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Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: Bobboau on February 16, 2007, 03:24:01 am

Title: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 16, 2007, 03:24:01 am
I'm making this thread to show off effects as I make them, I was going to post this in one of my prox threads but I figured they wouldn't get as much attention and I've decided to quit trying to win converts for the time being and just use the program to make stuff myself, if you think anything I post would make a good addition, I keep the uncompressed source files (at least fore a week or two). and keep in mind the demonstrations are going to be higher quality than the in game ones.

first off a shivan beam glow.
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/SbeamWA.avi

[edit]full effect pack (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/Bob.zip) updated 3-5-07 AAA beams[/edit]
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: aldo_14 on February 16, 2007, 04:27:35 am
Kind of hypnotic, like a lava lamp....
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 16, 2007, 08:21:17 am
very niiice  :nod:

theres just one thing bugging me about the shivan beams atm... RED glows!!!  :mad:
I prefered the old white\blue glows... looked cooler imo, and showed that "refinement" in shivan beams (white= full light\power\energy =better tech)

But thats me :P
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on February 16, 2007, 08:56:12 am
in the cut sceens and amis the you see shivan ships firing red glows.  Its probably better that way. Red is associated with evil  as with black red ships.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 16, 2007, 09:12:54 am
Well, I was just stating my personal preference. I can, however, understand the motives for preference of red glows on shivan ships
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: natty_dread78 on February 16, 2007, 11:32:32 am
 Yeah shivan ships are naturally red (citing FSwiki: "The Shivan's also have an inclination towards the colour red; almost all Shivan vessels exhibit a red color scheme").  So I guess the beams should be red also...
N_D
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Taristin on February 16, 2007, 02:00:24 pm
Used to be green though. Would have been interesting to have green and black enemies.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 16, 2007, 05:22:27 pm
Then they would have been labled a borg rip off.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Taristin on February 16, 2007, 06:14:39 pm
Is that better or worse than clichéd?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 16, 2007, 06:20:07 pm
Technicalities
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 16, 2007, 06:28:56 pm
Christ, if i knew I wouldnt have said anything... rly wasnt trying to derail this topic  :sigh:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 16, 2007, 06:30:27 pm
Quote from: Raven2001
Christ, if i knew I wouldnt have said anything... rly wasnt trying to derail this topic 

:welcome:

Seriously though, it is a good effect, I look forward to seeing it in game
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 16, 2007, 06:35:42 pm
Quote from: Mars on February 16, 2007, 06:30:27 pm

:welcome:


ROFLMAO!!!!!! :D :D :D

Your 6 years late!! In fact is shouldve been me firing it for ya ;P

But thx anyways :)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Pnakotus on February 16, 2007, 06:37:22 pm
Now we just need 'less funky' Shivan beams so it doesn't look like we're under attack by candy stripers.  ;)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: redsniper on February 16, 2007, 11:29:11 pm
Quote from: Raven2001 on February 16, 2007, 06:35:42 pm
Quote from: Mars on February 16, 2007, 06:30:27 pm

:welcome:


ROFLMAO!!!!!! :D :D :D

Your 6 years late!! In fact is shouldve been me firing it for ya ;P

But thx anyways :)

Er, I think he did it as a joke, since derailing threads is like a pastime here and yet you're still surprised when this one gets derailed.

That's what I got out of it anyway. :nervous:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 17, 2007, 04:28:29 am
I think the blue glows were actualy a mistake on V's part, IIRC they use the tarrent thruster glows, and these are good place holders, and my guess is the shivans got there beams first

made some vasudan beams, I'm finding beams a bit trickier than bolts, so I'm actualy not that happy with these, but I think they'd probably look good in game (I retouched some of them a little, made them dimmer so the inner beam sections wouldn't get washed out, this may have been a bad idea)

(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/VbeamAA.jpg)
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/VbeamAB.jpg)
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/VbeamAC.jpg)
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/VbeamAD.jpg)

I just figured out a new type of noise though, it might prove usefull in beams
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mefustae on February 17, 2007, 04:55:05 am
I really like that last one. A little more golden and it'd be perfect.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 17, 2007, 05:09:49 am
well like I said, I dulled it a little due to the way they blend, I didn't want the little guy being invisable because it got washed out from all the others, in game it'd be a lot brighter cause it'd have all the other ones added to it.

and if you like that, heh, that new noise I figured out was actually EXTREMELY useful for linear images.
take a look at this terran beam set.



(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/TbeamAA.jpg)
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/TbeamAB.jpg)
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/TbeamAC.jpg)
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/TbeamAD.jpg)

note to self

good perlin noise


$N[512,512]<RGB>{
@A=rand(1)
@B=rand(1)
@C=rand(1)
}<A|B|C>


@R=sum(test(i<513),var(l,0,l+N.r(x/i+x/(2*i),y/i+y/(2*i))/(512/i)),var(i,1,i*2))
@G=sum(test(i<513),var(l,0,l+N.g(x/i+x/(2*i),y/i+y/(2*i))/(512/i)),var(i,1,i*2))
@B=sum(test(i<513),var(l,0,l+N.b(x/i+x/(2*i),y/i+y/(2*i))/(512/i)),var(i,1,i*2))



good turbulent noise


$N[512,512]<RGB>{
@A=rand(1)
@B=rand(1)
@C=rand(1)
}<A|B|C>

@R=sum(test(i<513),var(l,0,l+((N.r(x/i+x/(2*i),y/i+y/(2*i))-0.5)*2)^(1/4)/(1024/i)),var(i,1,i*2))
@G=sum(test(i<513),var(l,0,l+((N.g(x/i+x/(2*i),y/i+y/(2*i))-0.5)*2)^(1/4)/(1024/i)),var(i,1,i*2))
@B=sum(test(i<513),var(l,0,l+((N.b(x/i+x/(2*i),y/i+y/(2*i))-0.5)*2)^(1/4)/(1024/i)),var(i,1,i*2))



good thing to make stuff seamless along one axis


$N[512,512]<RGB>{
@RX=WN.r(x,y)*(1-abs(X))+WN.r(x+0.5,y)*abs(X)
@RY=WN.r(x,y)*(1-abs(Y))+WN.r(x,y+0.5)*abs(Y)

@GX=WN.g(x,y)*(1-abs(X))+WN.g(x+0.5,y)*abs(X)
@GY=WN.g(x,y)*(1-abs(Y))+WN.g(x,y+0.5)*abs(Y)

@BX=WN.b(x,y)*(1-abs(X))+WN.b(x+0.5,y)*abs(X)
@BY=WN.b(x,y)*(1-abs(Y))+WN.b(x,y+0.5)*abs(Y)
}<RX|GX|BX>

@R=N.r(x/2,y)
@G=N.g(x/2,y)
@B=N.b(x/2,y)



none of that will work with anything released, I added in temporary layers and summation the other day and a lot of the noise functions make heavy use of those
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Pnakotus on February 17, 2007, 05:13:30 am
Bob, these are awesome.  If only I knew how to slap them in...   :(
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 17, 2007, 05:19:20 am
well if you rename them beam-green, beam-green2 and beam-green3 they'll probly showup in game, though not very well, these are intendet to be tiled, and beams don't do that by default.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: TrashMan on February 17, 2007, 06:16:43 am
Grade A work Bob!  :D :yes:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Herra Tohtori on February 17, 2007, 07:14:23 am
*drools

Are those animated or single frames?

Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 17, 2007, 07:57:35 am
I could have made animations, but they are just single frame, I can't have everything animayed and beams already have a bit of an animated effect so it isn't realy needed
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 17, 2007, 08:11:58 am
THe new terran beams look super... now get them to media vps ^^
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Kaine on February 17, 2007, 09:47:58 am
looking hawt.

any chance of some vids of these in action (in-game, tearing some poor ship apart?)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 17, 2007, 01:28:12 pm
God those beams look good *drools*
Quote from: Raven2001 on February 16, 2007, 06:35:42 pm

ROFLMAO!!!!!! :D :D :D

Your 6 years late!! In fact is shouldve been me firing it for ya ;P

But thx anyways :)

redsniper is correct that's an ironic beam... but the joke flopped
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 17, 2007, 06:31:39 pm
second try at vasudan beams, these ones turned out alot better, though not quite as good as the terran ones.

(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/VbeamAA1.jpg)
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/VbeamAB1.jpg)
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/VbeamAC1.jpg)
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/VbeamAD1.jpg)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 17, 2007, 06:42:56 pm
Quote from: Bobboau on February 17, 2007, 06:31:39 pm
second try at vasudan beams, these ones turned out alot better, though not quite as good as the terran ones.
*snip*

Me likes... looks like fire.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Pnakotus on February 17, 2007, 08:21:05 pm
Those Vasudan beams seem quite different in 'style' to the Terran ones: much more concentrated and less 'fluid' or 'wispy'.  Was this intentional? 
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on February 17, 2007, 09:02:21 pm
Amazing that looks great! cant wait to try it ingame
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 17, 2007, 09:23:10 pm
Quote from: Pnakotus on February 17, 2007, 08:21:05 pm
Those Vasudan beams seem quite different in 'style' to the Terran ones: much more concentrated and less 'fluid' or 'wispy'.  Was this intentional? 
YES!
I think there should be a very noticeable difference in the general style for the weapons of each species, and there should be a visible difference between each different beam class other than it's size

here is a simple mod that puts these in game for the s/b green/vas

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Pnakotus on February 17, 2007, 10:13:21 pm
Woo!  The differences in beam style are very characterful.    Poor old Vasudans don't get stuck with recoloured Terran weapons anymore. ;)

EDIT - I fail at beam tables, and can't get Bob's mod to work.  FSO complains about the last section of each beam definition - it doesn't seem to like the +length statement.  :(
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 17, 2007, 10:17:04 pm
You gonna do AAA too?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 17, 2007, 11:21:17 pm
are you useing a recent build?
put a semicolen before those lines then
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Wanderer on February 17, 2007, 11:33:13 pm
Beam tiling type 2? I thought only 0 and 1 were 'good' values
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Pnakotus on February 17, 2007, 11:37:49 pm
Quote from: Bobboau on February 17, 2007, 11:21:17 pm
are you useing a recent build?
put a semicolen before those lines then

I tried remarking them all out, but it crashes afterward anyway (same if I OK through all the errors).  I'll try with Phreaks 02/03/07 build.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 18, 2007, 12:12:03 am
These aren't the same as the pack Bob just posted - I had an idea to stagger the various sections translation speeds to create the effect of a flowing stream of energy where the core moves a lot faster than the outside. It didn't come out as clearly as I'd hoped, but the overall effect still works and looks great.

They're awesome graphics Bob. :yes:

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Misc/Beamz1.jpg)

They look far better in game and moving BTW.

Using older values, but just a cool shot (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Misc/Beamz2.jpg)
And comparing with the effect in the media VPs. (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Misc/Beamz3.jpg)

If anyones interested in trying them out:
http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Bob_BeamsTest.zip
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 18, 2007, 12:43:05 am
Quote from: Wanderer on February 17, 2007, 11:33:13 pm
Beam tiling type 2? I thought only 0 and 1 were 'good' values
oh, yeah, forgot that wasn't in either, type 1 should be close enough
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Wanderer on February 18, 2007, 01:45:53 am
What does the new +Length: option do?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 18, 2007, 02:00:03 am
well... set's a beam section's length, but I though that's been in for a while, it's great if you want to have a beam that has some like a muzzle glow.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 18, 2007, 02:14:05 am
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/TbeamAglow.avi

@a=ang/3.14

@S=r^(1/2)
@L=(NW.l(a*1.5+t,r+t*2)^4*5+NW.l(-a-t*3+0.3,r+t+0.7)^4*5)*(1-r)+(2^(-r^2))^5*(1-r)
@H=L^2*0.3+0.3
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 18, 2007, 07:04:09 am
Oookay... How on earth can I get these to work?

3.6.9. gives errors about (almost) every single line and section, Phreak's build does the same with some nice graphic bugs. Crashes, crashes, crashes... I didn't find any other builds. Currently, I can either crash or remove pretty much everything from the tbm.

Most errors come from +Length, +Width and something about BGreen having too many sections, which is funny, because it doesn't.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 18, 2007, 08:03:49 am
I did find that I forgot to add a #end after the secondary weapons section.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 18, 2007, 08:11:21 am
Vasudan Admiral, what build are you using, as the beams are obviously working for you?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on February 18, 2007, 10:39:24 am
I have to say that those look great in the pics, I'll have to see If i can get them to work ingame. Now what would the chances of getting these in a media vp be?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on February 18, 2007, 11:28:29 am
amazing! hopefully high
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 18, 2007, 02:44:29 pm
Quote from: Slime on February 18, 2007, 08:11:21 am
Vasudan Admiral, what build are you using, as the beams are obviously working for you?

Quote from: Vasudan Admiral on February 18, 2007, 12:12:03 am
These aren't the same as the pack Bob just posted

......

If anyones interested in trying them out:
http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Bob_BeamsTest.zip
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 18, 2007, 02:48:59 pm
I meant what SCP build, as 3.6.9. crashes and Phreaks newest isn't getting me anywhere either.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 18, 2007, 02:50:12 pm
What, with the table in that zip folder? It shouldn't, because that's just a BFGreen beam entry with changed values.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 18, 2007, 02:58:02 pm
No, Bobboau's original new beams. Judging from your screens I assumed that they work for you, but I can't get the table file to work for myself. What build/settings are working for you, then?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: taylor on February 18, 2007, 03:00:41 pm
Quote from: Vasudan Admiral on February 18, 2007, 02:50:12 pm
What, with the table in that zip folder? It shouldn't, because that's just a BFGreen beam entry with changed values.
It's an improper modular table actually, so unless you actually go in and replace the original entry with these values, it's not going to work right.  In a modular table, beam sections require the +Index: line to identify which section that data refers to.  If it doesn't exist then it's considered a new section, and not replacing an old one.  You'll run into the warning about too many beam sections, and anything over the 5 limit (counting original sections + the new ones) will be ignored.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 18, 2007, 03:02:28 pm
EDIT:   Bah, everything just refuses to work. I'm off, if anyone gets Bobboau's beams to work without table editing post your build!
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 18, 2007, 03:23:07 pm
Blah. I might have guessed it would be something like that. Anyways, errm, just do as Taylor suggests and replace the original entry in the ships TBL with this one. I've gotta leave in about 10 minutes for 3 days, so I don't have time to fix it now. :\
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 18, 2007, 03:25:32 pm
Yeah, for me the new beams are all wonky... what build are you using?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: taylor on February 18, 2007, 03:57:16 pm
Here (http://icculus.org/~taylor/fso/misc/Bob_Beams_tbm.zip) is a fixed tbm.  I haven't actually tried it myself though, so it still may not actually work properly.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Scuddie on February 18, 2007, 05:59:31 pm
Well, before the fix, the beams were all screwed up and appeared not to line up.  Now, the new beams dont show up at all.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 18, 2007, 06:13:56 pm
Those beams work for me now, and they're damn sexy
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on February 18, 2007, 06:22:47 pm
Quote from: taylor on February 18, 2007, 03:57:16 pm
Here (http://icculus.org/~taylor/fso/misc/Bob_Beams_tbm.zip) is a fixed tbm.  I haven't actually tried it myself though, so it still may not actually work properly.

Hmm I was wondering for this and the HTL terran turrets, what sub-driectory do you put tbms into in the media vps folder.

Edit: It just occured to me to use the search function, now I feel stupid.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Scuddie on February 18, 2007, 08:15:18 pm
Ummm...  Taylor, where are the alleged BobboauCore, BobboauCoreHaze, etc files referenced in your modified TBM?

EDIT:  Nevermind, I didnt realize there were two packages.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 19, 2007, 06:22:46 am
Well, they now work in the mission V. Admiral posted. Are they supposed to work anywhere else?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 19, 2007, 07:31:28 am
if they work there they will probably work anyware that you use the mod with.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on February 19, 2007, 08:27:38 am
for some reason i am only seeing the normal mvp zeta adv beams Is there something that i should remove so they are properly overwriten?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on February 19, 2007, 08:40:50 am
Make sure you put effects in mediavps\data\effects
if you are using mediavps
if not, put them in \data\effects
-  I think I got that right.  :nervous:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on February 19, 2007, 10:32:03 am
oddly enough i did. I put it in fs2folder/mediavps/data/effects and i put taylors wep tbm file in "...."data/tables  and removed the old wep tbm that came with the package.

Also launched fs2 with -mod mediavps
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on February 19, 2007, 05:07:33 pm
Quote from: Mars on February 18, 2007, 06:13:56 pm
Those beams work for me now, and they're damn sexy

Hey Mars would you mind telling us what files you're using for those beams to work?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 19, 2007, 06:41:17 pm
In /effects I put:
Code: [Select]
BobboauBeamCore.dds
BobboauBeamCoreHaze.dds
BobboauBeamGlow.dds
BobboauBeamGlowHaze.dds
TbeamAA.dds
TbeamAB.dds
TbeamAC.dds
TbeamAD.dds
tbeamae.dds
VbeamAA.dds
VbeamAB.dds
VbeamAC.dds
VbeamAD.dds

And in /tables I put Bob_Beams-wep.tbm containing
Code: [Select]
#Primary Weapons

$Name: BFGreen

$Model File: none ; laser1-1.pof
@Laser Bitmap: laserglow01
@Laser Color: 0, 255, 54
@Laser Length: 0.0
@Laser Head Radius: 0.3
@Laser Tail Radius: 0.3
$Mass:                          100.0
$Velocity:                      1600.0 ;; speed of the weapon (initially) -- may or may not change
$Fire Wait:                     35.0 ;; in seconds
$Damage:                        1900 ;; NOTE: for beam weapons this is kind of a "continuous" damage applied every few fractions of a second that the beam is on.
$Armor Factor:                  1.0
$Shield Factor:                 1.0
$Subsystem Factor:              1.0
$Lifetime:                      30.0 ;; How long this thing lives
$Energy Consumed:               0.30 ;; Energy used when fired
$Cargo Size:                    0.0              ;; Amount of space taken up in weapon cargo
$Homing:                        NO
$LaunchSnd:                     125              ;; The sound it makes when fired
$ImpactSnd:                     88              ;; The sound it makes when it hits something
+Weapon Range: 4000 ;; Limit to range at which weapon will actively target object
$Flags:                         ("Big Ship" "huge" "beam" "supercap" "player allowed")
$Icon:                          icongun05
$Anim:                          LoadGun07
$Impact Explosion:              ExpMissileHit1
$Impact Explosion Radius:       120.0
$BeamInfo:
+Type: 0 ;; 0 - 4 are valid #'s
+Life:   4.0 ;; how long it lasts once the beam is actually firing
+Warmup:   5000 ;; warmup time in ms
+Warmdown: 3500 ;; warmdown time in ms
+Radius:   175.0 ;; muzzle glow radius in meters
+PCount: 25 ;; particles spewed every interval
+PRadius: 1.4 ;; particle radius
+PAngle: 60.0 ;; angle of the random "cone" where the particles are generated
+PAni: particleexp01 ;; particle ani
+Miss Factor: 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 ;; magic # - higher == miss more (only really applicable to type 0 and type 3 beams)
+BeamSound: 148 ;; the looping beam-firing sound
+WarmupSound: 155 ;; associated warmup sound
+WarmdownSound: 160 ;; associated warmdown sound
+Muzzleglow: beamglow3 ;; muzzle glow bitmap
+Shots: 0 ;; only used for TYPE 3 beams
+ShrinkFactor: 0.1 ;; what percentage of lifetime where beam starts shrinking (0.1 == 10% life left)
+ShrinkPct: 1.8 ;; what percentage of max width we subtract per second
$Section: ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
+Index: 0
+Width: 45 ;; width of the section
+Texture: BobboauBeamCore ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 255 255 255 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 150 150 150 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.1 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 8 ;; hehe
+Tile Factor: 9, 1
+Translation: -18
$Section: ;; one section of the beam
+Index: 1
+Width: 98 ;; width of the section
+Texture: BobboauBeamCoreHaze ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 160 160 0 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 60 60 0 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.07 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 6 ;; hehe
+Tile Factor: 12, 1
+Translation: -12
$Section: ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
+Index: 2
+Width: 135.0 ;; width of the section
+Texture: BobboauBeamGlow ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 255 255 255 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 150 150 150 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.15 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 3 ;; hehe
+Tile Factor: 12, 1
+Translation: -8
$Section: ;; one section of the beam
+Index: 3
+Width: 210.0 ;; width of the section
+Texture: BobboauBeamGlowHaze ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 255 0 0 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 60 0 0 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.05 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 0.0 ;; hehe
+Tile Factor: 12, 1
+Translation: -4


#End

That just makes BFGreens prettier... nothing else... the Vasudan beams in /effects obviously don't change anything.

I have all of this in a separate mod folder if that helps.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on February 19, 2007, 06:57:48 pm
Quote from: Mars on February 19, 2007, 06:41:17 pm
In /effects I put:
Code: [Select]
BobboauBeamCore.dds
BobboauBeamCoreHaze.dds
BobboauBeamGlow.dds
BobboauBeamGlowHaze.dds
TbeamAA.dds
TbeamAB.dds
TbeamAC.dds
TbeamAD.dds
tbeamae.dds
VbeamAA.dds
VbeamAB.dds
VbeamAC.dds
VbeamAD.dds
snip
That just makes BFGreens prettier... nothing else... the Vasudan beams in /effects obviously don't change anything.

I have all of this in a separate mod folder if that helps.

Yeah I just got the BFGreens to work, thanks anyways. I'm really wondering whats up with the other .dds files (TbeamAA to VbeamAD) they don't seem to have any place in the table for them to be doing anything. Might have to wait for Bob to tell us whats up with his beams.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 19, 2007, 08:30:43 pm
they all got used in my table.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on February 19, 2007, 08:40:06 pm
Quote from: Bobboau on February 19, 2007, 08:30:43 pm
they all got used in my table.

I kept having problems with your table when loading FSopen. I have the .dds files in mediavps/effects and the table in mediavps/tables, my build is 3.6.9 and I'm using launcher 5.5a. I get this error and many others when attempting to open FS.

Error: bob-wep.tbm(line 49:
Error: Required token = [#End] or [$Name:], found [+Length:               1500               ]
in weapon: BGreen.

File:J:\src\cvs\fs2_open_3_6_9.final\code\Parse\PARSELO.CPP
Line: 659
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on February 19, 2007, 08:49:26 pm
yup same, don't work for me.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on February 19, 2007, 08:51:50 pm
I figured it out what was wrong for me.  I had dled the TBeams and Vbeam textures but I didnot dl the package with bobboaubeams  the tbm file is set to use thoes not the Tbeams or the vbeams.

Bobbau apparently your older tbm that uses the TBeams/Vbeams doesnt work even after I added #end after secondary weapons

The one taylor made uses bobboaubeams wich are diffrent textures. but atleast it works
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on February 19, 2007, 08:55:21 pm
Quote from: Darklord42 on February 19, 2007, 08:51:50 pm
I figured it out what was wrong for me.  I had dled the TBeams and Vbeam textures but I didnot dl the package with bobboaubeams  the tbm file is set to use thoes not the Tbeams or the vbeams.

The tbm I'm havin problems with is the one disigned to make the Tbeams and Vbeams work, the one that came in bob.zip. I got the other beam from V. Admiral to work fine.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on February 19, 2007, 08:59:08 pm
yeah, there's definately problems here... I hope someone can figure it out because they sure look nice.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Tempest on February 19, 2007, 11:15:19 pm
This is a fixed tbm if anyone wants it... I'm really interested in these new beam effects, seeing them really makes you realize how bad the old ones look in comparison. (Same thing happened with the nebulas for me...I was content until I gazed upon lightspeed's nebs.

This tbm replaces the one in the first pack. I haven't tried the later packs, but I know this works for the first one. I used it earlier and saw different terran and vasudan beams, but not all of them are different so you've just got to play with a bunch of different ships to see which ones are used. I basically took out and fixed up some lines. I think only 5 or 6 lines were broken. Now we just need to get all the shivan beams worked out, preferably without just recoloring the terran or vasudan ones, to give each race its own distintive look. Such a great addition to the mediavps!!!

Okay, download folder is full. Delete all the text from bob-weps.tbm and replace it with this:

#Primary Weapons

$Name:                     BGreen
+nocreate
$BeamInfo:
   +Shots:            1
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
      +Index:               0
      +Width:               7            ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            TbeamAC      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         0 255 128 255    ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         0 255 128 255    ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.3            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               4.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         150, 2
      +Translation:            -6
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam
      +Index:               1
      +Width:               5            ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            TbeamAD      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:          160 160 255 0   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:          160 160 255 0      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.45         ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               3.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         170, 2
      +Translation:            -2
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
      +Index:               2
      +Width:               60.0         ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            TbeamAB      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         0 255 255 255    ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         0 255 255 255    ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.1            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               2.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         210, 2
      +Translation:            -7
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam
      +Index:               3
      +Width:               30.0         ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            TbeamAA      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         64 255 64 255       ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         64 255 64 255       ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.6            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               0.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         350, 2
      +Translation:            -4
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam
      +Index:               4       ;;Maybe this fixes it???!
      +Width:               60.0         ;; width of the section
      ;;+Length:               1500               ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            TbeamAE      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         0 0 255 255       ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         0 0 255 255       ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.0            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               0.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         1, 0


$Name:                     SGreen
+nocreate
$BeamInfo:
   +Shots:            1
   $Section:                              ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
      +Index:               0
      +Width:               5               ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            TbeamAC         ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 0 255 128      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         255 0 255 128      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.0               ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               4.0               ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         250, 2
      +Translation:            -2
   $Section:                              ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
      +Index:               1
      +Width:               11               ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            TbeamAD         ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 64 255 128      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         255 64 255 128      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.8               ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               4.0               ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         250, 2
      +Translation:            -3
   $Section:                              ;; one section of the beam
      +Index:               2
      +Width:               20               ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            TbeamAB         ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 0 255 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         255 0 255 255         ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.55            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               3.0               ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         300, 2
      +Translation:            -4
   $Section:                              ;; one section of the beam
      +Index:               3
      +Width:               30               ;; width of the section
      ;;+Length:               300               ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            TbeamAE         ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 0 255 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         255 0 255 255         ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.05            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               3.0               ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         1, 0


$Name:                     SVas
+nocreate
$BeamInfo:
   +Shots:            1
   $Section:                        ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
      +Index:               0
      +Width:               25.0            ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            VbeamAB      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 255 255 255   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         150 150 150 10   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.1            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               2.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         90, 2
      +Translation:            -2
   $Section:                        ;; one section of the beam
      +Index:               0
      +Width:               20.0         ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            VbeamAC   ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         160 160 0 255   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         60 60 0 10      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.2            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               1.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         180, 2
      +Translation:            -3
   $Section:                        ;; one section of the beam
      +Index:               0
      +Width:               30.0         ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            VbeamAD      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 0 0 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         60 0 0 10      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.5            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               0.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         300, 2
      +Translation:            -4
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam
      +Width:               40.0         ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            VbeamAE      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 0 0 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         255 0 0 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.3            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               0.0            ;; hehe



$Name:                     BVas
+nocreate
$BeamInfo:
   +Shots:            1
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
      +Index:               0
      +Width:               30.0            ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            VbeamAA      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 255 255 255   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         255 255 255 255   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.1            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               2.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         90, 2
      +Translation:            -2
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam
      +Index:               1
      +Width:               20.0         ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            VbeamAC   ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         160 160 0 255   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         160 160 0 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.2            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               1.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         180, 2
      +Translation:            -3
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam
      +Index:               2
      +Width:               50.0         ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            VbeamAD      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 0 0 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         255 0 0 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.3            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               0.0            ;; hehe
      +Tile Factor:         300, 2
      +Translation:            -4
   $Section:                           ;; one section of the beam
      +Width:               60.0         ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            VbeamAE      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 0 0 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         255 0 0 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.3            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               0.0            ;; hehe



#End

#Secondary Weapons
#End

#Beam Weapons
#End

#Countermeasures
#End
;;=============================READ THIS================================
;;You'll obviously need all the effects from the first download too.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Wanderer on February 20, 2007, 12:28:44 am
Tempest, few fixes for that...

1st   in every +Tile Factor:   xxx, 2 change the '2' to '1'.

2nd  check beam section indexes in SVas.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mehrpack on February 20, 2007, 02:37:51 am
hi,
wow, they looking great.

Mehrpack
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on February 20, 2007, 06:49:50 am
And it works  :D the only thing that looks odd to me is the fact that the blueish terran beams have a green muzzle glow. Other than that it looks great.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 20, 2007, 09:20:55 am
With the fixed tbm I'm not getting crashes but the beams still look like plain turquoise bars. I'd post a screen but I'm having serious uploading problems... everywhere. Vasudan beams don't even change. I can, however, get V. Admirals BFGreen work, but only in the mission he provided. This is getting confusing..
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on February 20, 2007, 09:23:06 am
It's not working correctly for me either, with the "fixed" tbm it doesn't look good. Hopefully once the shivan beams are done, a proper vp will be released that will actually work.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: BlackDove on February 20, 2007, 05:22:10 pm
Blah blah blah, technical bull****, it works, it doesn't work...

MoreScreenshots/IngameVideosOrBan.

Also, nice work Bob, it looks sexy.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 20, 2007, 07:57:59 pm
well these are not in game, but they are vids, the first one started out as an atempt to make a Prometheus effect, but then I realized I could animate it, now it would probly make for a good beam warmup glow,

http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/prom.avi

this one is an actual attempt at making a terran beam glow
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/TbeamAglow.avi

this one is a vasudan beam glow, the animation seems like it might be too sutble though
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/VbeamAglow.avi

this is a quick attempt at a shockwave
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/swave.avi
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on February 21, 2007, 01:00:02 am
Quote from: Mars on February 19, 2007, 06:41:17 pm
Code: [Select]
And in /tables I put Bob_Beams-wep.tbm containing [code]#Primary Weapons

$Name: BFGreen

$Model File: none ; laser1-1.pof
@Laser Bitmap: laserglow01
@Laser Color: 0, 255, 54
@Laser Length: 0.0
@Laser Head Radius: 0.3
@Laser Tail Radius: 0.3
$Mass:                          100.0
$Velocity:                      1600.0 ;; speed of the weapon (initially) -- may or may not change
$Fire Wait:                     35.0 ;; in seconds
$Damage:                        1900 ;; NOTE: for beam weapons this is kind of a "continuous" damage applied every few fractions of a second that the beam is on.
$Armor Factor:                  1.0
$Shield Factor:                 1.0
$Subsystem Factor:              1.0
$Lifetime:                      30.0 ;; How long this thing lives
$Energy Consumed:               0.30 ;; Energy used when fired
$Cargo Size:                    0.0             ;; Amount of space taken up in weapon cargo
$Homing:                        NO
$LaunchSnd:                     125             ;; The sound it makes when fired
$ImpactSnd:                     88              ;; The sound it makes when it hits something
+Weapon Range: 4000 ;; Limit to range at which weapon will actively target object
$Flags:                         ("Big Ship" "huge" "beam" "supercap" "player allowed")
$Icon:                          icongun05
$Anim:                          LoadGun07
$Impact Explosion:              ExpMissileHit1
$Impact Explosion Radius:       120.0

......
See those little squares? 
Quote
Code: [Select]
$Name: BFGreen
They can wreck a table file... I think they are Tab characters... EDIT: scratch that, they definitaly are, but if you get enough of them in a mission file, they can cause the line they are in to not be processed, or even crash the whole mission.  I noticed, after I thought FRED was ignoring the commands I was adding... and I opened the file manually in Notepad, and saw that the command was actually there several times, but those commands had those square boxes in front of them, and were not being proccessed.  Now, if there was only 1-4 of those boxes, it would still work.. the whole thing was really weird, I don't know.. I posted this in Mantis, IIRC... can anyone else verify this?[/code]
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 21, 2007, 01:04:02 am
I see no little squares  :nervous:

What program did you use to open the table file?

I used the K Advanced Text Editor
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on February 21, 2007, 01:04:54 am
...do you now?
Code: [Select]
$Name: BFGreen
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on February 21, 2007, 01:06:41 am
Sakes head

That's odd  :wtf:

IDK if it has something to do with my two computers or no... did you see it in the original TBM?

Browser? Text editor? Operating system?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on February 21, 2007, 01:08:15 am
On some text editors you will, they are tab characters, if you hit the tab key inside notepad or something and copy it or save it, sometimes it show up that way, and like I said, I have witnessed it wreck mission files, I assume it can do the same for table files.
EDIT: there was one campaign that was really screwed up with those things, I had to re-work all the table files and remove the tabs...
EDIT2: Only can see them if you have {code}{/code} around it, see:

Code: [Select]
$Name: BFGreen$Name:                     BFGreen
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Kaine on February 21, 2007, 02:50:14 am
yeah so about those in-game vids &/or screens...
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on February 21, 2007, 05:55:40 am
Quote from: Kaine on February 21, 2007, 02:50:14 am
yeah so about those in-game vids &/or screens...
This is what the Bterran beam with Bobs modfications (Bob.zip and fixed tbl) looks like ingame/

(http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/4738/bterranbl6.th.png) (http://img73.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bterranbl6.png)

And this is the SVas same mod.

(http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/5435/svasbc5.th.png) (http://img72.imageshack.us/my.php?image=svasbc5.png)

Happy?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 21, 2007, 06:12:33 am
That's the exact thing I'm seeing, but are they really supposed to look like that? I mean, with V. Admirals BFGreen the beams look like this:

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Misc/Beamz1.jpg)

Now, if we compare these with one of Bobbboau's original screens:
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/TbeamAA.jpg)

Shouldn't at least the terran beams (those that were modified) look more like the ones in the uppermost screen, and not turquoise?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Wanderer on February 21, 2007, 06:18:50 am
Did you apply the changes i posted?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 21, 2007, 06:23:21 am
I did the second I saw them, but had no improvement whatsoever.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Wanderer on February 21, 2007, 06:31:37 am
Hmmm.... Remove the 'last' beam sections..  that is those that use 'VbeamAE' or 'TbeamAE' textures.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 21, 2007, 06:59:45 am
Well, the change made them a little better, but it still isn't an improvement. The beam actually looks better in the screen than moving, as when it moves it looks way more solid, without the outer part.

EDIT: For crying out loud, why can't I upload anything! Even image uploading sites just give 404s. Anyways, the beam now looks a little greener, but it still looks nothing like it's apparently supposed to be.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 21, 2007, 09:19:39 am
Slime: I told you already - the one I posted was different to the set Bob posted. I only did the BFGreen, so (with Taylors fixed TBM) it would only work in missions that have a BFGreen. ;)

Anyways, it's out of date now and I've taken it down. This is because I've just gone through all the Terran and Vasudan cap-ship beams, getting them to use modified versions of Bobs graphics along with the translation technique I talked about earlier. Overall I reckon the results are quite cool.

So, since they look best in motion, here's the NEW pack: http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/PurdyBeamSet_V1.1.zip

Edit: New pack, link updated - see here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,44632.msg930843.html#msg930843) for pics of the new stuff.

And here are the piccies: (Sorry - just from the included mission. Can't be bothered getting in-campaign shots at this time of night. ;) )

(http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Pics/Beamz4.jpg)

(http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Pics/Beamz5.jpg)

(http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Pics/Beamz6.jpg)

(http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Pics/Beamz7.jpg)

(http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Pics/Beamz8.jpg)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 21, 2007, 09:38:18 am
"Freespace: oh, we got beams"
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 21, 2007, 09:43:23 am
And oh yes - in the first pic, that 'puff' of popcorn centrescreen was poor little me in an uly.

Fizz.  :sigh:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 21, 2007, 09:44:12 am
oh, and the last section on the vasudan beam the 'E' one is really faint it shouldn't make too much of a change, it was to make the beam seem a little brighter near the source and end, did it really cause much of a problem?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 21, 2007, 09:52:15 am
Not quite sure what you mean there sorry. Do you mean the patterns on the 512x512 one?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 21, 2007, 10:37:00 am
someone mentioned removeing the 'E' sections, I can see it causing problems on the terran ones but the vasudan ones should have been fine.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 21, 2007, 11:11:14 am
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/glows.zip

some effs good for beam glows, was a fairly quick'n dirty conversion, haven't tested them out in game yet, someone might find them usefull.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Slime on February 21, 2007, 11:29:48 am
Ugh, all this modding trouble tends to confuse me sometimes... Thanks for the effort of doing all of the remaining T/V beams, they work and look great. They're a real improvement! Now if someone took care of the shivan beams...  :nod:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 21, 2007, 11:48:06 am
I'm just not sure what to do with the shivan beams, they seem like they should be more pure than the T and V beams, I don't think they should look like a flow of particles or lightning, it should look like pure energy, like light, but that would mean virtually no detail. if anyone's got any ideas I'm willing to entertain suggestions.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 21, 2007, 11:57:50 am
Basically what they are atm (white beam with red glow) would work imo, only with a smoother transition from white to red perhaps
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on February 21, 2007, 02:01:23 pm
I think they should look similar to the flow that you see on the terran beam. It looks really nice when it is flowing out horizontally and wispy, just come up with a slightly different pattern.

Looks great :D
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 21, 2007, 02:14:18 pm
I may do an animated section or two
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on February 21, 2007, 02:17:18 pm
IMO, animated beams look like crap. They are not realistic and move awkwardly. For something of that power, it would definately look like a solid stream, methinks, not a jerking around cartoon thing.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 21, 2007, 04:36:42 pm
what neoterran said basically

however if your considering animating them, prolly do somthing like, the white section of the beam to "pulse" vertically?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 21, 2007, 07:06:23 pm
I'd like to see what Bob has in mind before we dismiss animated sections of beams. Memory hoggage aside, there are a lot of 'flowing energy' effects that could make beams look absolutely astounding. :)

In fact that's the kind of effect I've been trying to achieve with the translation settings as they are. I want it to look like the core is moving faster than the outer layers, but there are two problems I keep running into:

1) The core sections get washed out of existance so easily by the following segments. However, if you dull the other sections, then they become faded and ugly.
Might it be possible to implement an alpha constant or something for beam sections? Just a number we can fiddle with to get the transparency of each layer of the beam just right would be exceedingly helpful and would mean we could use the same graphic more often.

2) This is the bigger issue, but it seems to me that the translation speed factor doesn't work quite as it should. It seems to change based on the width of the beam section. Basically, the wider it is, the faster it moves. A wide beam section with a speed of -4 will outrun a much thinner section with a speed of -18!
Needless to say, this makes the flowing river thing rather hard to achieve. Bobboau, could you possibly take a quick look at the code and see what's happening there? I can report it as a bug with more specific details if needbe.

=========

In the meantime, I'm now trying out those EFF warm up animations Bob posted earlier. While the green and yellow one doesn't look very good as is, the green and blue one is amazing. It also gave me the idea to change some of the smaller beams over from the white>yellow>green colours to white>blue>green, which works really well in places:

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/SGreenBeam.jpg)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: S-99 on February 22, 2007, 08:28:40 pm
(http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/4738/bterranbl6.th.png) (http://img73.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bterranbl6.png)

Here's a good time to show this off. This image right here shows that there needs to be an actual beam impact affect, because the scraping explosion thing isn't enough these days. I  mean just add something there that shows off that the beam is actually hitting the hull of a ship. Those cool scraping explosions isn't enough, here the scraping explosion stuff isn't quite doing it's thing, and it looks as if the beam just ends.
Just imagine if this blowtorch were the beam, and see how it like spreads out just a little when it hits a surface.
(http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/3694/33zj4.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on February 22, 2007, 08:31:16 pm
Quote from: S-99 on February 22, 2007, 08:28:40 pm
(http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/4738/bterranbl6.th.png) (http://img73.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bterranbl6.png)

Here's a good time to show this off. This image right here shows that there needs to be an actual beam impact affect, because the scraping explosion thing isn't enough these days. I  mean just add something there that shows off that the beam is actually hitting the hull of a ship. Those cool scraping explosions isn't enough, here the scraping explosion stuff isn't quite doing it's thing, and it looks as if the beam just ends.
Just imagine if this blowtorch were the beam, and see how it like spreads out just a little when it hits a surface.
(http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/3694/33zj4.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

Totally and 100 percent agreed, the scraping explosions doesn't look good, it doesn't always cover the "end" of the beam, what would be really cool if the beam bent just like the above picture and moved along the hull... god... with a heat effect (shaders!) mmm....
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: S-99 on February 22, 2007, 08:35:16 pm
I like how the blowtorch doesn't end abruptly as soon as it touches a surface. It does that slight spreading across the surface of what it hits thing :yes:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 22, 2007, 10:41:51 pm
and just how exactly do you think this is to be done, and please don't say shaders.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on February 22, 2007, 10:58:12 pm
... How about an effect sort of like a blowtorch hitting grease-coated steel?  ;7
I mean, does a beam just "melt" part of the hull, or does it actually vaporize some of it?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on February 22, 2007, 11:13:08 pm
I guess it's not possible until we have shader support.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: S-99 on February 22, 2007, 11:15:32 pm
I'm not talking about shader support. I'm just saying add like an extra graphic or something that would depict the beam spreading out slightly as soon as it hits the hull. You know, sort of like how we you pictures to depict beams shooting at all. The beam making the hull glow orange or red wherever it hits that uses shaders is a different thing i did not even mean to bring up.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: TrashMan on February 23, 2007, 05:08:23 am
Quote from: neoterran on February 22, 2007, 08:31:16 pm
Totally and 100 percent agreed, the scraping explosions doesn't look good, it doesn't always cover the "end" of the beam, what would be really cool if the beam bent just like the above picture and moved along the hull... god... with a heat effect (shaders!) mmm....

Make hte ewxplosion effect bigger..then it covers everything:D Works for me
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 23, 2007, 06:40:01 am
anyway... updated my stuff (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/Bob.zip) probably needs similar tweaks as the last one did, I think I'm going to post my build

like right here (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/fs2_open_Bobboau_2-23-07.zip)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 23, 2007, 08:21:37 am
Quote from: TrashMan on February 23, 2007, 05:08:23 am
Quote from: neoterran on February 22, 2007, 08:31:16 pm
Totally and 100 percent agreed, the scraping explosions doesn't look good, it doesn't always cover the "end" of the beam, what would be really cool if the beam bent just like the above picture and moved along the hull... god... with a heat effect (shaders!) mmm....

What Trash said... and keep in mind that u can even go the long way and make an explosion effect with that "light spreading" effect incorporated. So you dont need any coding stuf to make it happen :P

Make hte ewxplosion effect bigger..then it covers everything:D Works for me
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Taristin on February 23, 2007, 10:05:24 am
Quote from: Bobboau on February 22, 2007, 10:41:51 pm
and just how exactly do you think this is to be done, and please don't say shaders.

Particles? :nervous:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: aldo_14 on February 23, 2007, 10:43:28 am
An explosion ani or image covering both ends of the beam?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 23, 2007, 08:43:13 pm
...is what we have now...

and I don't think anyone noticed the post were I posted new stuff with like shivan beams in it.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on February 24, 2007, 12:33:19 am
well, everytime you post your tbms, they don't work with the +length error....
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 12:39:51 am
which is why I also posted a build.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on February 24, 2007, 12:44:57 am
but what if i have another build i prefer to use ?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 12:46:37 am
well then you'll have to modify the tables.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 24, 2007, 01:00:40 am
Bobboau, take a look at your posted BVas beam in-game. In particular the translation speed of the section layers.
Now in the tables, the speeds go -4, -3, -2 from the core layer of the beam to the haze. However in game it doesn't do that. The effect you see in game is more like -2, -8, -15, meaning the outer haze of the beam moves along very fast while the core slowly drifts along.

This is the problem I referred to earlier in this thread about the section translation speed bug. Should I mantis it?

====

Anyways, for those too lazy/unable to get Bobs beams in-game:
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Effects/Bobboau_TerranBeam.jpg)

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Effects/Bobboau_VasudanBeam.jpg)

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Effects/Bobboau_ShivanBeam.jpg)

The Shivan beam especially needs to be seen in motion to be fully appreciated. That lightning effect is animated and quite cool, though I reckon the beam itself needs to better match the warm-up glow in both colour and texture.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 01:30:27 am
that's not my warmup glow, don't know why it wouldn't show up, but there should be a SbeamAglow.eff,  and 25 frames for it.


and the beams are acting like I wanted, I did it with a fast core and a slow outer layer, I think it looks better the other way around. feel free to modify to your taste though.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 24, 2007, 01:49:12 am
Errm, you're right - I have your glow in the effects folder, the tbm properly references it, yet it doesn't get used. :\
I'll have to look into that.

About the beams though, are you saying you intended the beams to have a slow moving white inner section with a much faster moving coloured glow outter section around it? Cos that's what's happening, despite your table values for speed saying the opposite should be happening.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 01:57:57 am
that's what I wanted and that's what my tables say. look at the width of those sections the slowes ones are the smallest ones, I tried it with the inner ones faster but it looked better with the outer ones moving faster, IMHO. well actualy the core is the second fastest, the middle layer is slowest, and the outer layer is fastest, but I think the middle layer is only hot in the center, so same as if it were the core.

you probably need to turn off the media VPs.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on February 24, 2007, 02:07:21 am
Quote from: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 01:57:57 am

you probably need to turn off the media VPs.
Couldn't you just stick the stuff in \mediavps\data\effects ?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 24, 2007, 02:14:01 am
Ah, ok then. My bad. I assumed the sections would go from thinnest to thickest. :o

However, I still think there's a translation speed error relating to beam width in there somewhere. I'll see if I can provide a more solid example of it.

As for the beamglows, it was a tbm I had from testing out the upcoming media VPs. Weird thing was that even though the same TBM defines warmup glows for all the beams in your pack, only the shivan one got changed.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 02:29:50 am
well translation is in tile per second, so if you have a section that has twice as much tileage it'll seem to move slower, or faster, my head realy hurts and I don't want to think about it too much, but it has to do with the coordanants gtting moved them multiplyed, I'm thinking more tiles will seem to move faster, cause you'd have more tiles pass through at the same time
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on February 24, 2007, 02:37:16 am
That's probably it then.
I'll stick that tidbit into the wiki actually, cos it's kinda important if you're trying to fine tune stuff. ;)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: S-99 on February 24, 2007, 02:38:12 am
I'm in the works of trying to show an example of what is needed for the end of the beam. AND I DON't MEAN SHADERS.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 03:01:32 am
well if the end of the beam gets brighter in any way it'll just make the end of it MORE apparent, not that having it get brighter closer to the end is a bad idea (the vasudan beams actually do this,or they're suposed to anyway, it is subtle though) I just don't think it's going to do what you want it to do.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: S-99 on February 24, 2007, 06:20:48 am
Ok, well thanks to that scraping explosionless beam picture that Davin has provided.
Here's the normal.
(http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/786/bterranbl6ox3.png) (http://imageshack.us)
Here's with an imaginary beam hit affect i was thinking about. I did my best to make the colors conform to the new beam. And i took bobbaus beam glow affect and made it the impact affect with a lot of tweaking to it. Modified beam glows would work great for beam impact affects, i actually wanted to use the beam glow in that screenshot to make a beam hit affect, but i couldn't find a copy of it around, so i used bobbaus.
(http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/1081/yarf2rx2.png) (http://imageshack.us)
I did my best to incorporate a beam affect with like some crude lighting around it. So it hits, looks cool, and it glows. I of course used gimp to do this imaginary affect, changed the perspective of the beam impact affect to better conform to the side of the hull of the sathanas (i did that pretty horribly). Preserving the roundness wasn't too easy, so it's slightly oval shaped, but it's good enough. After that i think i did a pretty good job at making the beam hit affect colors from bobbaus beam glow affect to conform to his new terran beam in this shot.

But anyway, this is a beam affect the beams really need. It shows the beam beating with intensity against the hull of a sathanas while you get to watch the beam hit the hull and sort of spread out a little bit, sort of like what the flame of the blowtorch i posted does when it hits a surface. Shoot me for this, but i didn't mean to stir people up about shaders and the beam turning the hull of a ship red or orange wherever the beam got done hitting. This sort of makes the beams look more menacing, but anyways, imagine this along with the scraping explosions affect.

EDIT: I may have made the beam hit thingy too big for this rather small and  non-uber beam blasting the sathanas.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 07:06:38 am
so you made a different beam hit explosion effect?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 24, 2007, 08:53:44 am
it looks very cool atm, although if you want to improve it, now you just have to add a real explosion to it (kinda the over-heated particles making the various reactions after the meltdown)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: S-99 on February 24, 2007, 09:44:50 am
Well, that's where the hull scraping explosions come in to beef it up, there actually sort of particly already. Anyway that screenshot didn't have any of those explosions and it looks really crappy where the beam hits and has no end to it. It did that because it was an area of the sathanas i guess had wierd angles so the scraping explosions couldn't really do their thing. But anyway imagine this affect with them, and you'd have great beams.

But anyways i didn't make a beam hit explosion effect. I just gave the beam and understandably justifiable "end" when it hits a target(it's what i think a beam hitting it's target would look like + explosions). Hull scraping explosions along with it would make it superb. Anyway, making the imaginary effect, the beam glow from the new set of beam glows in this thread was perfect. Rather any beam glow for an impact effect would do, you just don't want to have something ****ty where the beam glow is the same as the impact affect, though this is pretty easily solved by grabbing some beam glows from other sets. The fact that it's a beam glow being the impact effect along with explosions, means that the impact effect would have a cool eff effect as well...at least from the beam glows that have are effs such dabs and bobbaus.
I got back into photoimaging tonight for the purpose of showing this example, it wasn't too hard, just a little difficulty navigating gimp was the tiniest of frustration (i forgot what several icons looked like for what i was trying to do).
TbeamAglow_0016.dds seemed like a good one to use.
Idk thx for the congrats, i did a pretty crude job, but my aim was for cool looking, i'm glad people like the idea of this.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 09:57:31 am
you know I think just making the explosion bigger would do the trick...
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on February 24, 2007, 10:07:29 am
Looks like it..
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Pnakotus on February 24, 2007, 12:07:14 pm
Are the pink Shivan beams intentional?  It weakens the primary colour battle effect, and the 'zomg teh devilz' effect.  Pink?  :nervous:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: TrashMan on February 24, 2007, 04:16:18 pm
Didn't you know Shivans are ghey?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 24, 2007, 04:20:06 pm
it makes the beam look 'hotter', otherwise it would be the same shade of red most of the way through.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: IPAndrews on February 24, 2007, 04:33:46 pm
Actually, and forgive me Bobboau because you know I love some of your new effects, in this case it really does just look gay :)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: m2258734a on February 24, 2007, 05:40:20 pm
The design of the beam is outstanding, and it also makes sense to have pink near the outer boundaries of the white core to establish a transition between white light and red light. If I am not mistaken, I think what some people are having problems with is that the regions beyond the lightning bolts don’t look red enough. Maybe if you can redden that region and eliminate the pinkish hue which should reside near the center of the beam and not the outside, the color combination of the beam might satisfy those who disagreed with it in the first place.

Your new designs are incredible. I haven't played Freespace SCP in a while and my laptop that I am using right now is nowhere near capable of running the game smoothly, so may I ask what are the beams that your new designs intended to replace? I see what your BFGreen looks like, and SVas and BVas, but I am not sure of the others. Also, are you also planning on redoing the AAA beams, as well?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Herra Tohtori on February 24, 2007, 06:30:42 pm
No, it doesn't make sense to have pink in there in my opinion. Light red is not pink, it's just a colour where there is less green and blue than red.

Pink is a colour where there is amount X of red (usually full 100%), and then more blue than green. Like this:
RED #ff0000
BLUE #0000ff
MAGENTA #ff00ff
PINK #ff55ff

Pink requires more blue than green to exist in the RGB colour mix to create magenta... and that isn't really viable in beams, unless canon supports pink in beams, which it doesn't (thank the lords of Kobol). The Shivan beams have two kinds of gradients: From white to red (for the core) and from red to transparent (for the edges). In this case, the fade from white to red to transparent in the edges goes like this - in hex codes, the colour scale for shivan beam should be from #ffffff to #ff0000 to #000000.

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

When there's full red component (#ffXXXX) in the colour, green and blue components should be equal. If there's a difference between green and blue components, the beam becomes more yellow or more magenta (or pink). That's in my opinion not necessary - or at least the beamglows should then be toned to have similar amount of blue in them to create the same relative amount of blue to result in pink in edges. I prefer the red ones, though. After all - no one is suggesting that the green beams should have some cyan, yellow or magenta in the edges, which would be the same thing as saying that red beams should have pink (essentially magenta) in edges... :cool:


Incidentally, I had a slight problem when I was meddling with beam textures. The vasudan beams too easily became 100% brighter than AAA, Shivan and Terran beams, only because they were yellow and thus had the advantage of using two thirds of a pixel luminence in computer screen on the edges of the beam, because yellow #ffff00 is a mix of red and green, whereas red, green or blue beams could only use one third of it on the beam edges... :rolleyes:

EDIT: I'm not saying that the beams should have a linear transition. Increased detail practically requires that there are some different colours present - but I would prefer some slightly orange streaks or lightnings around Shivan beams instead of magenta. It would also fit canon better than pink beam edges... considering that cutscene Lucifer beams were orange more than red.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: m2258734a on February 24, 2007, 10:23:42 pm
Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I was mistaking light red to be very similar to light pink in hue, and I never took into consideration the differences in RGB between the two colors. Assuming that pink was actually light red, it would make sense to have that color near the center of the beam, but not near the "edge" to make that transition between white light and red light. Thanks for clearing up my misconception.

I have no problem with the current color scheme of the beam, and I believe the beam and the beamglow fit together perfectly since they were both created by Bobboau:

http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/SbeamWA.avi (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/SbeamWA.avi)

While I'm content with the current scheme, I would prefer to see less pink and more red, or any other possible color combination other than pink; regardless, excellent job.  :yes:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: CKid on February 25, 2007, 01:16:09 am
I downloaded the most updated full effect pack created by Bobboau but I am not sure where to put some of the files.

I know the .dds files go into mediavp/data/maps
.ibx files go into mediavp/data/cache
.tbm files go into mediavp/data/tables
.tga files go into mediavp/data/effects

but do the .eff files go? :confused:

Any help would be great, thanks.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Herra Tohtori on February 25, 2007, 01:23:15 am
If an image (TGA/DDS/<choose filetype>) is used as a weapon effect, shield effect or engine glow effect etc. , it goes to ../<mod>/data/effects/; if an image is used as a model's texture, it goes to ../<mod>/data/maps/. In this case, mod being the mediavp folder.

EFF files are essentially used as animation pointers for both cases (they point the game to use images as frames), but they go to the same folder that their respective image files go. Thus in this case, you put them to the effects folder along with the frame images. If you were to use animated texture for some model - like the 3D shockwave model for example - the frame images and the EFF file would go to maps, because the 3D shockwave is actually a textured model instead of an effect texture rendered in a layer.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Cobra on February 25, 2007, 01:50:58 am
Ugh, Bob's .tbm is riddled with parsing errors.

[EDIT] OK. Bob, there was no need for all of the #Ends and #Secondary Weapons thing. It works perfectly without 'em. (In your build, anyway) One #End is enough. ;)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: CKid on February 25, 2007, 02:20:13 am
Ok, I changed the .tbm file to remove all but the last #Ends and the #Secondary Weapons, by opening the file with word pad but how do I save it without changing it into a .txt file?

[Edit] Nevermind, I just had to open the file with note pad.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 25, 2007, 03:45:09 am
well the beam can be changed easily enough, the "pink" is in one section, but I didn't save the script for the glow, so that's got to be changed somehow. however, you guys were playing with shivans that had engine glows that looked like lit farts the turned dark purple when the went realy fast for the last year, and I never heard any complaints about that, I don't see why having a small amount of blue in the core of the beams it such a big deal, I certainly don't see how it's 'gehy' shivan beams that have absolutely no color variation are boring, simple as that, I think if you just stop with the bandwagon spazing about something different for a moment you'll see its a good idea, but if your so set against it feel free to modify and redistribute it, who's ever is best will become dominant, that's how evolution works after all.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on February 25, 2007, 11:30:24 am
I rly dont c a prob with the pinkish hue on the beam... sure, deviates a bit from cannon, but so what?! Looks cool anyways, gives more "vivacity" to the beam.
So thumbs up on it imo
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: m2258734a on February 25, 2007, 01:48:27 pm
I don't see a problem with it either; I was only providing a suggestion that might satisfy those who were a little discontent with the color scheme from the beginning. VA posted a YouTube video for comparison purposes so we can decide what beams we want in the next media VPs. So far, your Shivan beams are dominating :yes:

I said before that I would probably prefer to see a different combination of colors, but after watching the video the color choice really blends in and looks great. I agree with the vivacity, and the pink hue IMO really defines the plasma-like appearance of the beam. It reminds me of the light emission we see when running a current through hydrogen gas at low pressure.

I would like to ask one question though; was it intentional for the LRed and SRed to have the same beam design and color scheme (unless my eyes are deceiving me)? I ask simply because the beams within species that you've shown us so far all look different from one another. Thanks.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: DaBrain on February 25, 2007, 03:15:46 pm
I like your effects a lot.

There is one thing I hope you can fix though:
The beamglows are too cloud-ish and lack a ... 'powerful-looking' center.

Don't forget that FS2 will use multiple glows at once for one beam. You should make the glow more 'transparent', or give it a softer gradient to the edges.


Edit: Hmmm your program seems to be perfect to create shield effects too... Just an idea. ;)
Also, I think it's good you're promoting it this way.  :yes:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 25, 2007, 05:03:41 pm
yeah it could do shield effects and thrusters and shockwaves and explosions, I'll probably get around to it sometime soon(er or later).

most of the other beam I was trying to make a distinction between each one, with the shivans I though it might be better it there wasn't as much of a difference between them (they would all look more or less like the same weapon but on different power levels) it makes the shivens more distinct by there beams being the only set that seems so similar, and with all the beams looking so similar no one beam stands out, unlike the terran and vasudan beams, so you have a horde like effect on there personality, but that's my take on it, and if someone thinks they need to be different and the majority agrees then we can do it that way. now there are differences but they are extremely sudle, the most distinct of the shivan beams is the BFRed(that was included in the latest pack right?), as it has a second energy layer, but the basic structure is just a bigger version of the other two.

and there really isn't any other way to go other than magenta ("pink") if you add green it'll look more yellow and orange and that's too much like the vasudan color scheme. so all there is other than that is adding a little bit of blue.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: DaBrain on February 25, 2007, 05:12:21 pm
Imho the shivan beam looks 'too' good.
You'll have to upgrade the other beams too. With a nice secondary effects, like the shivan beam has. ;)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: m2258734a on February 25, 2007, 05:51:01 pm
Thanks for answering my question. Your reason behind the Shivan beams is what I had in mind, and your reason is justified. I was wondering if you have done similar upgrades to all other beams in the game, including the AAA and the ones that we do not see in the regular FS2 campaign. Also, have you made upgrades to the "slasher" beams, as well? I'd check your beam packs myself, but I can't run Freespace SCP on this laptop or any other computer in my vicinity.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 26, 2007, 12:21:15 am
not yet
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on February 26, 2007, 01:02:30 am
I put some screenshots of the Lucy beam up on photobucket, if that would help.. someone mentioned Shivan beams can be orange.. If you notice, the Lucy beam does glow upon hitting the hull, I think from the hull's heating.
EDIT: Ordered them a bit with a table.    :ick:  Ordered left to right, then top to bottom.

(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeam1.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeam1.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeam2.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeam2.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeam3.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeam3.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeam4.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeam4.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeam5.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeam5.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhit1.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhit1.jpg)
(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhit2.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhit2.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhit3.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhit3.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhit4.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhit4.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhit_thru1.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhit_thru1.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhit_thru2.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhit_thru2.jpg)(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhit_thru3.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhit_thru3.jpg)
(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhole_aftermath.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhole_aftermath.jpg)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 26, 2007, 01:18:01 am
notice how many topics have been made about how many canonical errors were in that cutsceen, like how the beam comes of of it's armpit, and is light pastel orange.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on February 26, 2007, 01:21:34 am
Uhm, it comes out of the side, because the Lucy has at least three, if not four beams:
Two on front
one or two, on the side, depending if the planetary bombardment cannon is on one side or both.
It's orange because it's coming from the side cannon.
However, In FS1, the Lucy's front beams are orange, too, so :wtf: Lucy's beams are different.
I can post screenies if you want.
EDIT: If you want, get on ICQ, I added you.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: S-99 on February 26, 2007, 05:18:12 am
Hey wow. I didn't think my imaginary effect was that dead on. It's really similar to the lucifer hitting that orion there, except the **** i was messing was green.
Terran modification...
(http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/1081/yarf2rx2.png) (http://imageshack.us)
...compared to lucy.
(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhit3.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhit3.jpg)

Then again the picture i modified has already made cobra begging me for my effect that doesn't exist.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on February 26, 2007, 05:53:18 am
well they are doing the same trick B5 used, explosion == lens flare.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: m2258734a on February 27, 2007, 01:26:27 am
Sorry to get off topic (I believe implementing the beam-impact modification would be a nice little addition BTW), but I was wondering whenever you have the time and have completed your work on all of the non-AAA beams if you may post screenshots of them similar to Vasudan Admiral in the other media VP thread. With the votes taking place, I am not sure if there are others who are in the same boat as me who don't have any capability of running the game to view your modifications. So far I have only seen a few of your beams, and I know that in the future you will have more to offer.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on March 01, 2007, 12:40:33 pm
updated the effect pack (link in first post) now has vasudan turret weapons.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on March 05, 2007, 08:39:17 pm
updated the effect pack, it now has updated AAA beams

or it will when it gets done uploading in 15 minutes
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Cobra on March 05, 2007, 08:53:12 pm
*bows*

Scotty would be proud. :D
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on March 05, 2007, 10:23:15 pm
Quote from: Cobra on March 05, 2007, 08:53:12 pm
Scotty would be proud. :D

Bad pun... somewhat funny but still, bad pun.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Fade Rathnik on March 06, 2007, 03:24:00 am
What happens if you use a variation of the muzzle effect for the beam cannon as the impact effect
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on March 06, 2007, 06:37:19 am
2 Problems: The cutscenes (at least the intro cutscene), with Bob's build, had a problem of all the white/whiteish being changed to green. And I also got this error while playing Feignt, Parry, Riposte:
Error: thruster bank is linked to subsystem #75, wich is out of bounds, on model cruiser01x.pof
File:..\..\code\model\modelinterp.cpp
Line: 6810
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on March 06, 2007, 07:05:49 am
that's probly an issue with cruiser01x
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on March 06, 2007, 12:23:53 pm
Yeah, Although I didn't have that problem last time I played that mission, and this is the only major change I've done. Oh and I just noticed the error console has great spelling :P :
Quote from: Davin on March 06, 2007, 06:37:19 am
Error: thruster bank is linked to subsystem #75, wich is out of bounds, on model cruiser01x.pof

Edit: I've actually noticed another problem besides the ones I've already mentioned. On the last mission of the main FS2 campaign at 25 seconds into the level (everytime I did it 3-4 times and took note) I get booted back to desktop from a decent 40fps, without any error report appearing saying that something went wrong.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Kaine on March 07, 2007, 12:53:54 am
Quote from: S-99 on February 26, 2007, 05:18:12 am
Hey wow. I didn't think my imaginary effect was that dead on. It's really similar to the lucifer hitting that orion there, except the **** i was messing was green.
Terran modification...
(http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/1081/yarf2rx2.png) (http://imageshack.us)
...compared to lucy.
(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/th_lucybeamhit3.jpg) (http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u296/jr_two/Lucys%20beam/lucybeamhit3.jpg)

Then again the picture i modified has already made cobra begging me for my effect that doesn't exist.

That looks fantastic, are those the effects in the mediavps? particularly the beam/hull intersection effect (that hot red ring)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: S-99 on March 07, 2007, 02:27:36 am
I took someone elses screenshot where the beam pretty much had no end. And then i gimped it for my interpretation of what beams should look like when they hit a ship along with the existing hull scraping explosions. And as opposed to the lucy shooting that random orion there, the affect i gimped into it is not a lens flare. And it shouldn't be imagined as one either. It's just the beam super heating the hull of the sathanas and doing some plasma spread out action while i gave it a slight glow and match the beam color. Anyway, all of the red **** in that picture is just the sathanas with the standard shivan engine graphic. This is not an actual affect.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on March 07, 2007, 07:50:25 am
Quote from: S-99 on March 07, 2007, 02:27:36 am
And as opposed to the lucy shooting that random orion there,

The Galatea is a "random orion"?
*waits for fireworks*
:nervous:
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on March 07, 2007, 08:08:02 am
Actually, that Orion there is not the Galatea... its the Legion :P
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on March 07, 2007, 03:54:54 pm
Quote from: Bobboau on March 06, 2007, 07:05:49 am
that's probly an issue with cruiser01x

Seems to only be a problem when using your build, I used your build with just the standard MediaVps and I had the same problem, switched back to the standard 3.6.9 and I didn't have that problem.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on March 08, 2007, 03:30:58 am
Quote from: Raven2001 on March 07, 2007, 08:08:02 am
Actually, that Orion there is not the Galatea... its the Legion :P
Okay, I know the Bastion was used in FS2 to collapse a jump node, how did the Galatea meet its fate?  I forget.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Davin on March 08, 2007, 06:08:33 am
Quote from: jr2 on March 08, 2007, 03:30:58 am
Quote from: Raven2001 on March 07, 2007, 08:08:02 am
Actually, that Orion there is not the Galatea... its the Legion :P
Okay, I know the Bastion was used in FS2 to collapse a jump node, how did the Galatea meet its fate?  I forget.

The lucy did actually blow up the Galatea, just not in that specific battle.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on March 08, 2007, 07:24:40 am
Ah, now I feel a little better.  :)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: SadisticSid on March 17, 2007, 04:49:52 am
Quote from: S-99 on February 24, 2007, 06:20:48 am
Ok, well thanks to that scraping explosionless beam picture that Davin has provided.
Here's the normal.
(http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/786/bterranbl6ox3.png) (http://imageshack.us)
Here's with an imaginary beam hit affect i was thinking about. I did my best to make the colors conform to the new beam. And i took bobbaus beam glow affect and made it the impact affect with a lot of tweaking to it. Modified beam glows would work great for beam impact affects, i actually wanted to use the beam glow in that screenshot to make a beam hit affect, but i couldn't find a copy of it around, so i used bobbaus.
(http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/1081/yarf2rx2.png) (http://imageshack.us)
I did my best to incorporate a beam affect with like some crude lighting around it. So it hits, looks cool, and it glows. I of course used gimp to do this imaginary affect, changed the perspective of the beam impact affect to better conform to the side of the hull of the sathanas (i did that pretty horribly). Preserving the roundness wasn't too easy, so it's slightly oval shaped, but it's good enough. After that i think i did a pretty good job at making the beam hit affect colors from bobbaus beam glow affect to conform to his new terran beam in this shot.

But anyway, this is a beam affect the beams really need. It shows the beam beating with intensity against the hull of a sathanas while you get to watch the beam hit the hull and sort of spread out a little bit, sort of like what the flame of the blowtorch i posted does when it hits a surface. Shoot me for this, but i didn't mean to stir people up about shaders and the beam turning the hull of a ship red or orange wherever the beam got done hitting. This sort of makes the beams look more menacing, but anyways, imagine this along with the scraping explosions affect.

EDIT: I may have made the beam hit thingy too big for this rather small and  non-uber beam blasting the sathanas.

I don't know if anyone remembered a build DTP made before the SCP was formed (it was just after the source release), but that looks very similar to the effect he made as a secondary effect. I think a circular glow - like laserglowxxx - was drawn on top of the explosion ani but was done faster so slasher beams left a green/yellow/red trail of what looked like plasma burning across the hull. The trouble with trying to replicate the effect is that the explosion ani is only drawn 5-10 times a second, so fast moving slasher beams moving across a ship's hull with your effect would only leave a few impacts. Kudos anyway. :)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on March 17, 2007, 11:25:13 am
in fact that problem you described was solved as well in that build, because the guy that made it also made the explosions to repeat themselves faster :)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Flipside on March 17, 2007, 11:08:49 pm
Well, impact effects like that, I would have thought, would be possible if the damage decal code is optimised. You could have it so the beam scrapes away the top panelling to reveal understructure. With some clever bumpmapping, it could look really effective.

Of course, the downside being that we can't do that, yet*, but I think this is the sort of stuff the SCP guys will be looking at for 3.7 :)

*Well, yes, we can, but last time I checked, the decal code wasn't running nearly as effeciently as Bobb would have liked.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: S-99 on March 18, 2007, 09:05:19 am
Well good thing i didn't make a fakey image of a damage decal. If this were a slashing beam, then the impact affect would stay with the beam at all times especially when it moves across the hull. Like everyone said if you want the hull red super heated spots after the beam is over with then there's potentious shaders.
The idea i represented is not supposed to be shown off as a damage decal. It's just supposed to be a justifiable way to show off what a beam looks like when it hits a ship, as opposed to the unmodified image that doesn't have the fakey beam.

Quote from: SadisticSid on March 17, 2007, 04:49:52 am
I don't know if anyone remembered a build DTP made before the SCP was formed (it was just after the source release), but that looks very similar to the effect he made as a secondary effect. I think a circular glow - like laserglowxxx - was drawn on top of the explosion ani but was done faster so slasher beams left a green/yellow/red trail of what looked like plasma burning across the hull. The trouble with trying to replicate the effect is that the explosion ani is only drawn 5-10 times a second, so fast moving slasher beams moving across a ship's hull with your effect would only leave a few impacts. Kudos anyway. :)

From what i read here besides going off on damage decals here, that an effect of what i proposed could be put into the game, but like i said. Regardless of the damage decal ****, this sounds like a step in the right way the way this old build worked(current damage decals in scp are **** currently...then again i would think that you didn't define what you meant by the word decal).
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Herra Tohtori on March 18, 2007, 02:07:01 pm
I understand decals as tingsies that attach themselves to the hull, altering the look of the texture to be scorched with intense heat. Though cool if they worked properly, they themselves wouldn't be the answer to the problem of making the beam's end look like the plasma is spreading a little at the point of impact.

If I haven't seriously misunderstood something, then what we're talking about here is a way to increase the amount/size/shape of explosion animation spawning in the point where beams hit, so that slashing beams would generate those animations closer to each other, forming a continuous line of them instead of current gapped effect, which kinda reminds a dot line from those "connect the dots" pictures for pre-school children... except the points are explosions.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on March 18, 2007, 03:10:08 pm
I don't know what you people are talking about with the "current decals in SCP" being "****", they are non-existant, the code was comented out many months ago. I was waiting untill we had an internal geometry upgrade before I tried fixing them cause with the current geometry it's imposable to make them fast enough.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on March 20, 2007, 08:58:11 pm
Ok Installed the latest effects pack by moving evreything into there respective folders but i get these errors.
Quote
Error: bob-wep.tbm(line 196:
Error: Required token = [#End] or [$Name:], found [#Beam Weapons]
in weapon: BVas.

File:J:\src\cvs\fs2_open_3_6_9.final\code\Parse\PARSELO.CPP
Line: 659
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------Error: bob-wep.tbm(line 49:
Error: Required token = [#End] or [$Name:], found [+Length:               1500               ]
in weapon: BGreen.

File:J:\src\cvs\fs2_open_3_6_9.final\code\Parse\PARSELO.CPP
Line: 659
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------
Quote
Error: bob-wep.tbm(line 50:
Error: Required token = [#End] or [$Name:], found [+Texture:            TbeamAE      ]
in weapon: BGreen.

File:J:\src\cvs\fs2_open_3_6_9.final\code\Parse\PARSELO.CPP
Line: 659
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote
Error: bob-wep.tbm(line 51:
Error: Required token = [#End] or [$Name:], found [+RGBA Inner:         0 0 255 255       ]
in weapon: BGreen.

File:J:\src\cvs\fs2_open_3_6_9.final\code\Parse\PARSELO.CPP
Line: 659
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote
Error: bob-wep.tbm(line 52:
Error: Required token = [#End] or [$Name:], found [+RGBA Outer:         0 0 255 255       ]
in weapon: BGreen.

File:J:\src\cvs\fs2_open_3_6_9.final\code\Parse\PARSELO.CPP
Line: 659
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
ect....... There are quite a few more.
 I know that it must be something on my end but what?
And why are there more then one copy of these tables?  I tried removing them but that did nothing.  And what is the exp.zip for?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: neoterran on March 21, 2007, 08:12:45 pm
yes, remove +Length line from the tbm whereever you find it
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on March 21, 2007, 11:31:26 pm
it would probly be better to remove the section than just that tag.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on March 22, 2007, 01:13:49 pm
I removed the whole sections but still am getting simmilar errors. Could someone fix the tbms and post working ones for us computing degenerates?  :D
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Cobra on March 22, 2007, 01:24:40 pm
I believe the one I posted works if you delete the length sections.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on March 22, 2007, 03:11:13 pm
oh I can't find it. Did it have all the latest stuff that Bob put in?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Cobra on March 22, 2007, 05:20:16 pm
Huh. I thought I posted it, I guess I didn't.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on March 25, 2007, 01:22:11 pm
could someone email me the working tbm files? My Email is [email protected]
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: mnftg64 on March 29, 2007, 03:50:36 pm
Any idea when we might be able to see a final build for 3.6.9?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on March 29, 2007, 05:08:26 pm
:lol:
It's already out... just some features require a newer build than 3.6.9, and these builds are experimental... or did you mean MediaVPs 3.6.9?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: mnftg64 on March 29, 2007, 05:15:49 pm
What build will work, when I use Bob's, my cutscenes are green.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: jr2 on March 29, 2007, 05:23:35 pm
Well, you can have more than one build in your FS2 directory; you just have to choose the one you want to run from the Launcher.  So, for Bob's effects, I think you need Bob's build.  For the rest of the time, you can use 3.6.9 -  IIRC, any "scripting build" aka "HEAD" build will work.. I guess.  Someone who knows what they're talking about wanna help mnftg64?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Darklord42 on March 30, 2007, 01:27:02 pm
no one ever did email me a working table ;)  In anycase,  you need a seperate version of fs2 scp inorder to get this to work? I thought this was for the 3.6.9 version to go with the 3.6.9 vps? :confused:

[whoops edited]
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Cobra on March 30, 2007, 01:28:55 pm
Ummm, there is no 3.9.7. You're thinking of 3.6.9. :P

And they're not going into the mediavps unless DaBrain says so, and I don't think he has. ;)
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: DaBrain on April 22, 2007, 12:29:13 pm
Merging together the beam tables isn't fun. :(

Why does the BFRed use more than 5 sections? I don't think that's supported.
Can I delete some of them? Which ones?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on April 22, 2007, 10:53:25 pm
it should be supported. I'm pretty sure dynamic beam sections have been in there for a while now. unless that was yet another thing that I did that got axed.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: takashi on April 22, 2007, 10:56:30 pm
why not use 1 section beams, you only have to make 1 texture and you get more detail.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on April 22, 2007, 11:46:07 pm
because you lose any ability to make layered effects.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: takashi on April 23, 2007, 01:53:57 pm
doesent that apply to only terran and shivan beams?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on April 23, 2007, 02:20:44 pm
Nop, all of them use layered effects iirc.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: takashi on April 23, 2007, 04:30:54 pm
they do? i dont see a difference between layered and non layered. but then again i just now started using the mediavps.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Raven2001 on April 23, 2007, 04:50:19 pm
being layered means u can assignt different tilings and animations to each section, as well as the flicker of each section, explained in a pinch ofc
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Grizzly on April 24, 2007, 12:12:40 pm
Quote from: Darklord42 on March 30, 2007, 01:27:02 pm
no one ever did email me a working table ;)  In anycase,  you need a seperate version of fs2 scp inorder to get this to work? I thought this was for the 3.6.9 version to go with the 3.6.9 vps? :confused:

[whoops edited]

the Length table file is not supported by 3.6.9.... atleast it is with the latest cvsbuilds..

and therefore, I don't think they will be included in the 3.6.9 mv's.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Mars on April 25, 2007, 12:24:53 am
That sucks... because this is honestly one of the biggest improvements I've seen in the game for a while

Quote from: takashi on April 23, 2007, 04:30:54 pm
they do? i dont see a difference between layered and non layered. but then again i just now started using the mediavps.

Have you tried the updated beams?

Do you notice how some parts of the beam move faster than other parts?

That is a layered effect

That's the difference...

Or have you not noticed because you haven't really tried the updated beams?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on April 25, 2007, 12:59:52 am
Errm, my versions of the beams work fine without modification, and so do Bobs if you just remove the +length field from the tables. It's really not that hard people. :p

And certainly not enough to stop DaBrain from including them in the media VPs - I look forward to seeing what we end up with.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: takashi on April 25, 2007, 01:07:24 pm
where can we find your beams?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Bobboau on May 03, 2007, 12:59:42 am
in this thread.

and DaBrain I think just might have enough experience to get these WIP files working, just maybe.


anyway, I love how this thread was just chuging right along untill some people started obsessing over something that is going to have to be a code change if anything comes from it.

I should probably mention I plan on writeing up a full documentation for Proximus tomorow night. some of my teachers expressed an interest in it, so I'm going to crank out a little bit of polish on it and make a hopefuly good reference material for it before I send out a bunch of emails.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Javito1986 on November 10, 2008, 07:53:55 am
I know this is an older thread but I thought it'd be more efficient to bump it than to start a new one.

Anyway, I linked to this thread from the "Make to get the most graphics wise from FSO" thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,53294.0.html). My computer doesn't handle the AdVPs very well so I'm taking ColeCampell's advice and d/ling Bobboau's beam textures. Except, erm, I don't know how to install them. I'm running 3.6.10 mediavps and I thought I'd just overwrite my mediavps data folder with Bob's but that created a whole slew of errors and I was no longer able to run FS2 so I restored the original data folder, pondered, and thought I'd ask here since I'm not really clear on how to install the pack properly.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Jeff Vader on November 10, 2008, 08:20:54 am
Just to be sure, the manual for "installing" these beams is in this post (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,45459.msg930428.html#msg930428). As for the errors, there is a certain flaw with the tables. You'll need to open the .tbm, or .tbms, that came with the beams and remove any line that starts with "+Length" without quotations.
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Topgun on November 11, 2008, 11:01:27 am
is "+length" in 3.610?
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Wanderer on November 12, 2008, 12:11:46 am
Quote from: Topgun on November 11, 2008, 11:01:27 am
is "+length" in 3.610?
Yes it is.

Strike that... i remembered it being +length but it was +range.. So it seems +length is not in 3.6.10
Title: Re: how's this for some weapon effects?
Post by: Cobra on November 12, 2008, 12:19:33 am
I forget, how do you fix the beam tiling problem?