Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: sigtau on July 21, 2009, 08:50:06 pm
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The warp effect that was in place before the most recent one was better, in my opinion, and I'm willing to appeal to switching back to the old warp effect.
I'm talking about the warp effect in the 3.6.8 MediaVPs. That one looked nicer. (link to the 3.6.8 mediavps (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,39905.0.html))
The current one has too much going on.
This is the old warp effect:
(http://scp.indiegames.us/scn/MediaVP/psamtik_jumping_in.jpg)
This is the new warp effect:
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/FSU%20Screenshots/screen0164.jpg)
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I like this one, but the best I've ever seen by a long shot was Axem's. As well as the light flash at the end, I don't know if it was Axem's, but it was very fractured, instead of more 360o like the current one.
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While I personally like the current one, would it be too much to ask for screenshots to compare the two?
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Isn't the new one just to keep continutity with Retail's appearance?
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Yeah, the current one was painstakingly recreated to match the one from Volition's cutscenes.
If you can find an old animation, feel free to plop it in your data/effects folder and use it, but we're not gonna change it back.
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I prefer the first one too ;)
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I like the 3.6.7 one:
(http://koti.mbnet.fi/reiler/FunkyFreeSpaceStuff/mv367vortex.jpg)
Matters of opinion.
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Myself, the 3.6.10 one's are the best; what I like about SCP is that you can easily alter things to suit your taste but keep other things intact. I've changed the 3.6.10 beam charge to the ones used in the 3.6.8 mediavps with no difficulty.
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3.6.7 warp rocked the most. Does anyone have it?
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If you can find an old animation, feel free to plop it in your data/effects folder and use it, but we're not gonna change it back.
data/effects ? SURELY NOT
mediavps/data/effects
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3.6.7 warp rocked the most.
3.6.7?
Are you sure?
How did it looked?
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3.6.7?
...
How did it looked?
I like the 3.6.7 one:
(http://koti.mbnet.fi/reiler/FunkyFreeSpaceStuff/mv367vortex.jpg)
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Is that possible to download 3.6.7 mediavps somewhere?
Some old effects (namely thrusters and beamglows) may be still useful for mods (I'm still using modified Vasudan thrusters from 3.6.8).
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Oh god those Vasudan thrusters were horrible...
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They fit my other concept, now they are blue and paired with 3.6.10 shivan glows and thruster particles.
They look great and just like I wanted them to look.
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Just so you know, the 3.6.7 and the 3.6.8 warpmaps are exactly the same to my knowledge - made by J.P. The difference is that in the 3.6.8 one it's applied onto a warp POF that Axem adjusted to have a spiralling UV map which made the effect look and move a lot better.
I have always liked how that one moves - the ripples progress nicely and somehow he figured out a way to get it looping very smoothly (I never did!). However, it looks barely reminiscent of the original warp effect, and the super-bright white centre to it looks horrible when contrasted to the now super-dark ships flying in and out of it. The new one does still have this problem, but by making the core less than solid white it's considerably reduced.
I agree overall that the subspace effect needs an overhaul, BUT until we have a way of implementing it that looks good from all sides, this is pretty much the best and most canon effect we can achieve. The main stops in improving the effect are:
1) The massive contrast at the event horizon. This needs to be softened one way or another.
2) The appearance of the vortex from the sides. Static geometry with an animated effect on it just isn't gonna cut it because there will always be some angle from which you can see the geometry from side on - making it an ugly line.
3) The flickering lens flare in the centre is hard-coded. We currently can't change its size or anything else about it other than its graphic - and there's not much that can be done there.
4) The flash at the opening and closing. Again we have no control over this other than the graphic used.
5) There's no practical way to do it in part (particularly the core) or in whole with particle effects.
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What about space distortion?
/me runs
But srsly, it could probably be hacked with shaders of some sort.
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Apart from being the prettiest in my opinion the 3.6.10 look very close to what we saw in the FS2 cutscenes, so they shouldn't be reverted back in my opinion.
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I personally like the new ones best :cool:
hip63 :P
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The new one is subtle, instead of the big blob of blue paint the old ones consist primarily of.
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Oh god those Vasudan thrusters were horrible...
The Bobboau-Lightspeed hybrid ones? Those were all horrible. I'd say the thrusters in general were horrible until 3.6.10.
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Can't it just be made so the center of the warp is a really bright light, like a beam charging up?
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I rather like the new ones. They're totally rockin'
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But srsly, it could probably be hacked with shaders of some sort.
Yes, it could be.
I've had a look at changing shaders so that the ship is 'lit' by the warp effect itself (I'm not using lightsources so it's stupendously fast), but I'm missing a few options that I don't understand how to add to the code.
Basically, I need a flag passed to the shader saying that the vessel is currently warping.
It then becomes possible to light the model during warp, and even apply spacial distortion.
- I've already got a shader that lights and squashes the model down to a point as it enters the warp field, but unfortunately it also squishes the model at (0,0,0) when it isn't warping. Which looks a tad strange.
(Turrets probably don't work right either, but I've given up for the time being)