Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: wistler on August 13, 2008, 12:19:36 pm

Title: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: wistler on August 13, 2008, 12:19:36 pm
Is there anything I can do to increase the visibility in the nebula? After a while i feel like I'm flying with my face in a bowl of soup.
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: Snail on August 13, 2008, 12:31:13 pm
Is there anything I can do to increase the visibility in the nebula? After a while i feel like I'm flying with my face in a bowl of soup.
Well, it's intentional.
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: Droid803 on August 13, 2008, 12:42:48 pm
It adds to the suspense and mystery.
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: wistler on August 13, 2008, 01:16:27 pm
So theres no way to alter to give the feeling that your at the edge of the nebula, for instance?

Well, it's intentional.

Well i didn't think it was accidental.
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: Flipside on August 13, 2008, 01:33:08 pm
If you mean the sort of effect I think you mean, I don't think so, at least, not right now, the problem is not so much a case of less 'poofs' it's a question of how the poofs look without the Nebula background. I'm not sure if you can use a regular background with the nebula active, but that might be the best direction to start looking in.
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: wistler on August 13, 2008, 02:06:57 pm
Thanks. I'm making a series of missions in a nebula but constantly being in the "nebula" is really taxing and rather boring, so any chance i can change the nebula from mission to mission to express a different location would be great.

Another idea i had was using either skyboxes or just normal background to create a 'gap' in the nebula but still being surrounded (360 degree) by the nebula, but i haven't got the no how ATM to do that.
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: Solatar on August 13, 2008, 02:44:02 pm
If you have a skybox in mission it doesn't get shown (as far as I know).

However if instead of adding the nebula with the background editor, you add it with the set-nebula sexp the skybox is still visible. It makes for a foggy looking effect.
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: NGTM-1R on August 13, 2008, 03:14:43 pm
There is one thing you can do, it's not so much visiblity increase as less visual clutter. If you turn the nebula poofs black, they don't show up.

Though actually increasing or decreasing the thickness of the "fog" would be great, if it were possible...
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: wistler on August 13, 2008, 05:44:19 pm
There is one thing you can do, it's not so much visibility increase as less visual clutter. If you turn the nebula poofs black, they don't show up.

Though actually increasing or decreasing the thickness of the "fog" would be great, if it were possible...

Thanks for the advice, I've done that before and i remember it helping with the visual although i didn't really play around much with it. It did seem to make the nebula look rather dirty, i think because the grey twirly things that hang in the air were more prominent, if you know the things I'm talking about. Any way i can get rid of them?
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: Hellstryker on August 14, 2008, 04:20:41 pm
Wait wait wait, slow down here. First off, we should figure out how it was done in FL. I'm sure we can replicate it in FSO
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: Solatar on August 14, 2008, 04:56:58 pm
I seem to recall several discussions including adding FL style nebulas. I'm fairly certain that the ways in which the two engines differ make it nearly impossible to add freelancer type nebula.

I can't seem to dig up the specific thread, however, I'll keep looking.

EDIT: Here is a post I've found with a hackish way of creating a localised nebula. It's old, so we now have glowpoints, which could be used in the "model" instead.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,16425.0.html
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: Bob-san on August 15, 2008, 02:33:33 pm
I have to agree--we need to improve the nebula even if it means a rewrite. I would like to see a variable for the fog--I'd like to have some missions in "thin" nebula--where you can see for a few kilometers and your sensors are inefficient over 10-20km. Anyways--any way to (hackishly or not) set it up that we can change visibility and sensor ranges in a nebula mission?
Title: Re: Visibility in Nebula
Post by: karajorma on August 15, 2008, 03:09:22 pm
Sensor range can be set in FRED (it's on the background editor). Visibility is another matter though.