Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Shivan Hunter on September 21, 2010, 12:52:54 pm

Title: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on September 21, 2010, 12:52:54 pm
So I need to stretch an afterburner trail, because the effect I just GIMPed and hacked into FS:

(http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/6416/derpb.png)

looks like crap.

(IGNORE the empty alpha channels and the fact that I haven't replaced one of the afterburner effects- I haven't corrected those yet).

Is there any way to stretch out the effect so it doesn't look like vertically-compressed crap?

I CAN'T do it via: ships.tbl, where the trail is specified, the image itself (resolution and aspect ratio)- 256x1024 is rendered the exact same way as 128x4096 (those resolutions are not final, don't worry), or apparently any other table.

Is there any way to change how long the effect is, and if not, how easy/impossible would that be to put into FSO?
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Dragon on September 21, 2010, 01:37:58 pm
They look quite interesting to me, as does AB glow.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on September 21, 2010, 01:50:42 pm
No.

I was going for something more like this effect (the one on the left):

(http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2010/stoski/stoski_01.jpg)

Loosely interpreted of course, but it would obviously look better stretched out.

Any way to do this?
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: headdie on September 21, 2010, 01:54:08 pm
No.

I was going for something more like this effect (the one on the left):

(http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2010/stoski/stoski_01.jpg)

Loosely interpreted of course, but it would obviously look better stretched out.

Any way to do this?

that would look uber cool
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Spoon on September 21, 2010, 02:07:29 pm
So if I understand correctly, you are asking if there is a thing like beam +Tile Factor, only for afterburners?
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: The E on September 21, 2010, 02:39:28 pm
Actually, that effect looks less like an AB trail and more like a nebula contrail to me....
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on September 21, 2010, 03:23:24 pm
So if I understand correctly, you are asking if there is a thing like beam +Tile Factor, only for afterburners?

Basically, yes. (In fact, looking at the distortion on the screenie I posted- I can tell where the polygons on the trail are- it seems that the effect is applied once over each polygon. A simple multiplier would be useful here, and I don't think it would be too difficult to code. Then again I could be completely wrong, the FS engine has been known to have unforeseen difficulties before...)
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Solatar on September 22, 2010, 10:51:43 am
Have you tried stretching the actual image used?
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on September 22, 2010, 11:00:36 am
I CAN'T do it via: ships.tbl, where the trail is specified, the image itself (resolution and aspect ratio)- 256x1024 is rendered the exact same way as 128x4096 (those resolutions are not final, don't worry), or apparently any other table.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Solatar on September 22, 2010, 12:24:53 pm
Sorry, drive by post.  That's odd though.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on September 22, 2010, 03:11:27 pm
Not really odd- apparently just never implemented because they didn't think they'd need it. I'll put in a feature request in that big thread if the silence in this thread means it can't be done atm.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Dragon on September 22, 2010, 03:36:32 pm
Maybe edit bitmap to be more streched (not change it's format, but strech it).
It may look bad or give you what you want.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on September 22, 2010, 07:48:58 pm
Um. If you mean changing the size in any way- it's been said twice here that changing either the resolution or aspect ratio does nothing.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Getter Robo G on September 23, 2010, 04:21:53 am
That effect could be a cool single turret weapon...

(lightning gun variant)

 :D
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on September 23, 2010, 06:47:08 am
Um. If you mean changing the size in any way- it's been said twice here that changing either the resolution or aspect ratio does nothing.
No, he means crop it, then stretch it back to original resolution, stretching what's in the image. Like going from this:

(http://i52.tinypic.com/f1jv2g.gif)

To this:

(http://i53.tinypic.com/sq0ebd.gif)

Yes, you will have to make it tileable again.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on September 23, 2010, 07:43:47 am
I don't want to lose detail. That was pretty much the entire point of making an effect like that, rather than the bland generic contrail, to begin with.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Dragon on September 23, 2010, 09:13:09 am
As I said, this may look bad, but it can also turn out to be a good idea.
Using only a part of effect and streching it could give you the result that you want.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on September 23, 2010, 10:51:08 am
I don't want to lose detail. That was pretty much the entire point of making an effect like that, rather than the bland generic contrail, to begin with.
In that case, try adding black bands to the top and bottom of the image.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on September 23, 2010, 10:56:05 am
What would that accomplish?

Case 1, I widen the image with the black bands and don't edit the table: The image gets thinner, so it has a better proportion but it's tiny, which is not what I want.

Case 2, I widen the image with the black bands and edit the table to widen the polygons as well: Nothing changes.

Why are we still discussing this? I've pretty much confirmed there's no way to do what I want, which is not what Dragon seems to think I would settle for, so it's up to the SCP guys to see if it's worth implementing.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Dragon on September 23, 2010, 02:26:31 pm
Can you upload the bitmap?
I'd like to try playing around with streching, so detail loss would be minimal.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on September 23, 2010, 07:05:49 pm
. (http://www.box.net/shared/jsaeteirr9) . (http://www.box.net/shared/om0ypxp981)

Note that it already doesn't tile perfectly.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Trivial Psychic on September 25, 2010, 07:42:02 am
It almost reminds me of the Ghostbusters proton pack effects.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Jessnec on October 02, 2010, 03:35:09 am
looks interesting.

I think that the bitmap, need a look such a ray, but, because is for a afterburner, and for the model with no deformation,need a more enviroment of glow, with more particle.

A ray, but a afterburner

http://imgur.com/Rb8o4.jpg (http://imgur.com/Rb8o4.jpg)

and a ray more defined

I think!(?)

Luck!
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on October 03, 2010, 02:31:03 pm
That's not the kind of effect I'm trying to create.
Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Jessnec on October 05, 2010, 10:23:23 pm
jaja is a "quickly job"  :P,  but If you like recreate, with more closely to the original, for a contrail o afterburner trail, perhaps you like make some such this:

http://imgur.com/QNctS.jpg (http://imgur.com/QNctS.jpg)

and later, make changes for adapt to a afterburner trail.

IMO,  :nervous:

luck!




Title: Re: Stretching afterburner trails
Post by: Shivan Hunter on October 05, 2010, 10:58:57 pm
You don't seem to get it. First of all, your effects would have the exact same problem with tiling as mine- they would need to be stretched across several polygons to look good. Second, I have the effect mostly the way I want it to look. This thread is not about the effect itself, it is about a feature I need implemented in FSO. Which I have already posted about in Fury's 3.6.13 feature requests thread.

There's actually no reason to keep posting here.