[StargateSpankyHam]

In a recent experiment, I took the Lucifer (the one from Tides of Darkness, with extra lateral turrets as beam cannons), and modified the LRed beam to try and alter the odd distance fadeout effect a bit - and make the pulsing, plasma-like 'core' of the beam a bit more pronounced. Out of all my tests, there was no noticeable difference.

So, I copied the LRed table entry three times, split up the individual sections of the LRed beam, put them in each of my test-version beam cannons, and loaded them on the lucy. This did not work. None of them looked anything like the LRed beam - the muzzle glow was wrong (which I did not modify), and none of the beam components had any of the visual quality of the original LRed. This leads me to assume that there is something cool going on outside of the table entry, which makes the LRed (and probably every other beam in the game?) look awesome.

Is this part of the beam even moddable? Or will I need to create my own effects in photoshop to accomplish this? I imagine I could make some pretty intricate-looking beam effects between enough time in photoshop and use of the tile factor and translation options in the weapons.tbl file.

[General Battuta]

Your settings are probably being overwritten by the MediaVPs beams that share a name.

[Maksio58]

This is becouse there is no single entry for these beams. You got a full entry in the root vp but thats the stock verison (as in the original made back when the game was released). Then you have a modular table that overrides elements of the original table in the Mediavp assets. If you want a separate beam that is the same you need to first coppy th original entry then rplace everything that is being replaced by the tbm in the mediavp assets.


At least that is how i made my MRed

[StargateSpankyHam]

This also offers a lot of insight as to why my Infrared Laser (a beam weapon that goes on shivan fighters), and my LRRed (ultra-long-range,installation beam cannon) look like total sh**.

Note: Post edited after answering own question as to file naming/overriding...

Yay! It works! On the table next (no pun intended) are going to be the blue, ancient-style beam cannons...which I will try and photoshop effects for myself.

Anyway...this:

Code: [Select]

$Section:
+Index: 1
+Width: 6.0
+Texture: SbeamAB
+RGBA Inner: 255 255 255 255
+RGBA Outer: 150 150 150 10
+Flicker: 0.2
+Zadd: 2.0
If I change RGBA inner and outer to 0, 0, 0, 255, would the beam sections show up precisely as I would draw it in photoshop? And similarly, would tweaking the RGB values (slightly) allow me to subtly change the color of the beam?

[Asteroth]

Those RGBA values don't do crap, unless you're not using a texture and you want your beam to look like ****, then yes it works fine. Unfortunately, most beams will use multiple, layered textures for the beam that must be tweaked themselves in a program like photoshop. In your case, you would want to find "SbeamAB" under MV_effects.

[Spoon]

Those RGB values are for the color of light the beam casts on nearby ships.
You could have a blue beam illuminating ships in a bright pink if you'd like 

[Asteroth]

Those RGB values are for the color of light the beam casts on nearby ships.
You could have a blue beam illuminating ships in a bright pink if you'd like 

As far as I was aware that was determined by @Laser Color. And if that is so why would that be there for every section?

[Spoon]

Those RGB values are for the color of light the beam casts on nearby ships.
You could have a blue beam illuminating ships in a bright pink if you'd like 

As far as I was aware that was determined by @Laser Color. And if that is so why would that be there for every section?

@Laser Color is the color of the glow around a projectile (does not affect the color of the laser bitmap). It does nothing for a beam since it doesn't have a projectile.

[Asteroth]

@Laser Color is the color of the glow around a projectile (does not affect the color of the laser bitmap). It does nothing for a beam since it doesn't have a projectile.

Then why is changing @Laser Color having exactly the effect I described?

[Dragon]

Because it works as you described, Spoon is wrong here.
@Laser Color does controll the color of light cast be any projectile, be it a beam or laser.

[bigchunk1]

I did some testing to try and figure out what's going on with this.


One line from the table entry for this weapon is
@Laser Color:   104, 17, 255

which is a deep purple, while you can see a yellowish beam emitting from the firepoint. This is what I think Spoon was talking about.


Taking a look into the effects .vps, it seems they are listed by color, so I'm pretty sure you have to change the colors of the .bmps (or use one you like) to get the color you want. You can see their references in this sample of a weapons.tbl entry for the BVas... notice beam-white3 and beam-orange2

Code: [Select]

$BeamInfo:
+Type: 0 ;; 0 - 4 are valid #'s
+Life:   0.7 ;; how long it lasts once the beam is actually firing
+Warmup:   3500 ;; warmup time in ms
+Warmdown: 3500 ;; warmdown time in ms
+Radius:   50.0 ;; muzzle glow radius in meters
+PCount: 20 ;; particles spewed every interval
+PRadius: 1.4 ;; particle radius
+PAngle: 60.0 ;; angle of the random "cone" where the particles are generated
+PAni: particleexp01 ;; particle ani
+Miss Factor: 1.0 1.2 1.5 1.7 2.1 ;; magic # - higher == miss more (only really applicable to type 0 and type 3 beams)
+BeamSound: 121 ;; the looping beam-firing sound
+WarmupSound: 122 ;; associated warmup sound
+WarmdownSound: 123 ;; associated warmdown sound
+Muzzleglow: beamglow6 ;; muzzle glow bitmap
+Shots: 0 ;; only used for TYPE 3 beams
+ShrinkFactor: 0.0 ;; what percentage of lifetime where beam starts shrinking (0.1 == 10% life left)
+ShrinkPct: 0.0 ;; what percentage of max width we subtract per second
$Section: ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
+Width: 20.0 ;; width of the section
+Texture: beam-white3 ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 255 255 255 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 150 150 150 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.1 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 2.0 ;; hehe
$Section: ;; one section of the beam
+Width: 40.0 ;; width of the section
+Texture: beam-orange2 ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 160 160 0 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 60 60 0 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.2 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 1.0 ;; hehe
$Section: ;; one section of the beam
+Width: 50.0 ;; width of the section
+Texture: beam-orange ;; texture for this section
+RGBA Inner: 255 0 0 255 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+RGBA Outer: 60 0 0 10 ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
+Flicker: 0.3 ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
+Zadd: 0.0 ;; hehe

Sounds like you are both saying correct things and disagreeing with eachother, unless there's something i'm missing.

[Asteroth]

Those RGB values are for the color of light the beam casts on nearby ships.

[@Laser Color] does nothing for a beam since it doesn't have a projectile.

These are not "correct things".

[Spoon]

Well excuuuuse me for being off the mark for once mister asshat. 

[Asteroth]

I know, it's just that whenever I'm wrong I just think it's something dumb and silly on my end and I never say anything about it and then I never get anything done. Being wrong is probably better, at least then you get corrected.

[bigchunk1]

I know, it's just that whenever I'm wrong I just think it's something dumb and silly on my end and I never say anything about it and then I never get anything done. Being wrong is probably better, at least then you get corrected.

+1

I don't mind being wrong If I learn something useful from it.