Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: bok on June 09, 2008, 07:21:36 pm

Title: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: bok on June 09, 2008, 07:21:36 pm
For some reason the star streaking effect isn't there anymore. Anyone know what's wrong or how to turn them back on?
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: Herra Tohtori on June 09, 2008, 07:31:21 pm
You mean the retail star motion blurring effect?

It should work automatically, if the mission background has >0 amount of stars specified.

Since stars are increasingly taken care of with starfield texture instead of retail star system, using zero retail stars will result in the loss of the motion blurring as well. However, there have been vague hints at great things in the future regarding shader system improvements and post-processing, which might lead to introduction of a better motion blur effect that would affect not only stars but other things in motion.

I'll probably not use it though. Never appreciated motion blur, never probably will... :blah:
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: bok on June 09, 2008, 07:38:29 pm
I don't think it was the retail motion effect. I never saw the effect until installing SCP.

It's the one where when you turn the ship the stars leave a light trail. Like the warping in Star Wars and Star Trek.
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: Herra Tohtori on June 09, 2008, 07:41:25 pm
I don't think it was the retail motion effect. I never saw the effect until installing SCP.

It's the one where when you turn the ship the stars leave a light trail. Like the warping in Star Wars and Star Trek.

Yep, it's the retail star motion blur effect all right based on your description. As far as I know, it should be working as long as the mission has any number of retail stars. You should have seen it on retail - are you sure you just never paid attention to it?

What missions are you playing, and which version of FS2_Open are you using (and what mediaVP's)?
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: colecampbell666 on June 09, 2008, 07:45:24 pm
That's the retail motion blur effect.
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: bok on June 09, 2008, 08:01:41 pm
That's odd. I guess installing SCP temporarily fixed a problem I never knew I had. It's a pretty big difference so theres no way I couldn't have noticed the effect before.

I used Turey's latest installer. When I first installed SCP(yesterday) the stars worked for both 3.6.9 and 3.6.10. I don't see them now on any of the early main campaigns.

I also messed around with the mod tab not knowing what I was doing. All the other added effects seem to work fine though.

Edit: Okay I notice the retail effect now. But what I think SCP did was make it more dramatic with even longer streaks. I remember a long time ago when I installed SCP that it had a way to turn it on and off, if Im not mistaken.
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: tinfoil on June 09, 2008, 09:45:34 pm
I found that irritating - glad it's gone
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: colecampbell666 on June 09, 2008, 09:56:40 pm
You mean the retail stars? Yeah, it looked pretty crappy.
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: bok on June 10, 2008, 08:54:03 pm
I think some of you are misreading.

Retail streaks, subtle. Fs2_open streaks, longer streaks.

Okay I reproduce what's going on. When I use RefreshLock(@100Hz refresh rate) I get the shorter star streaks. With it off(@default 60Hz) I get the long star streaks. What I want is the long streaks at my preferred refresh rate of 100Hz, because it helps with the sense speed.

Speaking of which, if there's any minor flaw with Freespace 2 it's the sense of speed. Is there a mod to change the sense of speed by changing to debris or something similar. Tweaking the debris seems like something simple to do and would give the illusion of greater speed without having to change the core mechanics. Has anyone played the Colony Wars series? The little speckle streaks give a good sense of movement in that game. Here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jvHIJmo2qw&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jvHIJmo2qw&feature=related)
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: Herra Tohtori on June 11, 2008, 04:18:16 am
Speaking of which, if there's any minor flaw with Freespace 2 it's the sense of speed. Is there a mod to change the sense of speed by changing to debris or something similar.

BtRL, in my opinion has a lot better feel of speed than FreeSpace's ships on rails.
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: Snail on June 11, 2008, 02:43:20 pm
Wait, bok, are you talking about motion debris? :wtf:

The Colony Wars shot seems to imply that. If you want it back, go into the launcher and uncheck "disable motion debris"
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: bok on June 11, 2008, 07:28:03 pm
No, Snail. The star streaks and motion debris are two different things. I have disable motion debris unchecked.

Can anyone confirm that using refreshlock takes away the long star streaks? I swore there was an option for it in an older version of FS2_Open.
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: colecampbell666 on June 11, 2008, 08:34:02 pm
Is there a mod to change the sense of speed by changing to debris or something similar.
RealFlight.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: WMCoolmon on June 12, 2008, 04:06:11 pm
You could always try replacing the motion debris with something else. Obviously there's other changes that could be made - varying the alpha based on the speed of the viewing ship - without too much trouble.
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: karajorma on June 16, 2008, 04:53:37 am
From my FAQ

Quote
The stars disappear when I'm turning but reappear when I'm still. What's going on?

This is another antialiasing problem. As with the previous two problems the solution lies in editing the registry. This time you want to follow the same procedure for a DWord called D3DLineOffset.

Obviously you aren't getting that issue in OpenGL but it does make me wonder. Do you have Antialiasing turned on? The launcher settings are still ignored IIRC but it's possible to turn them on for all games.
Title: Re: Star Streaking Effect
Post by: Aardwolf on June 18, 2008, 08:46:29 pm
The reason the star streaks get longer or shorter is because they are only the length of the difference in position between frames (I think).