Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: Nighteyes on April 24, 2009, 02:14:41 pm
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I would like adding some new effects to the game, but I have no idea how to convert a *.avi to the files of the game...
anyone here has a clue? I want to break it up to frames, and also for it to keep trancperacy so it will look normal in the game :)
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I would like adding some new effects to the game, but I have no idea how to convert a *.avi to the files of the game...
anyone here has a clue? I want to break it up to frames, and also for it to keep trancperacy so it will look normal in the game :)
Avi is a video file, so get VLC Media player, it's free and it can save screencaps from the video.
You can play the vid in slow-mo and take as many caps as you need.
The pics can be saved in png and jpg format.
not so FREE Alternative:
Get Fraps ( not free ), and configure it for screenshots, taken every second.
Put the video you want to capture on slowmo (with VLC-player its 0.13 speed) and start capturing.
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Thanks for the info about VLC, ill do that :)
but about the frames saved as jpg, will the game know that black is transparent? wont it just put a black box with the effect in it?
another question, do you know how the 2d shockwave mechanic works in the game? what I mean is, is the 2d plane expanding or is it a set size and the animation itself is expanding?
hopefully ill have something to show in a while, but I'm still learning this stuff :) but I do have some ambitions in mind :)
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The game knows black is transparent, assuming the format you use has no alpha channel. Also, don't use JPG. Ultimately, you want the files to be in DDS format (probably DXT1 or U888, if that means anything). Also, you will need to name them all correctly (i.e. myeffect_0000.dds, myeffect_0001.dds, etc), and create a corresponding EFF file (look in the mediavps for examples of those).
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I'd say to download VirtualDub, a truly useful piece of freeware. It's not hard to learn, but it can do a lot. It can, for example, convert an AVI to an image sequence.
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The game knows black is transparent, assuming the format you use has no alpha channel. Also, don't use JPG. Ultimately, you want the files to be in DDS format (probably DXT1 or U888, if that means anything). Also, you will need to name them all correctly (i.e. myeffect_0000.dds, myeffect_0001.dds, etc), and create a corresponding EFF file (look in the mediavps for examples of those).
is it better to use an alpha channel? or I shouldn't worry about that?
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Don't worry about it. It's commonplace to use effects without an alpha chennel (the game uses additive blending for such effects).
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An update, my idea is to use this effect for the shockwave *.eff, so that capital ships will explode in a more dramatic way :)
I also plan to look into the "flashy deaths" script someone put up here, can be interesting ;)
only problem is that the animation has quite a bit of frames(30 frames per second, about 18 seconds, 800x600)... but I'll deal with that in due time :)
(http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8899/78610884.png)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-25
(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/4738/94497300.png)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-25
(http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/8803/12198971.png)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-25
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7880/69507669.png)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-25
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Also, I fogot to mention. The resolution should be a power of two (i.e. 512x512 or 1024x1024)
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Should this be moved to Modding forum? Seems (at this point) more related to there than here.
The explosion itself looks nice, although a tad artefacted (although seeing it's an animation it would hardly matter aside from screenshots). I'm just curious about the intellectual property. Where does it come from? Who made it and would they mind if it were used in the MediaVP's?
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I'm aware that stock footage is expensive, but what I did is edit clips from www.detonationfilms.com, they offer free stock footage, as well as some clips from *cough*google video*cough* :eek:, and these I think were free samples at a very low resolution of 320x240... nothing you can really use... but in After Effects I edited them all together and added some glow. :cool: but still, there is more work that needs to be done...
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can you tell me how to make an image sequence from avi in Virtualdub? looked at the wiki but couldn't find it...
I'm also guessing it doesn't know how to save as dds, probably as jpg, and then ill need to convert it to dds? I have paint.net, and it can convert to dds, but will i need to convert it manually frame by frame?? that can be a very long and boring task :)
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I also forgot to ask, I'm currently rendering it at 30 frames per second, 512x512, is that good enough for in game?
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can you tell me how to make an image sequence from avi in Virtualdub? looked at the wiki but couldn't find it...
I'm also guessing it doesn't know how to save as dds, probably as jpg, and then ill need to convert it to dds? I have paint.net, and it can convert to dds, but will i need to convert it manually frame by frame?? that can be a very long and boring task :)
I suggest exporting into a lossless format like bitmap or TGA rather than JPG. FS2_Open can use TGA files, which means that you can use them as work copies, and only after you have finished the work on the animation you should use a batch converter like nvDXT to convert all the files to DDS. That part is not really a problem.
VirtualDub's image exporter works by selecting Export -> Image sequence and setting up the directory and file name and format. Targa files are what I would use for this kind of purpose.
30 frames per second 512^2 is very much sufficient as far as quality goes. How many frames is the effect in total though?
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about 15 seconds...
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Hmmm...
15 x 30 x 174,904 bytes...
That's 450 frames and it makes up to 78,706,800 bytes. For DXT1 compressed DDS files, that is.
It's a huge effect. :nervous: I'm not saying it can't be used but... damn, that's a heck of a long animation anyway. Normal FreeSpace explosions last like few seconds at maximum.
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First of all, I want to thank all who replied here, because in only 2 days i got this in the game :)
but! there are a few problems yet!
first, the nvDXT didn't want to work :( so I used another converter from tga to dds... the strange thing was, that after conversion, instead of 70mb(tga) it was 188mb(dds)!!! good compression hu? ;)
second, the game doesn't recognize tga files... tried with them, and changed the *.eff to tga, but it didn't recognize the files... so I used the dds files instead :D 188mb video memory here we go!!
well, it worked :) but two more problems came about...
first, big ugly and very not transparent black box around the effect :eek2:
second, the effect only plays for 1/4 way through and dissapears... :(
(http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/130/screen0005.jpg)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-27
(http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/1591/screen0004.jpg)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-27
oh, and is there a way to make the ships exploding time longer? the whole breaking from middle to sides thing...
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First of all, I want to thank all who replied here, because in only 2 days i got this in the game :)
but! there are a few problems yet!
You're welcome.
first, the nvDXT didn't want to work :(
How does it not work?
Does it just not start when you type nvdxt on command line? It should show you an instructions page, but if it's showing something like "unknown command":
Did you check that it's in your PATH variable?
If it's not, you need to add the location of the nvDXT.exe into your PATH in order to be able to use it from other directories. The installer should have done this, but if you didn't restart Windows after installation, the PATH doesn't automatically update.
You can check what is in your path by running Windows->Start->cmd and entering command PATH. It prints the currently active PATH variable (it's probably a long string of directories). If C:\Program Files\NVidia Corporation\DDS Utilities is not there, the program won't work except if you run it directly.
In case you just don't know how to get started with it, here's what I would use:
Navigate to your image directory first, then enter
> nvdxt -file *.TGA -dxt1c -quality_highest -Triangle
so I used another converter from tga to dds... the strange thing was, that after conversion, instead of 70mb(tga) it was 188mb(dds)!!! good compression hu? ;)
Okay, here's how it works: DDS files can take more space on hard disk than RLE compressed TGA files.
Run Length Encoding is a lossless format of compression that basically converts the pixels of the bitmap into a line of data, and blocks of pixels that have same colour can be marked as, for example, 512 x #000000 instead of 512 entries of #000000, so it can take a lot less memory in situations like this.
However, when the game reads a TGA file, the amount of video memory it takes is the amount that an uncompressed bitmap takes. For a 512^2 24bit file, this is about 768 kilobytes. It is not a coincidence that a non-RLE-encoded TGA file of size 512^2 is almost exactly this size.
To understand why games benefit from DDS files, you need to know that the DXT compression doesn't need to be decompressed like the run length encoding of TGA files. Video cards can use DXT compressed files directly, without opening them to full uncompressed bitmap size, and that's why they are beneficial in games. That, and the in-built mipmapping feature saves resources as well.
Typically, DXT1 compression reduces the size of single layer to about 1/6th of uncompressed data. DXT3 and DXT5 to about 1/4th of uncompressed data. DXT1 doesn't have alpha channel, while DXT3 and DXT5 have. For an effect like explosion we don't want an alpha channel, so you should use DXT1 compression.
second, the game doesn't recognize tga files... tried with them, and changed the *.eff to tga, but it didn't recognize the files... so I used the dds files instead :D 188mb video memory here we go!!
Does too recognize TGA's. You're doing something wrong; describe how you set up the TGA files and the *.eff file.
And no, the whole effect isn't in the video memory all the time. If the DDS files take 188 MB of space, you do spend 188 MB of system RAM as the files are cached there, but as far as I know and if I haven't mistaken anything, the video card only uses one frame at the time. It doesn't (and it can't) keep all the effect frames in it's dedicated memory all the time, it would be full before you can say DIVE DIVE DIVE.
well, it worked :) but two more problems came about...
first, big ugly and very not transparent black box around the effect :eek2:
This means you converted to a DDS format that has alpha channel. This is bad because the original images probably don't have alpha channel so the DDS converter builds a completely opaque alpha channel for the file and... yes, you guessed it, now it has the black on edges specified as opaque. My guess is your DDS compressing software defaults to DXT5.
Save it without alpha channel (into DXT1 format) and it should work. Alternatively, use the u888 format, which means "uncompressed, three 8-bit channels" aka uncompressed RGB file. These DDS file types do not have alpha channel.
Although you should get it working with TGA's as well. It will save you trouble in the future if you learn that kind of things in the beginning.
second, the effect only plays for 1/4 way through and dissapears... :(
(http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/130/screen0005.jpg)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-27
(http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/1591/screen0004.jpg)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-27
oh, and is there a way to make the ships exploding time longer? the whole breaking from middle to sides thing...
Can't help you with the effect ending prematurely; that sounds like a code-enforced limit to length of the animations. You could run debug build, and the debug log will likely tell use why it's cutting the animation short. It might also give clues as to what goes wrong with the TGA version.
Ships' dying times can be changed in the ships table files but I have no real knowledge on that field, and ships dying generally tend to be pretty mystic and partially random procedure (death time depends on the amount of damage taken at the time of death or somesuch stuff...).
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Got it working :)
the nvDXT didn't work because I didn't restart...
The way I set up my TGA files was the same way I did the dds, named all of them correctly, and in the eff file changed $Type:DDS to $Type:TGA, did I miss something?
about the animation cutting short, ill deal with that tomorrow :) I'm going to sleep...
meanwhile I used another shorter explosion I made...
b.t.w aren't the main two explosions in the game called ABexp05 and 06? wanted to test it on a ship not a shockwave :lol:
(http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/7295/screen0017.jpg)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-27
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Hmmm...
15 x 30 x 174,904 bytes...
That's 450 frames and it makes up to 78,706,800 bytes. For DXT1 compressed DDS files, that is.
It's a huge effect. :nervous: I'm not saying it can't be used but... damn, that's a heck of a long animation anyway. Normal FreeSpace explosions last like few seconds at maximum.
lol I know :) but its meant to be used only when capships explode, not every second, I tested it with about 5-6 capships exploding, and my comp didn't mind at all :)
I also have a strange problem, when i renamed the effect to exp04\exp05\exp06, the game didn't use my *.eff file, but instead used the original VP file, that was the thing that cut it off, it ended after only +-90 frames... what was more strange was when i renamed it to shockwave01 it works fine, playing all the frames as needed. (only works with shockwave01, renaming back gives the cut off version=not using my eff file)
now I want to test it with this script: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Script_-_Flashy_Deaths_(new)
but I dint know how to add scripts... i created the files needed in notepad, but where do i place them and where do i activate it?
I think the explosion looks really nice ingame :) shall i make a video?
(http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/8571/screen0024.jpg)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-04-28
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got to admit, from the stills that seems like a nice explosion.
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That looks quite good - I'd love to see it in-game if you could release it. :)
A good way you could package it up for easy testing is to name it something unique, (ie, not exp04/5/6) and put the attached TBM into data\tables\. From there, open it up in notepad and change the TBM's "exp07" to reflect your animation's name. This table will override the three main FS explosions with yours in the neatest way possible.
With the animation cutting off, that's probably your EFF file (or possibly the MVPs overriding yours). Make sure your framecount inside it accurately represents the number of frames you have in the animation, and again make sure it's not 04/5/6 to avoid conflicts, and that should sort that problem out too.
[attachment deleted by evil Tolwyn]
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Some test movies I captured :D feedback is welcome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMpe3i1sAXk&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBJIxngICeI
The explosion is spamming way to much for my liking, and it gives it a blob feeling, thats why I want to try it with Flashy Deaths script, nobody knows how to activate it? I have no clue and it looks perfect for what i want...
That looks quite good - I'd love to see it in-game if you could release it. :)
I'm pretty close to releasing it, only a few more tweaks... :D do you know where I can upload about 80mb?
A good way you could package it up for easy testing is to name it something unique, (ie, not exp04/5/6) and put the attached TBM into data\tables\. From there, open it up in notepad and change the TBM's "exp07" to reflect your animation's name. This table will override the three main FS explosions with yours in the neatest way possible.
With the animation cutting off, that's probably your EFF file (or possibly the MVPs overriding yours). Make sure your framecount inside it accurately represents the number of frames you have in the animation, and again make sure it's not 04/5/6 to avoid conflicts, and that should sort that problem out too.
Thanks for the tbl, I used it, but the cutting off is still happening as you can see... strange...
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That's unbelievable. I want that so badly. And you should get in touch with the Diaspora team -- it'd fit well with BSG.
As long as you can fix the animation cutoff issue, this is a godsend.
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How large is each individual frame (in both resolution and filesize)? A 512 res DXT1 image with no mipmaps should be 129kb, and even a 1024 res DXT1 with no mipmaps should still be only 513kb.
And if you do need somewhere to upload larger files, try 2Shared (http://www.2shared.com/).
As for the flashy deaths script, I've not been able to get that working correctly yet. :(
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I love that explosion too, however, I think it is excellent if combined with the 3D shockwaves. But that might be a problem with how fast the 3D shockwave effect is compared to this explosion.
So if it is up for download someday, we can just download it and it is as easy as popping it in the effects folder for it to work and we wouldn't have to wait for it to be included in the next Media VP release?
shockwave speed is very easy to change, so if making it slower will help, it can easly be done :)
basically yeah, just drop everything in the effects folder...
The explosion is 512x512 dxt1, each frame is 171kb, x581 frames :D=97mb (after extensive testing , NO framerate hit :) )
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581 frames?! Crikey that's huge! Little wonder it's being cut off, as I'm certain there'd be some sort of hardcoded limit to the number of frames the engine will let you have. At 30FPS that would mean a 19 second animation too, which for an explosion is waaay too long. It may not chug your machine, but I'm certain such a large and so commonly used effect will cause problems for others. For example the 3d shockwave from the old 3.6.8 AdvancedEffects MVP caused significant problems at 83mb. (The new MV_Advanced version of the same effect (which looks identical) takes up 20mb and hasn't caused any similar issues so far as we know)
I'd still love to get this into the MVPs if you can release it though. It'd have to be cut down (significantly) to more closely match our efficiency guidelines for what we'll put into MV_Effects and MV_Advanced, but if it looks as cool as it seems to in your demo vids then I reckon it'd be a great addition. :)
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581 frames?! Crikey that's huge! Little wonder it's being cut off, as I'm certain there'd be some sort of hardcoded limit to the number of frames the engine will let you have. At 30FPS that would mean a 19 second animation too, which for an explosion is waaay too long. It may not chug your machine, but I'm certain such a large and so commonly used effect will cause problems for others. For example the 3d shockwave from the old 3.6.8 AdvancedEffects MVP caused significant problems at 83mb. (The new MV_Advanced version of the same effect (which looks identical) takes up 20mb and hasn't caused any similar issues so far as we know)
I'd still love to get this into the MVPs if you can release it though. It'd have to be cut down (significantly) to more closely match our efficiency guidelines for what we'll put into MV_Effects and MV_Advanced, but if it looks as cool as it seems to in your demo vids then I reckon it'd be a great addition. :)
I'm positive its not a hardcoded thing, its just a clash with the vps, because the effect does work, I also tried it in the BTRL demo and it worked fine :)
3.6.8 was a few years ago no? computers came a long way since then, if my laptop can handle it I'm sure many other computers will as well ;) are we not trying to push the game to its limits? :lol:
any way, its testing time :D I've uploaded the file and you can get it here: http://files.filefront.com/Big+Explosionrar/;13692670;/fileinfo.html
and this is a test mission for it: http://files.filefront.com/testfs2/;13692686;/fileinfo.html
Just extract the effect in data-effects folder, and also make sure 3d shockwaves are turned off, and the effect will replace the 2d shockwaves.
In the test mission I edited in fred the size and time of the shockwave so it will look normal... but this is just meant for testing, ideally the best fit for this effect will be with the Flashy deaths script, and until we wont get it working, I can't really see a practical way of using it :(
Feedback is most welcome :D
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I will go ahead and test.
But I must warn you, Vasudan Admiral knows a great deal about the way FSOpen works in the graphical department, so if he says it's gonna have to be compressed or made more efficient, it probably will have to be. There's no point in having a good explosion that prevents large missions from working, for instance.
I just hope it doesn't come at the price of eyecandy!
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Can we get the TGA versions of the frames? :nervous:
I managed to substitute the effect to Wanderer's Flashy Death script (and edited the frame rate to 60 since the effect looked a tad slow to me in the youtube videos), but it looks totally ridiculous and out of place in this purpose as the effect is basically spammed around the dying ship and it just doesn't look right at all.
Also, looking at what happens in the game, the effect seems to cut off at frame 68, although the game itself seems to recognize the effect with correct amount of frames:
BMPMAN: Found EFF (EXP_flash01.eff) with 581 frames at 60 fps.
The interesting thing comes when the log shows how it's purging the image frames from the cache:
(...)
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 0. 512x512x24
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 1. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 2. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 3. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 4. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 5. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 6. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 7. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 8. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 9. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 10. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 11. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 12. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 13. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 14. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 15. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 16. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 17. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 18. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 19. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 20. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 21. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 22. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 23. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 24. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 25. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 26. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 27. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 28. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 29. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 30. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 31. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 32. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 33. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 34. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 35. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 36. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 37. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 38. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 39. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 40. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 41. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 42. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 43. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 44. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 45. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 46. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 47. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 48. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 49. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 50. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 51. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 52. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 53. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 54. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 55. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 56. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 57. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 58. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 59. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 60. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 61. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 62. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 63. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 64. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 65. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 66. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 67. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 68. 512x512x0
Unloading 2_DB_150002.pcx. 44x38x0
(...)
So, what's going on here? It seems it doesn't unload all the frames and the only reason for that I can think of is that it isn't caching them all in the first place and therefore not using them.
SCP bug/feature or something else?
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3.6.8 was a few years ago no? computers came a long way since then, if my laptop can handle it I'm sure many other computers will as well ;) are we not trying to push the game to its limits? :lol:
All I know is that that single explosion effect is larger than my video card's entire physical memory, so if it winds up going into any of the MediaVPs, that's one I'm not going to be using. :p
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As far as I know, not all the frames are cached into VRAM for animated effects, so the amount of video memory used by this effect would be the same as any other 512^2 effect.
System RAM, on the other hand... :nervous:
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'
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With 2GB system RAM and 1GB VRAM, I'm not sure if it is an issue for me, at least.
Well you're not the only person who matters :rolleyes: :P
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Can we get the TGA versions of the frames? :nervous:
I managed to substitute the effect to Wanderer's Flashy Death script (and edited the frame rate to 60 since the effect looked a tad slow to me in the youtube videos), but it looks totally ridiculous and out of place in this purpose as the effect is basically spammed around the dying ship and it just doesn't look right at all.
Also, looking at what happens in the game, the effect seems to cut off at frame 68, although the game itself seems to recognize the effect with correct amount of frames:
BMPMAN: Found EFF (EXP_flash01.eff) with 581 frames at 60 fps.
The interesting thing comes when the log shows how it's purging the image frames from the cache:
(...)
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 0. 512x512x24
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 1. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 2. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 3. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 4. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 5. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 6. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 7. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 8. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 9. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 10. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 11. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 12. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 13. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 14. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 15. 512x512x0
Unloading EXP_flash01.eff frame 16. 512x512x0
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(...)
So, what's going on here? It seems it doesn't unload all the frames and the only reason for that I can think of is that it isn't caching them all in the first place and therefore not using them.
SCP bug/feature or something else?
I've uploaded the TGA files: http://files.filefront.com/exp08rar/;13694580;/fileinfo.html
making it play at 60 frames is like watching is x2 the normal speed, if you want it faster try maybe 40-45, but going really fast with it will make it look funny :)
can you tell me how you got the script working? i'd like to test it myself, the whole idea behinde it was to make the explosion start about 1 second before the ship explodes, that way when its exploding the effect will be in the middle of the animation and look right...
I'm guessing the cutting of is a bug of somekind, because when using it as a shockwave it works good without cutting off, and as I said, when making it the main explosion for BTRL (ABexp05) it also worked fine...
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With 2GB system RAM and 1GB VRAM, I'm not sure if it is an issue for me, at least.
Well you're not the only person who matters :rolleyes: :P
Never said I was. I was just wondering if it would affect me. ;) Maybe 2GB system RAM isn't enough to handle it fast.
Why not just try it out and see for yourself? ;) its not that big a monster of an effect, and another 90mb of your RAM wont kill you :nod: (not to mention 2gb ram is pretty standard these days...)
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Do we have a FPS-friendly version? :)
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141 Frame version (http://www.game-warden.com/starfox/Non_SF_related_stuff/MVP3610BETA/Exp08_141Frames.zip)
283 Frame version (http://www.game-warden.com/starfox/Non_SF_related_stuff/MVP3610BETA/Exp08_283Frames.zip)
These versions won't override the shockwave effect, but unfortunately the whole effect itself does look a *little* bit out of place next to the old much-lower-detail retail explosions. Then again, with the MVPs when has any other case existed? ;) That said, Nighteyes, if you can make another one or two of similar quality I think we'd love to get them into the MVPs as well. :)
There is still some weirdness going on though, and I've done a lot of testing and a lot of vaguely competent code reading, and I can't work out why, but if you assign the 283 frame animation to more than just one explosion type (ie, medium and the two large explosions) then seemingly random instances of the explosion will cut off at about halfway through. As far as I can tell this doesn't happen in the normal case of assigning it to only one explosion, but still it's very odd.
If there was a kink in the frame sequence or no free slots left in BMPMAN the log would say so and all subsequent frames would just not play. As is though some explosions will play all the way through, proving the frames are all accounted for, there and working, but only sometimes it just gives up half way through. :\
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These are gorgeous. I'm using the 283 frame version. The slower we can get these things, the better, however.
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These are gorgeous. I'm using the 283 frame version. The slower we can get these things, the better, however.
well you can edit the tbl file and tell it to play the effect at 25 frames per second instead of 30, that will make it go slower :)
but I do agree, I think the effect should be a tad bit slower, just a little bit :)
From what I can see the 141 frame version is a bit choppy, you took off too many frames... when the game runs 60 at frames per second you really notice it...
on the other hand, the 283 version look really good and smooth ;) I'm even surprised at how good it looks :D (but as I said, make it just a bit slower)
about the wierd stuff, contact some coders or something, its way over my head, and right now, we have it working and looking good :)
I was actually planning on making other effects
what I have in mind is:
another main explosion (but it wont look very differant, basically same kind of explosion exploding differantly)
I want to change that UGLY missile hit effect
particlesmoke01 - fire trail from damaged ships - needs a drastic change
exp04 - the 4 explosions before the ship dies(maybe change them to a flash and lots of small sparks)
and lastly, I'll try changing the shockwave animation to look more like the original...
I hope all will go smothly, but I have a test on friday, and general studing to do, so it will take some time :mad2:
Oh, and probably all the things ill make will have more frames in them then the original stuff... so be prepared :lol:
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Sweet.
Hey, on this effect. Do you know the part of the explosion where it's kind of long? Elongated along the X-axis? I don't like that. You should puff it out and make it more round and full. Just looks better, me thinks -- otherwise it looks kinda like it's a 3D effect being viewed from an odd angle.
Now, if that's a huge amount of work, I totally understand. Just a minor nitpick after staring at it a lot.
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http://files.filefront.com/exp10rar/;13697879;/fileinfo.html
Second explosion ready, these are the TGA files :), I actually like this one better, at 45 frames per second even the smaller ships look like they're breaking up nicely.
and yes, ill try to improve the original explosion, especially how it starts(long shape part) :pimp:
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Concur!
Is this second explosion going to require a table? I'll try to make it meself, the process seems fairly self-evident.
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Looks great - that's just the kind of effect we need here. :)
There is a problem though in that there are two sharp clipping planes visible before about frame 100. I'd rather not go through and blur that out or otherwise conceal it if it's faster for you to do in the source file? <See attached images>
One more thing (and remember this is not a criticism, just the state of affairs in FS modding!) - for official MVP releases it's very important that we keep framecounts in all animations to an absolute minimum we can get away with. FS stores every graphic file it uses in a single array which has a limited size of 4750 slots. Into that array you need to fit every single frame of every loaded animation and image, including main hall and all interface, impact effects, shield hits, explosions, shockwaves, animated glowmaps, actual ship textures, background graphics, thruster glows, particle effects, warpmaps, missile trails - everything. AFAIK once an instance of the game breaches that limit, you begin getting texture corruption, where the game looks up the wrong textures for various things, resulting in stuff like ships being given a sun graphic as a texture or something equally bizzare.
I'm by no means saying we need to limit ourselves to the ~47 frames the original effects, but a single effect that jumps from 47 frames to 518 is excessive - and having just 3 effects doing that will straight away takes up a third of the total available slots.
I'm also not saying don't release full length, full quality stuff as you just have because doing that makes the FSU teams job much easier in scaling the framecount and memory footprint of the effect to work best with the Standard and Advanced packages. (Also the full length versions could be quite helpful for making pre-rendered cutscenes. ;) )
So yeah, basically keep up the good work and don't be concerned if we shrink stuff to get it into the MVPs. :yes:
[attachment deleted by evil Tolwyn]
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Question. Can I use these .tga files, or will I need to convert them to .dds before they're usable ingame?
Wiki-fu suggests they're usable. Oddly, they aren't loading.
EDIT: I stumble towards competence: I just realized the necessity of the presence of an .eff file.
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Looks great - that's just the kind of effect we need here. :)
There is a problem though in that there are two sharp clipping planes visible before about frame 100. I'd rather not go through and blur that out or otherwise conceal it if it's faster for you to do in the source file? <See attached images>
One more thing (and remember this is not a criticism, just the state of affairs in FS modding!) - for official MVP releases it's very important that we keep framecounts in all animations to an absolute minimum we can get away with. FS stores every graphic file it uses in a single array which has a limited size of 4750 slots. Into that array you need to fit every single frame of every loaded animation and image, including main hall and all interface, impact effects, shield hits, explosions, shockwaves, animated glowmaps, actual ship textures, background graphics, thruster glows, particle effects, warpmaps, missile trails - everything. AFAIK once an instance of the game breaches that limit, you begin getting texture corruption, where the game looks up the wrong textures for various things, resulting in stuff like ships being given a sun graphic as a texture or something equally bizzare.
I'm by no means saying we need to limit ourselves to the ~47 frames the original effects, but a single effect that jumps from 47 frames to 518 is excessive - and having just 3 effects doing that will straight away takes up a third of the total available slots.
I'm also not saying don't release full length, full quality stuff as you just have because doing that makes the FSU teams job much easier in scaling the framecount and memory footprint of the effect to work best with the Standard and Advanced packages. (Also the full length versions could be quite helpful for making pre-rendered cutscenes. ;) )
So yeah, basically keep up the good work and don't be concerned if we shrink stuff to get it into the MVPs. :yes:
can't someone work the code and bring that limit higher? if I remember correctly the BSG team has the same problem because the galactica has so many turrets and flak, so some effects get cut off?
about the planes sharp spots... it annoys me, but maybe it will be more easy to blue it out manually, and maybe add a small glow on it...
this is about the best I got to conceal it... basically I just put another explosion on top of it, if you can do it I would be gratefull :)
there is the same problem somewhere in the first explosion, but don't fix that one, because ill redo the whole beginning of it...
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can't someone work the code and bring that limit higher? if I remember correctly the BSG team has the same problem because the galactica has so many turrets and flak, so some effects get cut off?
about the planes sharp spots... it annoys me, but maybe it will be more easy to blue it out manually, and maybe add a small glow on it...
this is about the best I got to conceal it... basically I just put another explosion on top of it, if you can do it I would be gratefull :)
there is the same problem somewhere in the first explosion, but don't fix that one, because ill redo the whole beginning of it...
That's the object limit, too many things flying around at the same time. However even if/when this limit is upped, the projectiles still use the same effect textures so that shouldn't tax the amount of texture "slots", so it's a separate issue as far as I know.
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Just watched that youtube video, looks pretty badass....great job so far nighteyes :yes:
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Can we get it in a higher resolution?
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Can we get it in a higher resolution?
Sorry but not really... my stock footage is very low rez, 320x240, its free stuff and higher rez costs lots of money... :(
so making it look good for 512x512 wasn't so hard, maybe I can make one of higher rez, but I don't know how it will turn out.
anyway can I ask what for? :)
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Basically, I want to use it in Earth Defense mod ( http://www.game-warden.com/earthdefence/ ) and while big ships explode in close range you can see it's a bit too much low resolution.
Anyway, if you're good in animation mahybe you'd like to join Earth Defense team? :)
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Just so long as he doesn't become some kind of exclusive. I'd really like to see these effects in the MediaVPs for everybody to use.
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well from what I'm hearing right now, this effect is already stressing the current limit of the engine... making it anything higher rez will surly kill it, and anyway, way would you want to be close to an exploding capship? :D (and its double the resolution of what we had before)
update* I tested the 2 explosions together, and I don't think they work well when a capship explodes, so I'm working on another version, when I have something worth showing ill update :) (possibly at the weekend when I have some time for it :))
About being exclusive, don't worry I want this be available for everyone, the whole idea is to make the game better no? mod or no mod :)
About Earth Defense, sounds like a great mod, I'd love to help out, what kind of stuff do you need?(I hope not too complex lol ) I'm currently learning after effects, I know photoshop, and a few years back I was working in maya and 3dsmax... mostly playing around with particles :D
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I believe what's stressing the engine is the number of frames in the effect, not the resolution of each frame. Though I could be wrong.
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just up the frickin resolution...I have 4gb ram, shouldn't be a problem ^^
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just up the frickin resolution...I have 4gb ram, shouldn't be a problem ^^
Well you're not the only person who matters :rolleyes: :P
I've tested the explosion pretty extensively on a high-end system, and it does cause some slowdown even at current resolution, so even 4 gigs of RAM is not foolproof.
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About Earth Defense, sounds like a great mod, I'd love to help out, what kind of stuff do you need?(
I'd like to talk about that on IM. Do you use any? :)
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Using both of the new effects (08 and 10) I'm getting extensive texture corruption on other ships, so it looks like they are bumping the 4850 limit. Can we increase that limit somehow?
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About Earth Defense, sounds like a great mod, I'd love to help out, what kind of stuff do you need?(
I'd like to talk about that on IM. Do you use any? :)
find me on windows live messenger: [email protected] :)
Strange about the texture corruption, I'm not having any problem with both of them running... anyway as I said, hopefully by the weekend you will have a new toy to play with :D
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You're probably using FS2 retail. I'm using a mod with a lot of additional textures. Unfortunately, it's important to maintain compatibility if it's going to go into the MediaVPs.
The best solution would be to bump that texture cap.
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As far as I'm aware, that's just not going to happen - in fact Taylor says in the code comments that he's looking to downsize that limit in future. I'd imagine that would be once a better standard of art content efficiencty is more widely used. (ie, no more animated glowmaps to produce those effects, more efficient use of animation frames elsewhere etc)
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I would rather limit the explosion animation frames to more retail like frames and just up the quality so we can have some glorious explosions.
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Awwww. But the slow explosions are so...glorious.
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'
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No, it doesn't - if you check out the current effects ingame, they aren't strange at all. They're really beautiful.
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ok, maybe I'm missing something here,
but is not one of the goals of the SCP to update the game? If so, why would one cap the number of textures allowed? Why remove the ability to do such things as animated lightmaps?
I know that this mod is not catering to those with high-end specs, but people can always turn DOWN the detail. But in 2 years when the slowest system around will be capable of much more than they are currently, someone will have to go back and re-do the work that was implemented to remove features that have already been worked on to be implemented. That just seems silly to me.
Code for beyond what we are capable of using now, and give people the functionality to turn off those features if they cannot use them on their rig. It will save time and work in the long run.
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ok, maybe I'm missing something here,
but is not one of the goals of the SCP to update the game? If so, why would one cap the number of textures allowed? Why remove the ability to do such things as animated lightmaps?
I know that this mod is not catering to those with high-end specs, but people can always turn DOWN the detail. But in 2 years when the slowest system around will be capable of much more than they are currently, someone will have to go back and re-do the work that was implemented to remove features that have already been worked on to be implemented. That just seems silly to me.
Code for beyond what we are capable of using now, and give people the functionality to turn off those features if they cannot use them on their rig. It will save time and work in the long run.
I totally agree, why turn that number down and not up? who cares if the code is not efficient? right now most gamers can play it really smooth(avg 60 fps), with everything on, and as the years go by the code efficiency will become less important, and computers will have less trouble handling the engine(in my opinion were already there)
the most important thing is to get the features that we want in it, code efficiency is less important :pimp:
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The game was released in 1999. It was coded for 1999 computers. The source code was released in 2001 and since then a lot of work has gone into the code, but the SCP crew aren't miracle makers.
I'm sure you understand that some parts of the code remain essentially untouched, with some limitations of the original game still in effect.
I'm not in the SCP crew so I don't know if this particular limit is inherited from the retail game or if it is of some later origin, but it really doesn't matter. Coders don't put limits into code just for the hell of it, although convenience might be a reason for some occasions (and it's perfectly valid reason if dynamic limit isn't feasible and you make sure the program won't exceed the limit). If you think it's so easy to up limits, download the source and implement the changes, then show them to the SCP crew and if they're good they might just get included.
Also, dropping code efficiency in favour of new features. :wtf:
I would facepalm, but my face has been a bit worn out recently. I'm sure you understand why.
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I don't mean what I'm saying as criticism, just as a general way of thinking :) I know its very hard to code and I have a lot of respect for all those who put time into it :nod:
and about: dropping code efficiency in favour of new features, all I'm saying is that right now, the code is officiant enough, because nobody has a problem running the game on max, and making it more efficient is mostly a wast of time that can be spent into implementing(efficiently ;)) new features.
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I don't mean what I'm saying as criticism, just as a general way of thinking :) I know its very hard to code and I have a lot of respect for all those who put time into it :nod:
and about: dropping code efficiency in favour of new features, all I'm saying is that right now, the code is officiant enough, because nobody has a problem running the game on max, and making it more efficient is mostly a wast of time that can be spent into implementing(efficiently ;)) new features.
This is unfortunately wrong. Many FREDders are handicapped by the need to keep reasonable framerates, limiting the amount of action they can include in a mission. More efficiency would allow bigger missions and more ambitious designs.
If they're thinking of dropping that limit, it's for some excellent reason.
And a lot of people on this forum alone have trouble running the game on max. While we shouldn't be catering to low-end computers (that's not who the MediaVPs are for, after all), I imagine the target audience is somewhere in the middle of the computer power range.
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It's also worth bearing in mind that end users only ever see the game running in release builds. Decreasing efficiency has a larger effect on debug builds. And if you make it impossible to play on debug builds, you won't ever get any new code. Cause it's the build us coders have to use about 90% of the time.
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I see... so basically what needs to be done is make the effects with as less frames as possible, while still looking as good as it can...
I can see how 500 frames is too much :lol: ill aim for 150-200 frames, a bit higher from the original, but much nicer :)
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now go to work! :P
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What program can batch convert from dds to tga? I want to edit a few existing effects...
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Infran View or this one: http://eliteforce2.filefront.com/file/DDS_Converter;29412#Download
Maybe others but I know about those.
I recently had trouble with TGA files created with
Infran View ,though they were connected to their
in-game use ,so I don't know how much you can thrust it.
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2002 actually according to wikipedia article. Not that it matters much for the topic.
Also, if you didn't catch my meaning I have had to facepalm a lot recently. Springtime does that to forums.
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Vasudan Admiral - can you please tell me how you made the 141/283 frame versions? and also how you made the DDS files 130kb?
I'd like to upload and test only stuff that can be used :) (of course if someone wants the TGA files with the original frame count they can ask and have it)
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Explanation. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,62635.msg1238102.html#msg1238102)
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Heh, I just deleted every second frame from the sequence by arranging them in an explorer window of four columns of icons, and selecting & deleting the entire second and fourth columns. ;) Then I used a batch-rename feature that happened to be in paint shop pro 9 to re-sequence them, but I'm sure there are other apps or methods out there to do just that. I also manually skimmed through the images and deleted about 10 unnessecary frames from the beginning and about 40 unnessecary (ie, all black) frames from the end.
To shrink them down to 130kb, I used the nvdxt commandline based DDS application, with the command lines:
\nvdxt.exe -nomipmap -file *.dds -dxt1c
Which made it strip off all the mipmaps of every image and resave them in the same folder. You can find the Nvidia command line tools on their site: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/dds_utilities_legacy.html if you don't have them already.
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Thanks for the info vasudan admiral
After a long time tweaking and testing, here are 2 new effects!! :D
exp11 - is the final version of one of the main big explosions, im happy with it and only 180 frames!!
exp20, expmissilehit1 - are the same effect, just tested them as both missile hit explosion and flake explosion, time to add some smoke to freespace!! in both cases it looks good, but I like the original flake too so maybe ill just edit that one...(150 frames)
enjoy! :)
also, I've just joined Earth Defence mod, so expect to see some nice effects there :nod:
Earth Defence - http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=58470.0
Effects:
http://files.filefront.com/Nighteyes+effects+1rar/;13765573;/fileinfo.html
(http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7613/screen0071.jpg)
By gbtf67 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/gbtf67) at 2009-05-16
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Damn, those look good.
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You also need to put the modular tables required to make the effects work in /mediavps/tables.
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Of course :doubt:
DDS and EFF in effects
TBM in tables
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time to add some smoke to freespace!!
completely agreed with you here, it looks bad for a ship to explode and leave no single trace of it's existence rather than some loose big piles of junk floating around.
Would be also nice to see some actual debris coming out as well to finish the job, like a bunch of small asteroids remaining in the place the ship explodes.
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High Max, I solved that error by making sure the tables were all complete and correctly formatted and ensuring that exp10 had an .eff file - you can edit those with TextEdit.
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Personally I would like to make explosions of ships more rare. Capital ships changing to dead space hulks when the atmosphere and other vital systems are compromised would be much more awesome.
A campaign where capital ships would be considered destroyed when they are debilitated enough to not be able to do anything (propulsion disabled, weapons disabled, life support disabled, atmosphere compromised, power systems destroyed) would be more realistic. They would only be obliterated by continued beam or bomb barrage, otherwise they would just sort of die and the hulk would continue to exist. Evacuation would be started at the point when hull or critical systems integrity reaches zero, and it would take a lot more damage to completely destroy the dead ship.
I have always thought that the capital ships in space sims would deserve to be a lot more durable.
But these explosions are excellent, and in my opinion would be very well suited for explosions going on at the surface of a ship as it's integrity hits zero, it's lights flicker out and it starts to just drift as it's being evacuated. Good work. :)
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TextEdit.
Or Notepad in his case.
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Yep. I'm actually on Windows too - just a slip of the fingertongues.
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time to add some smoke to freespace!!
completely agreed with you here, it looks bad for a ship to explode and leave no single trace of it's existence rather than some loose big piles of junk floating around.
Would be also nice to see some actual debris coming out as well to finish the job, like a bunch of small asteroids remaining in the place the ship explodes.
You know, thats possible... I can add to the main explosions animation smoke, but for it to look good the animation will need to be around 600 frames :)
the best thing would be to code some sort of particle spawn, similar to flashy deaths, only to activate a second or so after the explosion starts, and assigning that effect a smoke animation...
about adding debris and small chunks to the actual explosion... thats a bad idea, it will look very 2D, I tried adding smoke trails to one explosion, and it also turned out very 2Dish...
I also believe cap ships should be a lot more durable... but fighting for half an hour, only to get a massage telling you you killed it, and not seeing it explode is very unsatisfactory ;)
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Check the .eff file for the first explosion he posted (expo06? expo08?) Use that as a model. That's what I did.
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Make sure that it's not saved as file.eff.txt.
Notepad++ is good for all text editing.
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about adding debris and small chunks to the actual explosion... thats a bad idea, it will look very 2D, I tried adding smoke trails to one explosion, and it also turned out very 2Dish...
not talking about the explotion itself, I mean like actual pieces of junk floating around... like the ones the game already generates, but smaller and with 0 speed, floating in a cloud of dust right in the place the ship exploded... for reference check any of the homeworld series, you'll recognize about what I'm talking right away.
I also believe cap ships should be a lot more durable... but fighting for half an hour, only to get a massage telling you you killed it, and not seeing it explode is very unsatisfactory ;)
for this case the explotion would occur and in other way a little more complex and certainly more beautiful and credible...
would be like a big flash on a central part of the model... folowed up by a chain of similar flashes but smaller which will be surging from the center of the big flash to the periferia of the model, this small flashes would folow particular path depending of the model of the ship destroyed...so you can place the smaller flashes over the "less shielded" parts of the hull... like a chain of explotions surging from the core reactor and spreding in the insides of the ships hull.
then the remaining thing would be a burned piece of junk, just like that special trunk which leaves the hulk of the ship (IIRC from wanderer).
there you go... a good good looking explotion ehh?
been thinking about it a lot, but it's too complicated, too big and requires both coding and modeling and I will certainly not finish it myself all alone... I just lack the time and experience for it :sigh:
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No, exp10 is still a text document. You need to turn on the Windows option that lets you edit file extensions manually and change .txt to .eff.
Also, these frame counts are still enormous! I get texture corruption in Blue Planet every time I'm using more than one of the explosions at a time. While they're beautiful in their current form, I don't think they could work in the MVPs.
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It's the option "Hide known file extensions" in folder settings if I recall correctly.
You can also do it with the command line. Renaming the file, I mean.
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I just tested the explosions in Surrender Belasarius and they look great. A good way to increase replay value and make Freespace not get old.
Try flying through flake smoke :D
I'm sure I posted all my *.eff files with the effects...
about exp10, I don't like it anymore and it was a WIP, and as you can see with the normal stuff I upload its very easy, just drop in effects folder, sorry for the headache :)
I don't know whats blue planet's problem, 150 frames for a major effect in the game is not big at all! I've been studding these things, and from what I see a LOT of effects frames go on stupid effects such as differant laser hits, shields and such, most aren't even noticeable...
I bet Blue Planet uses allot of these effects, thus creating the texture corruption...
If I would need to choose, I'd rather see these effects in and take out\use the same effect for some laser hits, I honestly think they push the game's visuals a few points up...
and, FSO as I downloaded it has no problems at all with them ;)
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150 frames isn't bad, you're right. I believe I was thinking of your older, higher-frame effects as causing texture corruption.
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Hi everyone! here is a new Flak explosion :D probably the last effect ill upload for a while... lots of cool stuff to do for Earth Defence mod :yes:
Get it here:
http://files.filefront.com/Flak+exprar/;13786689;/fileinfo.html
As usual, just extract the RAR into the mediavp\data\effects folder and enjoy the fireworks :pimp:
and for all you lazy people who can't be bothered doing that, here is a video showing you what your missing :lol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38RbFimz25g
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from what I see from the Vid looks kinda off when you get close, the explotion expands too slow in that case.
but if you are afar then it looks awesome, the glow is just superb! great work hey ya!
now I'm feeling the presure of having my mother burned up! I want to test this so bad :(
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Nighteyes, the texture corruption issue isn't due to laser hits, shield hits, or anything 'stupid' like you suggest. For example, your effects all work beautifully in retail, as well as in Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius.
The problem is that once you start introducing large numbers of new ships and new weapons, particularly texture-inefficient ships like Steve-O's Hyperion or Federal Fighter pack, things get really dicey.
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Nighteyes, the texture corruption issue isn't due to laser hits, shield hits, or anything 'stupid' like you suggest. For example, your effects all work beautifully in retail, as well as in Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius.
The problem is that once you start introducing large numbers of new ships and new weapons, particularly texture-inefficient ships like Steve-O's Hyperion or Federal Fighter pack, things get really dicey.
Don't take it personally ;) by 'stupid' I meant not important as these for overall graphics quality...
When you think about it, these new texture-inefficient ships, they use animated glow maps, just like lasers and shield hits, the overall frame count of all of them is calculated, with laser hits and shield hit, explosions and such, and when it reaches its max it starts with the texture corruption...
some glowmaps, laser hits and shield hit take as much as 100 frames, just reducing a few of them is enough to make sure there wont be texture corruption...
* on a side note, anyone who finds the flak effect too slow, open its *.eff file with notepad, and make the FPS higher, I just prefer seeing the smoke for a longer time, while not making the actual effect 500 frames to do so... :D
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Nighteyes, the texture corruption issue isn't due to laser hits, shield hits, or anything 'stupid' like you suggest. For example, your effects all work beautifully in retail, as well as in Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius.
The problem is that once you start introducing large numbers of new ships and new weapons, particularly texture-inefficient ships like Steve-O's Hyperion or Federal Fighter pack, things get really dicey.
Don't take it personally ;) by 'stupid' I meant not important as these for overall graphics quality...
When you think about it, these new texture-inefficient ships, they use animated glow maps, just like lasers and shield hits, the overall frame count of all of them is calculated, with laser hits and shield hit, explosions and such, and when it reaches its max it starts with the texture corruption...
some glowmaps, laser hits and shield hit take as much as 100 frames, just reducing a few of them is enough to make sure there wont be texture corruption...
* on a side note, anyone who finds the flak effect too slow, open its *.eff file with notepad, and make the FPS higher, I just prefer seeing the smoke for a longer time, while not making the actual effect 500 frames to do so... :D
I don't believe these vessels use animated glowmaps, but they do use a lot of textures for the diffuse maps, and then there are new weapons. When you have Steve-O's ships, StratComm's fleetpack ships, MediaVP ships, a skybox, and twenty new types of weapons being used at once in a big battle, PLUS the new high-frame explosions, it pushes things into texture corruption almost instantaneously, I'm afraid.
However, removing explosion_10 (the 600 frame one) seems to help out a lot!
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WOW, i forgot I was watching freespace for a bit there. That smoke looks damn cool, although being flak as was stated earlier, I thought it should expand/explode quicker. How much experience did you have with this kinda of stuff before you started? I know you got a lot of help from the guys here, and I was interested in trying to make this stuff too.
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WOW, i forgot I was watching freespace for a bit there. That smoke looks damn cool, although being flak as was stated earlier, I thought it should expand/explode quicker. How much experience did you have with this kinda of stuff before you started? I know you got a lot of help from the guys here, and I was interested in trying to make this stuff too.
No previuse modding experiance, and I started using after effects about a month ago... I did have experiance in 3d programs and photoshop... that helped understand how after effects works(very similar to photoshop)
I like seeing the explosion for a long period of time, that way space dosn't seem so empty as it usually does in freespace... and I do need to think about the frame count of the effects... if there was no limit, id make a 1000 frame flak effect, with the smoke staying for much longer, and as the battle goes on the battlefield becomes clouded with soft smoke :D
General Battuta: explosion_10 was meant to be a test one... maybe ill edit it\new one with a low number of frames, and that will make everything good ;)
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That 1000 frame effect thing would be awesome. *sigh* If only there was some practical way for the coders to raise that limit.
Hey, Nighteyes, it sounds like Diaspora could really use you. That mod is even bigger than Earth Defense, so if you could split your efforts, that would be awesome.
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That 1000 frame effect thing would be awesome. *sigh* If only there was some practical way for the coders to raise that limit.
Hey, Nighteyes, it sounds like Diaspora could really use you. That mod is even bigger than Earth Defense, so if you could split your efforts, that would be awesome.
All in good time... look where we are now, give it some time and we will have 1000 frame effects in the game, if I'm not mistaking the diaspora team is having major problems with the object cap when the galactica fires its turrets, maybe once they up that limit it will affect the limit of frames for effects? ;)
I love BSG, but nobody from Diaspora contacted me, so I'm guessing they don't need me :)
And, I think that once we will release the mod, it will become a must play for any freespace fan :yes:
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I think Earth Defense is great; I'm just talking about in terms of the built-in fanbase.
And go check out the Diaspora forum - they just posted a recruitment thread for effects people.