Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: StargateSpankyHam on August 13, 2010, 07:43:30 pm

Title: Huge Muzzle Flash?
Post by: StargateSpankyHam on August 13, 2010, 07:43:30 pm
I made a shivan primary weapon that fires a tremendous, slow-moving plasma torpedo...but unfortunately, the size of the projectile is causing a few graphical issues. The whole torpedo, when fired, is drawn on the screen at once, and because of its massive size and slow speed, it looks almost like it teleported into existence in front of the firing ship, and then began moving forward slowly. Similarly, the torpedo disappears into the target just before the impact explosion takes effect and the round 'hits'. It seems like the game's real projectile is at the back of the effect, not the front.

Of course, a huge enough muzzle blast would obscure the effect of the round 'teleporting' into existence in front of the ship. Does anyone know of a large enough file that could be used as a muzzle blast? (preferably one that is red and shivan-ized, though a reddish-purple or orange would still work.)

Thanks again.
Title: Re: Huge Muzzle Flash?
Post by: General Battuta on August 13, 2010, 07:58:26 pm
I don't think muzzle flashes will render for the player unless show-ship is turned on.
Title: Re: Huge Muzzle Flash?
Post by: BengalTiger on August 13, 2010, 08:39:51 pm
First of all, there's an mflash.tbl or something like that (sorry I won't check the names today, I'm after a 5x12 hours work week, and I got another shift tomorrow so I'm pretty tired). There you will find the muzzleflashes, there's a tutorial on the fs wiki how to edit the stuff. You can simply create your own m-flash, either by editing an existing one, or using any animation from FS, or even adding your own ani.

Also, muzzleflashes will render without showship, I've checked that one out  personally.

As for the torpedo disappearing into it's target, I'd need to have FS with me to figure it out.
Title: Re: Huge Muzzle Flash?
Post by: General Battuta on August 13, 2010, 08:41:29 pm
Also, muzzleflashes will render without showship, I've checked that one out  personally.

Then why don't they consistently do so?
Title: Re: Huge Muzzle Flash?
Post by: Droid803 on August 13, 2010, 10:00:59 pm
You can scale muzzleflashes to any size in mflash.tbl (or xxx-mfl.tbm).
You simply need an effect with good enough resolution to not look bad when blown up to whatever size you want it (and since effects consist of multiple frames, the filesize could get...quite large).

Best way to get what you want is probably just to use a batch image editor to recolorize like...I donno, the BP2:WiH Gauss Cannon muzzleflash (and/or its impact explosion, they're both great effects.)

Also, muzzleflashes will render without showship, I've checked that one out  personally.

Then why don't they consistently do so?

Bug? Mantis? Cause I swear it does (or did in 3.6.10!)
Title: Re: Huge Muzzle Flash?
Post by: Aardwolf on August 13, 2010, 10:28:12 pm
Also, muzzleflashes will render without showship, I've checked that one out  personally.

Then why don't they consistently do so?

I tried mounting flak on a fighter (using cheats); I'm not sure if that's a muzzle flash or a particle, but it only became visible if I was moving and then decelerated, causing the effect to overwhelm the cockpit. That is, the initial velocity of the effect was the same as that of my ship, and only be slowing down could I see it as it caught up with me.
Title: Re: Huge Muzzle Flash?
Post by: BengalTiger on August 14, 2010, 08:28:16 pm
You could always change the camera to see your ship from outside. It'll be easier to figure out what you're looking at.

And the Flak gun's muzzleflash is pretty big, so I guess that's what's obscuring your view.
Title: Re: Huge Muzzle Flash?
Post by: StargateSpankyHam on August 15, 2010, 08:11:16 pm
It worked itself out - I turned the projectile speed up just a bit, and scaled down the length of the projectile so that such effects are no longer noticable. It took some tweaking though.