[Bobboau]

the current rendering method renders the archs with only a line, I sudgest that after relese of 3.6 the rendering method is altered to render a texture in a manner similar to that being used to render trails with a texture.

[Nico]

Mmh, I think they look fine the way they are, no?

[Bobboau]

they do look fine, but why should we settle for that, wouldn't they look better if they were rendered with a texture running across them (they would be less aliased for damn sure)

[diamondgeezer]

Well... wouldn't they look better if they didn't make the whole ship light up white? At least I think they're still doing that.

[Fineus]

Remember Aliens? At the very end where the atmosphere processor is going belly up there's some pretty cool lightning effects/arcs. Just a thought.

[Carl]

so, you're saying it should be something like a missile trail  instead of a one pixel wide blue thingy? i don't know if that'll be better. the arcs aren't that dramatic looking, but i think that the subtlety thing they've got going works well.

[Ace]

I think that a glow effect of some kind on the blue lines would make them look much better.

[Nuke]

kinda going a little off topic, but it would be kinda cool if you could make arc effects avalible as a glowpoint option so you could have a localized arking effect that is always visible, you could use aurora to add them and it would be done like a localized or vectored glow. arc points arc around the point unless there are several points in close proximity, in which case they will arc over the gap. radius could be used to specify a field of influence. if two arcpoint's field of influence intersects with another then the arc crosses the gap (even if the arcpoints are in two different models).  think of that effect on the sathanas fleet as they powered up to destroy capella. alternatively you could add them to asteroids to have a localized electrical storm.

for the original idea, i dont think using a bitmap would work. every time i use a bitmap for a thin beam it looks kinda choppy. instead could you not generate some sort of aura around the line and do some aa. it would be faster and look beter i think. texturing everything isnt always the answer. it is possible to enhance the arc effect without using a bitmap.

[Bobboau]

well there chopy as all hell now

[Terorist]

How about using something like the new method used in the missile trails? It'd be fast, at least.

[Starks]

Are we talking about the EMP Nebula Storms???

[Bobboau]

were talking about the effect were ships that have had the crap beaten out of them start emitting sparks, I want to modify it to be more like everything else in the game

[RandomTiger]

talking about trails, they still have some issues I think

[RandomTiger]

..and if you make it optional no one can complain