Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: sigtau on June 30, 2009, 12:02:18 pm
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Some have argued that this extra step is not necessary, but I feel that it is. What if I have a subspace mission, and instead of warping out, I want to display some kind of effect or map in front of the ship warping out (as a sort of sprite, think of how the explosions work, they're always facing the camera). Think about it: Warping out in subspace wouldn't make much sense.
At least, I don't think it does.
Anyway, how do I display an effect or map in this manner? I also need the ship to no longer be on the map ("departed") when the effect is displayed.
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I always imagined it as reaching the light at the end of the subspace tunnel. Then it'd envelop your ship in some kind of misty cloud and then you emerge from the warp hole.
Could be done using the fade SEXPs and some tomfoolery with the warp-effect SEXP.
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Yes, but that's technically impossible for the engine, considering that the subspace effect is just a skybox.
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What I'd personally love to see is a separate warp graphic defined for subspace missions, just as it is for jumps into and out of a Knossos portal. And what would that new graphic look like? A totally dark/black warp map, giving the appearance of punching through into normal space. Hell, maybe even reverse the direction of the warp model to complete the effect.
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This has been done.
I can't remember where, but someone made subspace-side warpout effects.
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Yes, but that's technically impossible for the engine, considering that the subspace effect is just a skybox.
Yeah well you have sexps that change the skybox. As Snail suggested, you could fade, change the skybox and have it fade back into starfield.pof.
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@Mongoose - I remember that thread -- it may have been in FreeSpace Upgrade Project. They had it working and all were congratulating, but when I saw it, I wondered if [V] locked off our jump drives in FS1's final mission for a universe-rules reason (see below).
I always imagined it as reaching the light at the end of the subspace tunnel. Then it'd envelop your ship in some kind of misty cloud and then you emerge from the warp hole.
@Snail - I think evidence exists to support that: You have to jump into the node right after the Lucifer, can't jump out once inside, and emerge alongside the Lucifer out of one big jump hole. I don't think it was due to [V] not bothering/needing a warpout effect. I think they were trying to tell us something about Subspace -- that once you have engaged your jump drive and are enroute to your destination, you have to ride it out (subspace tracking just lets you hijack someone else's pre-existing wormhole). Well, that's my interpretation. So here's my idea to aid the "reaching the end" model of subspace exit.
=> At its simplest: Plant a Sun at the 'exit' end of the subspace tunnel, and triggering a Supernova? ~ EDIT: oh wait, we want transitions ~
=> At its most complex: Speculating here, perhaps we would need a custom Supernova which simply enlarges the first Sun placed in a mission, fades the screen to white after a countdown, and sets off a SEXP of your choice once the screen is totally white. Complete with a HUD display saying something like "Subspace exit warning."
So once the screen hits white, it sets off a skybox change SEXP, then somehow delete the sun from the mission, spawn an already-open subspace vortex directly behind the player ship which closes after a delay of our choice, and populate the new background with the nebulae and stars the mission designer wants. Whew. >_<; Yeah. Maybe that idea is doable with LUA, I don't know.
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Interesting idea...
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It's doable with SEXPs, you will need to use "add-sun-bitmap" operator to enlarge the sun (place bigger one atop it), then "fade-in", then training message with exit warning, "fade-out", then "set-skybox-model", "remove-sun-bitmap"( for removing subspace sun ) and at last "add-sun-bitmap" and numerous "add-nebula-bitmap" to set up the background.
I think it should work.
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Or you could store the final nebula stuff as a skybox.
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That's also a good idea, it would save a lot of work with "add-nebula-bitmap".
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That's [...] a good idea...
That's why I said it ;)
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What about making black coloured subspace effect for warping out of subspace tunnel?
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It sounds cool, except it might be going against the aura the subspace tries to project.
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Didn't HT or someone make something like that already?
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It's not on FSMods. Doesn't mean that it wasn't made though.
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I swear it was done.
There was even a video of the Meridan and Haulian (from Derelict) warping out...
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It is possible to add code into FRED2_Open for the SEXP "warp-effect" to also edit the warp colour apart from standard blue and knossos green? Some other SEXPs like the cutscene "show-subtitle" have similar options for that.
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Mid to late last year. Definitely. Search for warpmaps I think. (My wap is c-wap)
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What about making black coloured subspace effect for warping out of subspace tunnel?
Thanks for ignoring me. :rolleyes:
As I said, this has already been done. Someone just needs to find the thread.