[Starman01]

Hi,

so I finally jumped over to the new exe files, but I noticed something strange. The thrusters are not really good visible at certain viewpoints.
However, they fade out so softly that I'm really afraid that this could be a "feature" :

Here are three pictures to illustrate :

http://www.wcsaga.com/~team/Starman/pics/strakha01.jpg
http://www.wcsaga.com/~team/Starman/pics/strakha02.jpg
http://www.wcsaga.com/~team/Starman/pics/strakha03.jpg

The more you move to a front view, the more the thruster fades out. It happens in both D3D and OGL. Is this a wanted effect ? While it may be logic that it will not be displayed in a direct front view, I think it's very strange having long thruster-animations and then they are not visible when they should

[taylor]

I'm not sure that it's exactly the same issue, but there was actually a bug in the code where the values for the tertiary thruster glow were swapped around.  I fixed that, since the tbl values don't mean anything otherwise, and some people have reported apparently strange, albeit minor, issues with thrusters since.  This isn't a new effect though, it's now setup the same way it was before the bug was introduced in the first place.  The bug has just been there for so long that I'm not sure many people have realized that it was actually wrong.

So if that thruster glow is a tertiary glow then that's likely the problem.

[Wanderer]

Hmm.... IIRC the tertiary glow (omnidirectional) size was so drastically reduced in the fix so that now the secondary glow (actual trail thing) is seen instead - though actually it was also seen earlier but it was partially covered by the tertiary glow so it wasnt that obvious.

[Starman01]

I'm currently using these settings :

$Thruster01 Radius factor:          1.2
$Thruster02 Radius factor:          1.2
$Thruster03 Radius factor:          0.1

This gives me a good sized glow and the trails. Both are vanishing when moving the camera to the front of the ship.

[Wanderer]

Primary thruster (Thruster01) and Tertiary thruster (Thruster03) glow effects essentially both simple blobs.. Primary glow (iirc part of the retail stuff) is not omnidirectional and it shows to only to the direction of the thrusters normal (180 deg field). Tertiary however shows to all directions. Try increasings tertiary effects size. It shouldnt vanish when viewing the ship fron the front.

[Backslash]

The thruster Starman is talking about -- that is in the screenshot -- is Thruster02-03, the Secondary thruster.  Wanderer, your description of primary glow sounds similar to what is happening here, but this is not the primary glow.  Note that the ThrusterGlow also has the 180 degree field, which also vanishes... but it's the secondary thruster, the 'trail', that is most noticable.

The problem has been around for so long that I almost forget to notice it anymore.  On some ships the fading looks natural, because wings and stuff get in the way... but on others, it's silly.  The Ulysseys is a decent example of the silly.

[Wanderer]

Couple of posts ago...

Hmm.... IIRC the tertiary glow (omnidirectional) size was so drastically reduced in the fix so that now the secondary glow (actual trail thing) is seen instead - though actually it was also seen earlier but it was partially covered by the tertiary glow so it wasnt that obvious.

Example from Mentu:
Before thrusterglow fix, after
Another example:
Before thrusterglow fix, after

[Starman01]

Example from Mentu:
Before thrusterglow fix, after

Maybe that's a matter of taste, but I don't see the improvement here Now I don't see the glow anymore. I suppose someone tried to removed the intersecting with the hull, but now the thruster is gone

[Wanderer]

Nope, not gone, just a lot smaller..

[Tolwyn]

It may be a matter of taste, but I prefer the first version

[Starman01]

I played a little more with the third value. When I make that one bigger, the effect returns. But unlike in older builds, now it really intersects the hull deeply. It looks like the round glowpoint has now moved before the thruster if you know what I mean. But I suppose when I move the thruster backwards in Modelview, then I will move the trail out of position.

[DaBrain]

Couple of posts ago...

Hmm.... IIRC the tertiary glow (omnidirectional) size was so drastically reduced in the fix so that now the secondary glow (actual trail thing) is seen instead - though actually it was also seen earlier but it was partially covered by the tertiary glow so it wasnt that obvious.

Example from Mentu:
Before thrusterglow fix, after
Another example:
Before thrusterglow fix, after

Hmmm, looking a this, I have to agree. The unfixed version looks better.

[taylor]

Hmmm, looking a this, I have to agree. The unfixed version looks better.

The unfixed version ignored the radius that you specify in the tables though.  Well, it doesn't ignore it, it just applies it to the wrong setting.  I think that the tbl just needs to be fixed to set the scaling properly and then it would look the same.