Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Akalabeth Angel on September 08, 2009, 10:57:29 am
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Can ship and/or fighter beams be something other than straight lines?
I'm thinking arcs of lighting ala Battletech PPCs. The beams would have a very short duration. Maybe a person could even do a few frames of different shapes for animation??
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I think it may be possible with a bitmap representing the arc, which would have been streched over entire lenght of the beam.
I see no other way to do this, assuming you don't want to mess with either scripting or code.
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How do the beams' FX look like in the VPs?
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Wasn't there some animated effects for the "lasers" at some stage? If there was, you could create a really long laser (which would look weird, since the back end would protrude behind the ship at t=0), or alternatively, one with a long, 100% bright trail that ends suddenly (if lasers can have trails. Maybe it will have to be a missile).
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He wants to make a PPC effect. Not sure if you've played MechWarrior, but a PPC has always been described in the novels as a 'white-blue blast of lightning', and the later games portray it as such.
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TBP has the Vorlon Lightning cannon so it should be at least partially possible.
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In theory I think it might very well be possible
$Section: ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5
+Width: 10 ;; width of the section
+Texture: beam-red ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 255 255 255 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 150 150 150 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.0 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 4.0 ;; hehe
$Section: ;; one section of the beam
+Width: 15 ;; width of the section
+Texture: beam-green2 ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 160 160 0 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 60 60 0 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.45 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 3.0 ;; hehe
$Section: ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
+Width: 25.0 ;; width of the section
+Texture: beam-green ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 255 255 255 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 150 150 150 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.4 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 2.0 ;; hehe
$Section: ;; one section of the beam
+Width: 30.0 ;; width of the section
+Texture: beam-green3 ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 255 0 0 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 60 0 0 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.5 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 0.0 ;; hehe
If you have several sections with different textures of different sizes you could create something that might look somewhat lighting like. Just have to create lighting shaped beam textures. Might not be that easy to get it to actually look right though
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The things is that unlike beam textures, when making a lightning texture you'll probably have to keep in mind how it might look when fully stretched out. So if you're making a lightning texture you'd probably do it full-length and just shrink it length wise until its the right texture size.
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Can't you also have the beam texture repeat, so it doesn't look as stretched out?
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You could probably do that better with a missile + trail (a kind of spruced-up Shivan Super Laser effect)
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Can't you also have the beam texture repeat, so it doesn't look as stretched out?
How do you do that? I've messed around with the beams before with Shadow Gorrath's help and succesfully created a black beam before, but that didn't use repeating textures.
You could probably do that better with a missile + trail (a kind of spruced-up Shivan Super Laser effect)
Yea, but I somehow feel that that'd be a last resort.
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what would look awesome is to take the nebula lighting effect, and make it a weapon.
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TBP has the Vorlon Lightning cannon so it should be at least partially possible.
Oh it does? I'll have to look into that. Though hopefully it's not just on the DN since I've heard from an "interesting debate" that the ship has issues.
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Not any more it doesn't. Anyway it's on the VE Fighter.
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Can we use the lightning cannon as a reference if the need arises?
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Yea. You just can't use the actual stuff in any release unless it's for TBP. Don't have the rights to give that out.
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Kay. That'll be all I need. Thanks.
Can you PM it to me? My TBP VPs aren't on hand atm.
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Texture repeats on beam sections, see tile factor in beaminfo section of weapons.tbl (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Weapons.tbl#.24BeamInfo:)
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Tile Factor:
* Defines the beam texture tileing factor. Second number defines the tileing type. Type 0 tiles the graphic in the beam as many times as defined by the 1st number. Type 1 uses the 1st value as the lenght of the tile.
* Syntax: Float, Integer
What does it mean by 'Type 1 uses the 1st value as the length of the tile'?
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You can grab it here: Lightning Cannon (http://fubar5.fubar.org/tbp/VE_Lightning.rar)
That's the weapons table and the effects.
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Groovy. Thanks, mate.
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So the Lightning Cannon is basically a re-textured, 2 second beam. It still fires 'straight', so to speak.
I don't think that it's possible (without changing code) to have a curving beam.
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Oh sorry hahaha. I think I got everyone confused.
When I said "arcs" of lightning I just meant have a straight-firing beam but a different shape instead of a straight line. The idea being to have a "particle cannon" weapon which are sometimes depicted as looking like lightning. So the lightning cannon will work well enough I think (modified of course), though I've yet to see it in action since none of the campaigns I've played have made use of it.
Still the research could be applicable to other mods. Might be cool to have some sort of curving direct-fire weapn.
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Well, as far as lightning beam goes, I have an idea how to do it. Though I'm not really succeeding in making the texture 'backgroundless'. If I can solve that, you should have your tesla beam.
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Bax and I discussed 2 or 3 ways to accomplish making a beam that changes direction mid stream,
just a matter of not having enough time between RL to work on them.
Just tossing that tidbit in there.
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So, something like Descent 3's "Omega Cannon" ? (not quite the same as D2's)
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Tile Factor:
* Defines the beam texture tileing factor. Second number defines the tileing type. Type 0 tiles the graphic in the beam as many times as defined by the 1st number. Type 1 uses the 1st value as the lenght of the tile.
* Syntax: Float, Integer
What does it mean by 'Type 1 uses the 1st value as the length of the tile'?
A bit late answer but still... Type one (ie. if the second value was 1, for example 25, 1) spreads the texture so that yeah texture tile is 'float' units (from the example this would be 25 units - meters?) long. On the other type there are set amount of tiles spread over the whole texture, which as beam length may vary could look rather interesting. Default beam draw uses single texture tile spread over the whole beam (by default 30 000 units long).
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So; type 1 just streches the beam texture, necessitating only a single texture, but type 2 repeats the tile X number of times?
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Wouldn't tiling on beams give better visual quality?
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He wants to make a PPC effect. Not sure if you've played MechWarrior, but a PPC has always been described in the novels as a 'white-blue blast of lightning', and the later games portray it as such.
the way the games tend to depict PPC is a cluster of 3-5 blue/white streams with a slight corkscrew and the occasional stray lightning bolt with an impact like an exploding lightning ball
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So; type 1 just streches the beam texture, necessitating only a single texture, but type 2 repeats the tile X number of times?
No..
Type 0 stretches the texture to fit to the beam the number of times defined in the first number of the tile factor input, type 1 repeats the tile in specified length as many times as it is required regardless of the beam length.. There should be no other types (anything larger than 1 defaults to 0)
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the way the games tend to depict PPC is a cluster of 3-5 blue/white streams with a slight corkscrew and the occasional stray lightning bolt with an impact like an exploding lightning ball
The MW4 one always looked like a blast of lightning to me, and let's face it; making it look like lightning is just plain cool.
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MW3 one was best!
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I haven't played either game. Only BT games I played were #1 and #2. Oh and Crescent Hawk's series.
This isn't even for battletech. For something complete unrelated but a mod that may benefit from it. Assuming it's a mod I pursue.
Still lightning guns are cool in any genre. What I might try to eventually implement is a narrow beam with lightning guns around it. Such that the regular shot is a beam but its secondary effect is the lightning. Not that it makes any sense in space but I can't be bothered to care about such things.
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To be honest a directed lightning arc (laser guide beam, for example) looks exactly like retail beam textures in white. An undirected arc is probably beyond the ability of the engine because, well, lightning, angles and stuff.
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I played with diff "type " of beams that repeat.
These were attempts at new primary weapons but just used a BFRED table for the hell of it.
Due to amount I posted links instead of thread images.
Musical notes (sucked!!!)
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/noteweapon.jpg
yellow plasma
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/flamepulse.jpg
Hotter plasma
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/ypartpulse2.jpg
Inferno
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/hotstuff.jpg
bluewave
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/sctesta.jpg
twinfire
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/blackflame-1.jpg
BORG test
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/borgbeam.jpg
RED lightning
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/rlighttest.jpg
BluePlasma2
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/bpartpulse.jpg
Hot particle
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/bullet1.jpg
Ultra white
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Test%20Concepts/gpulsewhite.jpg
Hope these images are somewhat useful for you for ideas.
none of these were animated, yet, they are all static.
My pride and joy, Macross Cannon test:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b321/Star-Dragon/Humor/sbmoviepromo1.jpg
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I made a musical note cannon. Although it was by accident, and it was only the tail that made them look like notes.
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The red lightning and musical note beams were nice.
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Red lightning would look nice as a Shivan beam.
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In all honesty, they look pretty cool to me...