Hard Light Productions Forums

Hosted Projects - Standalone => The Babylon Project => Topic started by: stithe2000 on October 28, 2005, 10:20:49 am

Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: stithe2000 on October 28, 2005, 10:20:49 am
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen-2005-10-28-00.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen-2005-10-28-01.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen-2005-10-28-02.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen-2005-10-28-03.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen-2005-10-28-04.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen-2005-10-28-05.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen-2005-10-28-06.jpg)
A lot of people were asking if it were possible to have the vorlon charge effect.... It is possible, and we will release how to do this in the near future.... The technique is still being played with, but will be released on the next major TBP release! Enjoy the pix!
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Fury on October 28, 2005, 10:35:45 am
Well done. :)
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: snake60 on October 28, 2005, 10:41:25 am
:jaw:   no word for this ! Amazing work !
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Primus on October 28, 2005, 10:42:49 am
:welcome: Snake :)

And truly well done Stithe. :nod:
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: I_E_Maverick on October 28, 2005, 10:46:43 am
that looks sweet, great work!!
i hope this works for the victory too :)
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: snake60 on October 28, 2005, 10:46:51 am
thanks Primus, but i'm not a nOObie:D  (look at my "registered date")
It's just that i don't post often. I just didn't manage to resist (i think you understand why!)
But thanks anyway:)
Title: Wow!
Post by: aipz on October 28, 2005, 11:20:10 am
So theory became truth... in action so to say..
How big is actually the vorlon dreadnought?
:jaw:
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Col. Fishguts on October 28, 2005, 12:06:48 pm
Arrrsome :arr:
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: stithe2000 on October 28, 2005, 03:47:43 pm
It is to scale according to references... 1.3km long
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: ToecrusherHammerjaw on October 28, 2005, 05:31:54 pm
Wow, you actually got that to work?!! I'm impressed!!! :jaw::jaw::jaw:
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Fabbro on October 28, 2005, 05:35:01 pm
dont you get different sized ones like shadow ships?
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: karajorma on October 28, 2005, 05:43:28 pm
Okay. I'm interested now. I gave the same thing a try and it didn't go quite to plan.
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Azrael15 on October 28, 2005, 07:30:40 pm
kara, I thought you tried that a few weeks ago?

But, stithe, I'm amazed. Now the Vorlons can finally take the war to the Shadows.

And, 1.3km, isn't that smaller then the Omega?
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Bri_Dog on October 28, 2005, 10:32:32 pm
So how did you do that?
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: StratComm on October 28, 2005, 11:23:53 pm
ROFL at Kara's post :lol:

I can think of a couple of ways to potentially script that effect, especially with a fire-weapon SEXP (actually, five of them) but the charge-up almost looks like it's being done with geometry.  Needless to say, I am intrigued.
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Fenrir on October 29, 2005, 12:33:54 am
Niiiiice. I definitely see this being useful for the Star Wars mod, too.

And about that effect... would it be a far off guess to say you used some trick with that "damage lightining" to do that? You know, that electricity that arcs between segments of damaged ships?
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Singh on October 29, 2005, 02:57:55 am
its more than likely there is an invisible submodel at the centre of the beams that's also a beam cannon. You get the four 'sub' beam cannons to fire at it, with no or a very small explosion effect, and then just get hte main cannon to fire afterwards.....

I bet this would be a good  way to recreate the Sathanas subspace weapons effect though.
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Black Wolf on October 29, 2005, 01:53:51 pm
Maybe it's an invisible plane with animated glowmaps, being being triggered by sexp seconds before the beam fires (also sexped) from an inviisible, cenral turret?
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: stithe2000 on October 29, 2005, 01:56:05 pm
Nope... It will be revealled on the next release...
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Slasher on October 30, 2005, 05:59:27 pm
That screenshot of the Sathanas up there is a good attempt at recreating the final lightsaber battle from ROTJ.



Oh!  You were trying to do the Vorlon Dreadnaught fire effect!?  Oh, well, that looks....good too.  :D
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Fenrir on October 30, 2005, 06:02:26 pm
What I don't get is why half of that Sathy's beams appear to be the green variety.
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: Mewgen1 on October 30, 2005, 07:03:29 pm
Quote
Originally posted by stithe2000
Nope... It will be revealled on the next release...


I guess the immediate question then is:  about how far are we from the next release?  Also, what kind of new stuff are we looking at for the next release?  I would suppose mostly effects oriented stuff.

Btw, great job figuring that out finally, it looks ... well, let the smilly speak :eek:
Title: TBP at its best!
Post by: karajorma on October 31, 2005, 01:13:10 am
Quote
Originally posted by Fenrir
What I don't get is why half of that Sathy's beams appear to be the green variety.


Cause the effect started out as a mjolnir beam and as I tried more and more things I stopped bothering to change the colour on the beams :)
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: stithe2000 on November 11, 2005, 06:51:28 pm
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen2005-11-11-00.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen2005-11-11-01.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen2005-11-11-04.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen2005-11-11-10.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen2005-11-11-11.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen2005-11-11-13.jpg)
(http://members.cox.net/raurther/screen2005-11-11-14.jpg)
More on the V-DN! Shines, glows, turrets, and effect have been updated/ completed! Still have debris, and the rest of the LODs to finish on, but the Vorlon ships that have already been released will soon be updated with the fx, and new textures! More to come!
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Azrael15 on November 11, 2005, 10:19:24 pm
That ship is beautiful...
Title: If I could only play now...
Post by: aipz on November 12, 2005, 04:10:26 am
Excellent, brilliant you name it... :)
The game is inevitably becoming the ultimate space-sim experience... and it's true to the show at the same time...
Keep em' comin'... :jaw:
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Setekh on November 12, 2005, 04:33:04 am
That's brilliant, guys. Welcome to the highlights. :)
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: I_E_Maverick on November 12, 2005, 04:35:04 am
great effects and the ships is awesome! very well done stithe!!
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Carl on November 12, 2005, 08:19:17 pm
four short range beams facing inward with beam-fire sexp, correct?
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: stithe2000 on November 12, 2005, 08:34:20 pm
Close, but a bit more is involved!
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Nuke on November 13, 2005, 01:40:15 am
are those glowpoint beams or is that some special bit of code just for you guys?
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: WMCoolmon on November 13, 2005, 01:53:29 am
Hmm, a thought of how to do it with SEXPs. Have the subobjects mapped with an invisible texture, then use texture replacement to have the charge-up effect. Then fire the beam cannon from the middle.

That would look like of studgy though.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Nuke on November 13, 2005, 02:48:36 am
i would just put in 4 glowpoint beams with normals converging on dummy turret subobject (submodel with now geometry). and sexp the fire turret and the glowpoint toggle simultaniously. figured thats what they did.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Deepstar on November 13, 2005, 01:43:09 pm
GREAT!

It's awesome :)
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 17, 2005, 09:33:47 am
Vertices and/or splines, No texture, Add a little source code magic, Create a new beam style in the source so to say, one which has an additional pre-fire animation (before the glow cycles up i mean) in this case some glowing vertices/splines, Which we've all seen before (prior to a ships destruction-Lightning people) This is the avenue i would take.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: IPAndrews on November 18, 2005, 04:59:10 am
What we need are "beam stages" I think. Where each stage lasts a set amount of time and allows for multiple beams to be fired in different directions. Also a new beam type where the beam gradually gets longer and longer towards it's maximum length would be needed for the Victory destroyer main gun warm up. I've been suggesting this stuff to the SCP team for ages though and nobody has wanted to take it on. So I wouldn't hold my breath. Can't say I blame them as it means fairly large changes to the way beam weapons are defined in weapons.tbl.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Sesquipedalian on November 19, 2005, 04:18:51 pm
I bet this would be a good  way to recreate the Sathanas subspace weapons effect though.
It's been done and available for several years. ;)

Go here (http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/hosted/scroll/download.html) and download the Subspace Rift Sathanas.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: FireCrack on November 19, 2005, 11:06:25 pm
I think he's refering to a more complete verion, add in the lighting arcing between the claws, use bob's animation code, etc...
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: StratComm on November 20, 2005, 12:33:55 am
If this was hard to put together, a proper Subspace weapon sequence would be very near impossible.  It could be done with some submodel animation trickery and a bunch of very short-lived beams, but the number of table entries alone that it would require would be insane.  However, for the Vorlon Dred, the Victory class, and the couple of other places this type of effect shows up in this particular mod, it's a good fit.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: SadisticSid on November 21, 2005, 11:26:40 am
Create an invisible 'dummy' POF in front of the ship between the 4 arms and use fire-beams to get the dreadnaught to target it. Then Have a single invisible turret on the dreadnaught or the dummy POF and use it to fire the main beam. I'm experimenting with the technique for something... similar, in Inferno, actually. :)
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Flipside on November 21, 2005, 04:13:40 pm
They look more like missile trails to me....
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Herra Tohtori on November 22, 2005, 12:09:31 am
I suppose similar efect with slight difference willbe available for the Excavator - sorry, the Victory class cruiser?

Only, the charge effect should be a little thicker... and btw, how much does that charge effect "fluctuate"? (Can't think of any other word for it...)

What I mean is that how stationary is that effect in-game? Will it be able to make it really seem like some energy is seriously flowing into the center, where the main beam then fires?

Okay, what I really mean is something like this...

(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/BeamChargeEffect0009.jpeg)
(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/BeamChargeEffect0024.jpeg)
(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/BeamChargeEffect0036.jpeg)
(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/BeamChargeEffect0049.jpeg)
(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/BeamChargeEffect0079.jpeg)

Understand my meaning? Thicker, starts from the edges and really goes to the center - and even when it reaches the main beam startpoint, it should still seem like pumping energy into main beam... Though I think that current effect is also awesome.

The pictures are screenshots from Star Wreck 6: In the Pirkinning... there the effect is really quite nice.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: starfox on November 22, 2005, 08:57:53 am
Just watched "Call to Arms". Frankly, I like "The official charge effect" more than the one is Star Wreck, but both are very good in their own way.
By the way, I noticed your username. It's good to have more Finnish people onboard.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Herra Tohtori on November 22, 2005, 06:06:14 pm
There we go again...

I haven't actually seen any B5 related material on TV, that I must confess. So I haven't seen the original Victory main gun charge effect either...

What pictures I could find about it, don't make justice to it - I really should see it on moving picture to be able to judge it.

Some pictures I found on http://www.b5tech.com/science/weapons/excalibur_guns/exweapons.html... I'd say that the original effect would be somewhat less "dense" light of the charger beams?

Well, whatever. I must say that I'm fully confident that the final solution of Victory's main beam effect will be more than satisfactory, given the top-notch quality of the earlier accomplishments of TBP...

It's amazing how many of 5e6 Finns are here, when you compare to the participation of the rest of the world, eh? =)
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Herra Tohtori on November 23, 2005, 01:23:39 pm
By the way, while we are on topic of getting B5 effects into FS2:

Has anyone figured out how to make a jumpgate have those blinking lights during the gate-opening-sound effect, before a ship emerges through it? It would certainly add to the feeling that it's the jumpgate opening the gate and not the ship itself.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Trivial Psychic on November 23, 2005, 04:04:41 pm
It could be done with a glowpoint bank series, activated and deactivated via SEXP.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 24, 2005, 03:50:12 am
Quick point, In B5, the Jumpgate opens the Jumpoint right, and several ships can enter/exit it before it closes. You guys forayed into this area yet. (instead of having a point per ship?)
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: 0rph3u5 on November 24, 2005, 10:10:07 am
you can use the "warp-effect"-sexp to open a jumppoint - for both departure and arrivial - without a ship
or you place a dummy (novas or warlocks are perfect for this) which jumps in and is erased by "ship-vanish"-sexp right when it arrives - only works with arrivals as far as I know

than you can make a group of ships appear with activated "no warp effect"-flag short range before it or as I prefer it short behin the jumppoint and make it pass on a waypoint path or anyway else

I don't know if there is the possibility to make the jumpgate to have this charge effect...
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Trivial Psychic on November 24, 2005, 11:33:48 am
The only irritating part about using a single warp-effect sexp for multiple ship arrivals/departures, is you don't get the accelleration and decelleration that you do with ship-self-generated warp effects.  There are however, a few changes coming to the source code that will give the ability to simulate this, with a bit of creative event use.
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Herra Tohtori on November 25, 2005, 02:20:16 pm
Well, is it possible to have the ship warp in/out with deceleration/acceleration, but only remove the vortex of that single ship, for example if many ships are coming through a jumpgate simultaneously? Like the situation on "Severed Dreams" -mission, for example. It looks kinda goofy when all those ships generate their own vortex but still come through the gate...

So, is it possible to just disable the vortex part of warp effect and keep te acceleration/deceleration thingy there?
Title: Re: TBP at its best!
Post by: Trivial Psychic on November 25, 2005, 02:48:45 pm
Not that I've heard of, though I have suggested it in the past.