sure if it works or not.
this is a less ambishious atempt than my first shot, I mearly removed the capping (used to set anything outside of 0.0-1.0 to one of those) code and made it use texture clamping, I'm going to see if I can get the size of the effect related to the weapon, and not the radius of the ship (as it currently is, and I must say the sheild code has some major weirdness, it's like they hired some outside guy to do it, then he quit right after, things are done completely diferent than anywere else in the code :wtf: )
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hey, if anyone DLed this, do it again, I figured out what I had done wrong the first time, and I uploaded to the same spot, and now it should do _exactly_ what you want
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// testing it with a low poly shield
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Originally posted by Bobboau
hey, if anyone DLed this, do it again, I figured out what I had done wrong the first time, and I uploaded to the same spot, and now it should do _exactly_ what you want
I have downloaded a file modified at 2:17 AM. Is this the correct one?
I have noticed no difference to the old code though
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no, I posted that as I was uploading, but you should have had some degree of less distorted impacts (though it would have seemed very similar, the second one I uploaded should be a quite strikeing diference)
DL again, what's up now should defenantly be an improvement, sorry bout makeing you DL it twice
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cool, downloading the file now ;)
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ok, I have tested the newest EXE and to tell the truth I failed to see any difference in the shield rendering. Perhaps if I would use a more detailed shield mesh the alterations will become vivisble. Right now shield rendering is vertex based, which results in odd shaped shield effect (not round, but square or stretched in most cases). Again, a higher poly mesh is needed to test the new EXE.
What strange is that shield meshes we created a long time ago proved to be unstable... perhaps due to a high density in one place. I am no expert for this.
Is it possible to use hull mesh for shield effect rendering?
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Wasn't there something in development that you have 2 hit animations?
Means as long as the target has a shield a shieldhit animation would be shown and when the shield is down the normal hin animation is shown.
That would make extra shieldmeshes unnessesary and I think would look better, cause we have a fixed size for the hit animation.
Effect should then look somehow like in Privateer2 or WCP.
PS: How do our current shields work? Are they just simulation additional hitpoints?
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"Is it possible to use hull mesh for shield effect rendering?"
no, it runs on a totaly diferent scheem, shield meshes store data about wich tirangles are touching wich, the hull geometry is held in a very cumbersome BSP format wich is great for getting to wich polygons are in a given place, but not good for makeing localized effects (this has proven to be a huge pain in the ass when I was working on decals)
I'm going to need to figure out why it isn't working, it should be makeing perfictly rounded impact effects (useing the sheild geometry, I'm useing a techneque similar to the decal code, it's a lot easier to do this with the shield mesh)
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I just tested it with an absurdly large and low poly shield, it seems to work as advertized :doubt:
don't supose you've got a pof or two I can use to test this on
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I am sure that we can send you one or the other shieldmesh.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
I just tested it with an absurdly large and low poly shield, it seems to work as advertized :doubt:
don't supose you've got a pof or two I can use to test this on
lemme compile a package for you, which includes shield mesh made by Kazan.
Stand by
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ok, I am uploading a package...
btw, the shield is done in a wrong way, and it appears that it is too low poly now. Nevertheless it is a start. You will have to replace weapons in the tbl through FS2 weapons.
I am sending you the link via pm
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I could test it with my shielded Fralthi II ('bout 5k poly-shieldmesh), but I can't download it !!! :(
Could you please email it to me, Tolwyn?
@Bob: No, as far as I can tell, the size of the shieldeffect is normally based on the size of your shieldmesh's polygons (this contributing to my high poly count). And your old env build worked quite well for me on this, though I got somewhat stretched effects for hits from certain angles - hope this build solves them :) .
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Originally posted by Mav
I could test it with my shielded Fralthi II ('bout 5k poly-shieldmesh), but I can't download it !!! :(
Could you please email it to me, Tolwyn?
@Bob: No, as far as I can tell, the size of the shieldeffect is normally based on the size of your shieldmesh's polygons (this contributing to my high poly count). And your old env build worked quite well for me on this, though I got somewhat stretched effects for hits from certain angles - hope this build solves them :) .
Mav, the file is stored in our database, EXE folder
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Uh, thanks. I'll download it shortly. :D
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I've been haveing some major conectivity issues today, but I finaly managed to DL the file in question, there is indeed a bit of a problem with the shield mesh on that ship, but it's not as bad as you may think, the biggest problem it has is mostly that it has a lot of faces in the shield that are at ~90 degree angles from one and other, if the thing gets hit on one of the seems between two triangles that are 90 degrees from each other you are going to get a very very ugly effect (it'll be totaly smeared along one of the triangles) it would be nice if the mesh was dencer, but that shouldn't be that big of a problem as it used to be were any vert outside of the 0.0 to 1.0 range was set to wich ever one of those it was connected to (meaning that no sheild hit effect could be smaller than the face it hit). but the fact that you are saying that the impact effect seems as big as the poly it hits... is just... puzzeling, it should be just a little bit bigger than the weapon hitting it
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looks like my telefraged server is telefuct atm, I have some screen shots but no were to put them for the time being :doubt: maybe I can talk one of the admins into giveing me atachment privleges
while I'm posting this, I wanted to also make sure I mentioned one thing I did see that might be a problem unrelated to the sheilds, you'r useing a _lot_ of textures in that one ship, you realy should try to get it down to about three or four per subobject, some of the non-tiled detail peices should probly be put into a single texture and the UV cords for those parts be adjusted
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wait, maybe I can already
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ha, looks like I can :D
this is what the error from the triangles at too sharp an angle looks like, it only shows up though if you shoot at the seams between the two triangles.
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hmm... the effect on the first picture looks great, I really should test the EXE again (and perhaps download it too).
So what are the guidelines for shield creating? No sharp angles? Is this the magic formula ;)
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you didn't DL it? :wtf:
(it might be gone, VW seems to be quite screwed atm)
I could put it up here as an atachment
[actualy it looks like the thing doesn't like megabyte sized files]
I'd say try to keep the angles fairly smooth, try to keep things fairly triangular (as opposed to rectangular, this is good advice for general modeling too IMHO) and try to keep all the triangles about the same size and as close to equilateral as posable, the more sphereical the better but that's not very posable, just try to aviod situations were a line could intersect more than one triangle at a time. and more triangles == better, generaly.
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I have downloaded the file two times, but it looks fairly different than on your screen. Hmm... as I said I have tested cap ships battles... Lemme run a test wtih a single ship again...
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hmm... it looks very different to me
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... maybe.. I uploaded the wrong exe...hmmm
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Originally posted by Bobboau
... maybe.. I uploaded the wrong exe...hmmm
that is very possible, since the EXE I downloaded before and after update had the same "date modified" string
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Hey Tolwyn what about giving Bobboau excess to our server..so he wouldn't have this server problems.
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I could... if he wants
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The exe on our FTP seem´s to be the correct one. I DLed it yesterday evening and tested it this morning - the biggest of my distortions (which actually are something like what Bob showed) are nearly gone! :D - BIG thanks, Bob. :yes:
I still have some minor distortion on some points where my shieldmesh has sharp edges (exactly what Bob explained) , but I'll smooth them as soon as I get the final model of the ship.
And Tolwyn: For shieldmeshs, absolute top priority is that they are as close to the hull as possible. I think I too got some crashes before I figured that out; and those shields also only worked if shot at from a very limited amount of angles.
Second priority would then be to avoid any sharp edges, so you don't get distortions, like Bob mentioned.
( I tried to do this with my Fralthi shieldmesh, but some sharp edges still slipped into it - :mad: )
Before this new build you also had to keep the proportions of the faces equal (like in a square) or what you can see on your pics would happen (circular ani stretched to oval shape) .
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wellm since you know how it works ... ;)
could you please upload current version of the Fralthi?
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With "current" you mean the one with my shield mesh (I don't have the new model as Starman wants to do some things on it before handing it on) ? That's already on the normal FTP, cob included. Filename is "Mav_KCrus_01db.zip".
Textures aren't included but I didn't change anything on them, so just get the ones of the unshielded version (if you don't already have them anyway) .
Shall I also upload it to the DB, too?
[Edit: Note that the hull in the cob only has a placeholder texture as I imported the shield to the old pof anyway and wanted to save me the time searching all the textures and converting them to bmp.]
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Originally posted by Tolwyn
hmm... it looks very different to me
are you using the modified one that kazen made that might be why
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heh, you guys have a thing warning people not to bump old threads :D
wonder why you'r the only forum with that...
anyway, decals have received a new effect that could very easily be made to look like a shield hit.
looksee (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,23754.0.html)