Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Retsof on July 28, 2008, 07:09:08 pm

Title: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Retsof on July 28, 2008, 07:09:08 pm: First, would it be possible to make a beam into a "cone" that does less damage the farther out it is? I magine a capship "defocusing" its beam cannon and lobbing a wall of energy at those pesky bombers.
Second is purely graphical. Would it be possible to make a model for beams so they are actually cylinders instead of flat surfaces, and would it look good?
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Flaming_Sword on July 28, 2008, 07:35:54 pm: The damage part is possible (implemented in my mod). I'm not sure that the cone is possible, but I've been able to increase the transparency at the end, so a target at long range takes less damage, and they get hit with a beam that looks mostly transparent at the point of impact.

I'm guessing having cylinder models for beams would be a PITA to implement, so probably not.
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: haloboy100 on July 28, 2008, 10:52:34 pm: the beams always looked 3D to me anyway. Except for when I get nicked in the face with an AAA cannon.
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Getter Robo G on July 28, 2008, 11:29:44 pm: Um if you copy the particle effect rigns and extend them they become cylinders, so I would say 99% certainty it is possible to made a beam version of that (it's just a graphic and doesn't affect gameplay).
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Droid803 on July 28, 2008, 11:31:12 pm: Worse comes to worse, you do it SSL style.
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Snail on July 29, 2008, 06:30:10 am: Quote from: Droid803 on July 28, 2008, 11:31:12 pm
Worse comes to worse, you do it SSL style.
Uhh, that's not 3d either.
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Getter Robo G on July 29, 2008, 07:04:27 am: That's the effect I was thiking of, alter that and then make it for cap ships...

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Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Snail on July 29, 2008, 07:30:56 am: Uhh, particle spews aren't 3d either, they're just textures.
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Herra Tohtori on July 29, 2008, 10:07:27 am: Well, you can make the beam a triangle in the texture and use it once per beam, but the problem is that when the beam doesn't hit the target, the cone will stretch to the beam's whole length, and it might look stupid when it switches the "focusing distance", especially in case of slash beams.

I would rather see a beam effect that widens and starts to dissipates as distance increases... Would make more sense to me.
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Wanderer on July 29, 2008, 10:18:35 am: HT.. That depends of the chosen rendering method
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Herra Tohtori on July 29, 2008, 10:44:52 am: Yeah, there's two types of tiling - one to set a static number of tiles per the length of the beam, in which case you could use one, and the other uses static length per tile, which is obviously the better solution for beams that are supposed to have some detail in them to avoid stretchign and compressing of the texture length-wise...

Never tried what the game uses if $Tiling factor is not specified, does it just use the texture per beam once (no tiling)?
Title: Re: A Few Beam Questions.
Post by: Wanderer on July 29, 2008, 12:50:49 pm: One texture 'tiled' over the whole length of the beam