Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Unknown Target on May 03, 2005, 02:08:03 pm

Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Unknown Target on May 03, 2005, 02:08:03 pm
When were they implemented (if they were)?

Because I was looking at this screenshot (cropped):

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v56/UnknownTarget/muzzleflash.jpg)

How do I use them if they were put in?
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Jonathan_S47 on May 03, 2005, 02:42:31 pm
They have always been there.

Thing is they only work on the flak guns. You can put them on fighter lasers now in the most recent builds but they get left behind as the ships moves.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Unknown Target on May 03, 2005, 03:06:39 pm
Those are Maxims, though, not flak guns. And I'm assuming that ship is moving :)
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: redmenace on May 03, 2005, 04:28:57 pm
There was a time that these muzzle flashes were being rendered behind fighters. This was fixed by phreak. I think he might eventually get them to render along the firing point.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Taristin on May 03, 2005, 05:07:23 pm
Are those muzzle flashes, or impact explosions?
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: DaBrain on May 03, 2005, 05:37:30 pm
Quote
Originally posted by redmenace
There was a time that these muzzle flashes were being rendered behind fighters. This was fixed by phreak. I think he might eventually get them to render along the firing point.


That would be great!

I'd really like to see more muzzle flashes in the game. ;)
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: WMCoolmon on May 03, 2005, 06:19:54 pm
They're muzzle flashes.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Pnakotus on May 03, 2005, 07:35:16 pm
I haven't noticed capship turret muzzle flashes... are they just flak, or all turrets?
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: WMCoolmon on May 03, 2005, 08:18:09 pm
Just flak for the most part. They look sort of odd.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Slasher on May 03, 2005, 08:45:45 pm
Capship muzzle flashes would really help coverup those instances where the "plasma blob" projectile just sort of spontaneously appears several meters away from the actual barrel(s) of the turret.  At the very least it would make a more smooth visual transition from turret to projectile.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: FireCrack on May 03, 2005, 09:02:26 pm
Yeah, i  realy wanna see muzzle flashes enabled on normal guns. No t too long ago i was trying to add them the the terran huge turret with massive explosive sund and light.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Cobra on May 04, 2005, 06:14:02 pm
you should make some sort of "muzzle flash" for the " plasma blobs" to make it more realistic. :)
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: phreak on May 04, 2005, 07:14:18 pm
welcome to four posts ago

that being said, i looked at it, dunno how hard it would be though.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: FireCrack on May 04, 2005, 07:22:45 pm
PhReAk, PhReAk, he's our man, if he cant do it noone can!
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: krisvek on May 05, 2005, 08:43:42 am
i never particularly liked the "plasma blobs" now that we mention it...now, i'm sure the proper explanation of psuedo-science can explain it, but....blobs?

anyhow....what exactly would the muzzle flash of a laser look like?  if, psuedo-science-reality-wise, it has one at all, it's sure to look different than what we're used to seeing from standard guns (and flaks)
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Cobra on May 05, 2005, 12:30:33 pm
Quote
Originally posted by PhReAk
welcome to four posts ago

that being said, i looked at it, dunno how hard it would be though.


musta missed it...
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Pnakotus on May 05, 2005, 06:07:13 pm
Talking about lasers is irrelevant: they are not lasers.  There are no lasers in FS.

Thus we can have all the muzzleflash we want.  And we want, oh yes - the Huge turrets having neither muzzleflash nor impactexp makes FS1 battles look RETARDED.  A green blob appears a few meters away from a turret, sails toward the enemy, and disappears.  Wow, watch out Lucas! :)
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Cobra on May 05, 2005, 06:08:32 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Pnakotus
Talking about lasers is irrelevant: they are not lasers.  There are no lasers in FS.


Then what do you call the Subach HL-7?
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: karajorma on May 05, 2005, 06:33:10 pm
Pnakotus was on about the inherent stupidity of trying to make a realistic muzzle flash for a weapon that is completely unrealistic in the first place.

Beams are closer to the way a laser works than the Subach.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Jetmech Jr. on May 05, 2005, 06:39:06 pm
Well, we could always use the cop-out Star Wars fans use

Tracers! ;)
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: krisvek on May 05, 2005, 06:48:10 pm
i was fairly certain the HL stood for heavy laser...

anyhow, lasers or not...what would their muzzle-flash look like?  maybe these things are shooting black-eye-peas that are irradiated and juiced out of a strainer at the speed of sound....it's gonna look different than a gun firing....ya have to take into account the vacuum of space too

a muzzle flash is flame and fire from the explosion of the powder in a bullet, propelling that bullet out of the chamber and barrel

provided a gun had the air to fire the bullet in the first place (you need oxygen for combustion), i'm not too sure if there would be enough air in the vacuum of space to have a muzzle-fllash at all

so...taking that into consideration for solid-projectile-type guns, i'm curious as to what psuedo-science has to say about what a muzzle flash would look like from a colored-light shooter
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: karajorma on May 05, 2005, 07:03:09 pm
The subach is a heavy laser according to the game but the fact is that a laser is a beam (hence the term laser beam :D ) and it travels at the speed of light. What we see fired from the Subach in game looks nothing like that.

In reality a laser shouldn't even have a muzzle flash AFAIK. It's a coherent beam of light. You won't see anything from the barrel unless we're doing that whole visible lasers in space thing (which we should doo cause it looks cool :D).
I simply say screw science and go wild :D
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Cobra on May 05, 2005, 07:07:16 pm
:lol: rock on, kara :D
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: WMCoolmon on May 05, 2005, 07:36:40 pm
You realize that the moment you engage or stop your engines in Freespace you break Newton's laws.

However if you want some technocrap to explain the laser flash, it's superheated that was inside the gun, but propelled outward by the intense heat of firing the laser. Or it's a minute amount of superheated plasma from coolant used to enable the high rate of fire. Plasma is always good, it sounds very sci-fi (unless you're a surgeon).
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: krisvek on May 05, 2005, 07:38:04 pm
if a laser is a BEAM, then how the heck do you explain the BLOBS?  heheh
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: WMCoolmon on May 05, 2005, 07:38:43 pm
Superheated plasma as well.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: krisvek on May 05, 2005, 07:40:42 pm
aye...plasma does sound good for an explanation...

and youre only breaking newtons law if you assume that your ship isnt automatically engaging retro-thrusters to bring you to a halt (which, of course, i assume....i do love IWAR for it's physics though)
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: FireCrack on May 05, 2005, 08:11:12 pm
I'd say a lser beam bouncing around in a blal of plasma or other matter.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Cobra on May 06, 2005, 12:24:10 am
what's a blal? :p
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Slasher on May 06, 2005, 09:51:07 am
We already have lasers and they already have "muzzle flashes."  They're called beams.  

I don't know and don't really care if plasma guns would have "muzzle flashes."  As far as I know we don't have plasma guns or turbolasers on our Orion-class destroyers today either and thus can't tell what they'd look like, so...oh, wait, we don't have the Orion-class destroyers anyways!  Holy cow.  

:rolleyes:

The point is no one really gives a damn if computerized muzzle flashes on fictional laser beam cannonades can be explained away or not.  The beams would look pretty silly if they didn't have a warm-up glow and impact effect, right?  Allowing for a muzzle flash on the "blob" guns would give modders the ability to add a similar graphical flair to those weapons.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Col. Fishguts on May 06, 2005, 12:01:55 pm
Yes...stop the technobabble.
Freespace always followed the if-it-looks-cool-it get's-implemented-rule.

We're no Trekkies, are we ? ;)
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: krisvek on May 06, 2005, 01:44:57 pm
people play these games for different reasons, and with different things in mind :-P
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Slasher on May 06, 2005, 05:24:56 pm
Back on topic, if this feature was implemented, would it be set up like a rapid beam warm-up/warm-down glow?  Like one of the beam glow bitmaps that just got big and then small really fast?  

Or would it be "animated" like the flak cannon muzzle flash?  (not sure if I'm correct about that one)
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: FireCrack on May 06, 2005, 07:04:37 pm
The lak cannon muzzle flash is a set of explosions placed with a bigger one closer to the gun and smaller ones further away.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: WMCoolmon on May 06, 2005, 08:07:25 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Slasher
Back on topic, if this feature was implemented, would it be set up like a rapid beam warm-up/warm-down glow?  Like one of the beam glow bitmaps that just got big and then small really fast?  

Or would it be "animated" like the flak cannon muzzle flash?  (not sure if I'm correct about that one)


Probably the cannon muzzle flash.

...has anyone actually tried using the existing code with non-flak? :wtf:
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: FireCrack on May 06, 2005, 08:08:33 pm
I've tried using the mflash table flag, didnt work.


Though i assume you mean the actual code.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: WMCoolmon on May 06, 2005, 08:15:57 pm
I meant the table flag. :p
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Krackers87 on May 08, 2005, 04:57:34 am
i actualy put out a pack of muzzle flashes a while ago. If theres anyintrest in using them i can dig through the forums for them.
Title: Muzzleflashes?
Post by: Jonathan_S47 on May 08, 2005, 05:01:34 pm
I experimented with Muzzle flashes for a while. I found that they only work on capital ship flak guns and fighter lasers (they get left behind as the ships moves). They will not appear for anything else.