[IPAndrews]

All the more reason to convert them and post your dds version .

[redsniper]

I want some blue shockwaves.

[Einstine909]

uh fine i just may convert them    jk

@redsniper: uh thats the color of the shockwave that i posted... sooo... uh .... I ALREADY MADE THEM BLUE!!! just in case u didn't see that. (no harshness intended)

oh and did i get the orange color right or do i need to edit that.

And could someone make those work ingame!

[redsniper]

Missed the first link, sorry. But now, this blue shockwave is an .avi? Will that work with FSO? I thought it had to be .eff or .ani? I think there's an .ani to .avi converter though, or can you just use an .eff to play an .avi? I thought it had to use a series of images.

* redsniper is confused.

[Einstine909]

ok i see your confusion... the last link i posted was the sequence. and it was blue

[Herra Tohtori]

oh and did i get the orange color right or do i need to edit that.

What program did you use for making them? I know virtually nothing about Adobe, but there are some rather nice ready colour gradients in GIMP. For example, Incandescent gradient or German Flag Smooth gradients are nice for playing with fire... I haven't tried your shockwave textures, but I did take a look at them in GIMP and they look pretty good, including the fiery orange colour.

Here's an example as attached images what Incandescent gradient does. I have been playing around with a method to make new explosion animations (not shockwaves) but I haven't found an ideal method of making them just yet. I don't even know how long the animations should last... But something might be brewing all right anyway on that front.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Einstine909]

I would have used GIMP but i am still learning how to use that... i used photoshop. But any way if u know a little about Blender's compositing Nodes then i can post a screen shot. Oh and I plan to make an explotion next so... if u want to colaberate if would be fine by me.

So i could make a tutorial if somone wanted...

[Huggybaby]

If it doesn't work, what happens if you rename the FShockwave files to F_Shockwave, and the Shockwave-glow files to Shockwave3d-glow?

<EDIT> OK, I did that but can't test it...can somebody see if this makes any difference?
http://www.mediafire.com/?1jyyjyjyhz2

You'll have to extract it first using 7zip or winrar to get the vp file inside. Put the "mv_adveffects3.vp" file in your "C:\Games\FreeSpace2\mediavps" directory. You should have a file there already named "mv_adveffects.vp". Move it somewhere safe, outside of your FreeSpace directory.

Now test and see if explosions look different in the game.

BTW, if you're wondering what happened to "mv_adveffects2.vp", it's my advanced effects file that has no 3D shockwave at all. It's for those who want all the effects minus the one major slowdown.
http://huggybaby.fs2downloads.com/mv_adveffects2.7z

[IPAndrews]

It would have been nice if that Shockwave Zip had installation instructions included,

Yes it would have been nice but let's not be ungrateful! Einstine909 has produced some great new effects and given them to us. That's enough for us to be grateful and not give him a hard time.

[Herra Tohtori]

So say we all!


Einstine, when you start to work on the explosions, I'll be more than willing to co-operate - on the condition that my real life doesn't take all my time.

[Einstine909]

Thanks IP...

ok sorry for all of the confusion, while i was tweaking the orange shockwaves i forgot to change the directory... and ended up saving over the blue ones. But do not fear! I had the source files and i just had to re-render them, that took all of 5 minuets. And to make up for that i converted all of them to DDS format and included the TGAs. so u get high performance and eye candy.

So without further delay... the link!
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/Einstine909/z/NewShock2.zip - this has both the blue and orange

@High Max: well i couldn't get them to work myself, so thats why i didn't include them.

@redsniper: well u were right, i did only include the orange ones... i should have checked

@Herra Tohtori: same with me! <sarcasm> i say we meet up. u bring the camera and i will bring the explosives... that can get us some realistic effects. <\sarcasm> no i agree, im trying to find a way to create the turbulence in the explosion... I'll get back to u with anything i find

[Herra Tohtori]

"And after day or two, nothing was ever heard of Einstine and HT again as NSA nicked them for mentioning "explosions" and "co-operation" in same thread. And all Americans lived happily ever after."

I think I know how to make relatively realistic-looking explosions. It's pretty straightforward, but incredibly tedious. First you have to make perhaps ten or fifteen similar shots as the attachements earlier. Then you have to join them with perhaps five or ten frames using layers and visibility settings so that you get smooth transition from picture to another. That's how I made the beam animations, but in this case it's a simpler case because it's not necessary to make a looping animation, only one-timer.

Finally, you take all the frames and resize the first to very small, the second is bigger and so on, and after a rapid expansion the cloud starts to expand slower and slower and also to dim out of view - possibly fading into thin smoke particles dissipating into space. That's how it would be possible to make really realistically looking explosions I reckon. And if more complex explosions are wanted, just stack a couple of these partially on top of each other with different radii.

Obviously, with trial and error it's possible to reach optimal way to produce the stock still shots of the explosion clouds to start the work with. It's not complex, it'll just be time-consuming with this method. If there's an easier way, please point it out.

[neoterran]

The guy that did the explosions for that Wing Commander remake game knows what he's doing. He even has the initial spikes of high velocity and then the more blooming flames. We need to get him over here and get him to spill his guts..

[IPAndrews]

By request, here is a pic of the orange shockwave. In this case being used as a torpedo impact effect.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Einstine909]

Thanks for the screenshot

[Topgun]

I turned it into an ani file for whoever wants it. PM me if you do.
Thanks Einstine909.

[Einstine909]

Your welcome

[bizzybody]

Step 1. Find a shop that'll let you use their gas torch for a bit.
Step 2. Build a fixture to hold a videocamera vertically, with its lens aimed straight down, and a pane of glass right up against the lens guard.
Step 3. Paint a board with a color that'll be easy to key out in a digital video program.
Step 4. Hit a dollar store for some cheap latex balloons.
Step 5. Go to the shop with the above and fill some balloons with acetylene gas. DO NOT ADD OXYGEN!*
Step 6. Place a balloon on the board under the camera.
Step 7. Roll camera and light the balloon with something.
Step 8. Clean the glass and repeat from Step 6. until you have enough explosion footage, the shop owner kicks you out and/or the police and/or fire department have been called.

That's pretty much how it used to be done in the movie industry, until they went all digital FX. Want to shoot an effect like a missile hitting a building, with a fireball shooting out sideways? Turn a model of the building on its side and rig an acetylene charge or a small amout of gasoline at the impact point with something to light it.

Now that you have live video of dirty gas explosions, use your fave video editing software to key out the color to transparent and export a range of frames as still images.

*A 50 gallon plastic trash back of oxygen and acetylene makes a *very loud* bang when lit off with a cutting torch. Broken windows and hearing damage are possible. Do not try this... anywhere.

[Einstine909]

*A 50 gallon plastic trash back of oxygen and acetylene makes a *very loud* bang when lit off with a cutting torch. Broken windows and hearing damage are possible. Do not try this... anywhere.

and u do understand that we are compelled to try it now

[ShivanSpS]

Congratulations, this shockwave it will be the cause of the comming of the Shivans in TDA and the FS universe 

But, before that, i need to change the shockwave of the Tsunamis for the first one in this post... any ideas of how to do it?