[Kolgena]

I'm sure this has been mentioned previously, but I was just wondering what it would take to implement soft particles in FS, and whether anyone's working on that right now.

[Nighteyes]

Soft Particles? and what exactly are those? and why are they needed? from what I see all particle systems right now are pretty ok... they only lack a bit of tuning options...

[Sushi]

As far as I can tell based on 5-minute research, soft particles make billboard particles look better when they intersect with geometry. In FS2 terms, this would probably be most useful for making explosions and fountains on ships look more natural.

I don't think anyone's working on it right now, so if you're interested, feel free. The idea sounds simple enough, but I'm not sure what degree of computational complexity is involved.

http://www.makingartstudios.com/research.shtml
http://www.naixela.com/alex/

[Nighteyes]

ahh I see, and you'r right, it dosn't sound complex, only feather out intersecting edges...

[Aardwolf]

Well, no...

It would probably be done on the graphics card, and would involve comparing current fragment depth (i.e. the distance of the object showing in the pixel to be drawn on) to the distance to the particle being drawn. Although I'm sure it could be done without shaders, I'm not sure it would be worthwhile.

I actually suggested this, eons ago, but some reason nobody seemed to care.

[Bobboau]

because at the time, four people had the hardware to handle it.

[Hery]

I'm going to implement soft particles when I finish my post-processing code and start working on some more advanced effects.

@Bobboau: I think I will be able to make it working on machines that can handle shaders and post-processing. However, I'm not sure if simplified implementation will look good enough

[Snail]

I'm going to implement soft particles when I finish my post-processing code and start working on some more advanced effects.

Awesome.

[Kolgena]

I'm going to implement soft particles when I finish my post-processing code and start working on some more advanced effects.

@Bobboau: I think I will be able to make it working on machines that can handle shaders and post-processing. However, I'm not sure if simplified implementation will look good enough

Hero status right here.

[portej05]

Hero status right here.

He's already got it
I haven't seen as much excitement on HLP as when he posted that PostProcessing code

[Bobboau]

note I said 'at the time' last time I remember this being talked about was like 2005ish

[Aardwolf]

because at the time, four people had the hardware to handle it.

note I said 'at the time' last time I remember this being talked about was like 2005ish

Nah, I think it was probably 2007/2008. I can probably check, even though it really doesn't matter.

Edit: yeah, Groundhog's Day of 2008: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=51976.0

[Nuke]

Soft Particles? and what exactly are those? and why are they needed? from what I see all particle systems right now are pretty ok... they only lack a bit of tuning options...

dont get me started on this, freespace's particle system sucks, because its not really a particle system so much as a sprite system. particles are supposed to be used in large numbers to create the desired effect, and the number of particles that can be rendered effectively is kinda low. now if were using a few big poofs this idea is awesome. but when you want to do a lot of simple particles this becomes a bad idea. i think we should be able to have 2 kinds of particles, pointsprites and quads. the latter would work as the picture above shows, and is softened. the former would be single color points with maybe some blurring applied and would be hard culled whenever possible. the uses would be distinct, the point sprites would bebetter suited for weapon effects while the quads would be better suited to damage spews.

[Pottuvoi]

This would fix the engine glow clipping.

Nebula had quite bad particle intersections as well, this would fix that nicely.
At least until someone thinks easy and good way to do nebula properly.

[Commander Zane]

I thought nebula clipping was already fixed.

[Nighteyes]

Personally I think that if its processor heavy, and hard to implement it shouldn't be a concern, some high profile game that are coming out today still don't use this, and especially with the new bloom effect the problem is covered up pretty nicely IMO

[Aardwolf]

I thought nebula clipping was already fixed.

Well, sort of. They made the effect entirely camera-space now. The problem with that is that all poofs are 100% visible (rather than having an actual distance to them, and being visible depending on the proximity of other objects)

[General Battuta]

Is that why the nebula looks less convincing...?

I'd love it if we could find a way to get explosions to stop clipping through hulls.

[Pottuvoi]

Is that why the nebula looks less convincing...?

Well, the parallax fx makes the puffs look like they would be behind the ships, but they are rendered on top of the ships anyway.