[Carl]

is it possible to implement a gaussian blur of sorts to the particles? right now it looks like someone used the spray can in paint.

[Vasudan Admiral]

that's pretty much what it was
i made that disruption ani well before
A) i knew what i was doing in psp5
B) the SCP even came out, let alone before this super cool particle engine was made.

heck, it isn't even a partical ani
what it was ment for was as the impact ani for a disrupter weapon. the idea was to have lightning bolts play over a ship upon impact. this was a very old and rubbishy test ani flipside had to see how lightning might look ingame upon impact.

however since the ship lightning thing was implimented, and since flip made a MUCH better impact ani, it's outlived it's usefulness

i think what's needed is a simple particle ani that has a 1/a couple of particals on it that start out in a uniform bright white and quickly fade to black. (at slightly different rates if using multiple particals).
this one sorta went out from the middle in blue lines, got much bigger and moved around before fading to black where it was. thus you see the really weirdly shaped trails

[redmenace]

can we use the current particle code for smoke coming out of the hulls. like when we see redish orange particles from the hulls from impacts of lasers and stuff.

[_argv[-1]]

You don't even need new code for that. Just replace the *.ani with something else. You can even have it start as a fiery orange and fade to a grayish smoke color and then fade away.

[KARMA]

I think he means to have persistent smoke trails coming out from random points of the hull when the ship is severely damaged.
the standard hull hit effect could work, but need to be redone (is it an ani?) and made persistent, it could also work to have it coming out from where the hull was hitted, but you should also put a limit at the number of trails.
Another cool way to use this damage smoke trails effect could be on destroyed/damaged subobjects.
If a subobject is severely damaged, it emits smoke trails, if a subobject is destroyed it emits smoke trails + something like a fire effect

[Flaser]

How about fumes, leaving big white steaks...as if stem was rapidly escaping.

[Goober5000]

Mmm... steak...

[Lynx]

I'd really like to see a B5ish damage effect-it's like some kind of flame where the damage is located; it's somehow like the impact thingy we have now, but better looking and much bigger. Could be useful for big weapons damage...

[_argv[-1]]

Those damage spray effects are *.ani rendered as particles, and spewed from the point of impact. Hence, they can be changed to be fire+smoke, if you so desire. You can do a lot with them! This includes destroyed subobjects, but I don't think it includes live but damaged subobjects. Anyway, they are persistent, but there's only a certain number of them allowed at one time (otherwise things can slow down badly, for obvious reasons). I think the limit is hard-coded, though -- maybe it should use dynamic memory allocation instead.

[Nico]

looking at this pic from freelancer, I think we should really expand on the idead of particle trails

[Lightspeed]

looking at Freelancer, i think we should really have a go at the backgrounds...

[redmenace]

Originally posted by Venom

looking at this pic from freelancer, I think we should really expand on the idead of particle trails

I said this a while ago

Originally posted by redmenace
hey we could use the particle genrator to greatly enhance the exhaust of weapons as well. Think a helious leaving a vapor trail.

[_argv[-1]]

Missiles can already leave trails, but not particles. I think the trails are rendered the same way as the laser bolts.

[deep_eyes]

Originally posted by _argv[-1]
Missiles can already leave trails, but not particles. I think the trails are rendered the same way as the laser bolts.

i was thinking the same thing, to make them like missile trails. is it possible to apply missle trail code to the exhaust ani/pof?

[Flipside]

Well, a quick fix is just to add a nebula trail at the location of the Glow and then turn on nebula trails all the time

Flipside

[_argv[-1]]

Those trails can be rendered outside of the nebula, and I'm pretty sure it's the same code as is used for the missile trails anyway. Play around with the weapon trail settings; they are more flexible than you might think. They can also be used on primary weapons -- see the Shivan Super Laser weapon, where the bolt is tiny, and most of the effect is a trail.

Also, there is a 'particle spew' weapon flag that is used for the Lamprey. This might be a basis for a more generic particle spew effect. I'm not sure if the current particle spew would work with missiles, since it seems to take its color from the laser effect's color (notice how the Lamprey particles are the same color as the bolts). Needs more configurability, as with the new corkscrew code.

On a side note, the muzzle flash effect for flak weapons is cool. Configurability for this would also be nice, for non-flak machine gun type weapons (like the FS1 Avenger was supposed to be -- look in the tech room description).

[Lynx]

I like the muzzleflash effect of the massdrivers in HW. Something like that would be cool beyond your wildest dreams.