[Omniscaper]

Glowpoints are evil and shouldn't be confused with old school sprites. The glowpoints don't face the player, they match the orientation of where you are facing. You can see this when you bank left or right, the glowmap will follow. You can never see a glowpoint upside down. That is the reason why my attempt at using glowpoints result in an enlargement and eventual collision with you as you look away because of its size. (theres faster than light travel for you). Watch the amzing swinging planet halo!!!

Sprites on the otherhand rotate to face toward the player's location. This is very important because the perspective would stay correct, ESPECIALLY for large objects with a 25km size. Explosions in the game are sprites I believe (they don't rotate with you). This is what this SCP should incorporate into the game engine, a moddable sprite object.

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

Thank you very much Omni. I just lost my keyboard by drooling on it.

[Omniscaper]

SCP programmers, is there anyway I can utilize whatever process explosions use to keep a texture facing forward, but without the glowpoint/engine glow issue? I don't know if sprite is the correct word to describe it, but the game is capable of displaying such an object (explosions are an example). A sprite object could be very usefull for a number of puposes.

Consession #2 will be a background POF using the model with a planar object behind it with a halo texture to FAKE planetary glow. Since its a POF background, perspective issues shouldn't pop up. I hope.

[Flipside]

Omni, I don't know if this would work, but I think the SCP guys are trying to re-introduce the 3D type glows that Sticks did a while back. I'm not sure how this is going to work, but it may be the key to what you are looking for?

[Omniscaper]

Whoa! Nice... I hope they go through with it. My obsession right now is no longer Trek, but cosmic bodies. Working on a ringed planet now and some experimentation with localized volumetric nebulae. With the nebulae I'm having the same issue with planetary halos.

Does anyone know what the specific details of the settings in PCS regarding glows. So many variables I've yet to mess with. I see "normal" settings, could that be my answer? If there is a setting that keeps a glow's normals facing the player location that would be my HOLY GRAIL (for the current dilemma).

Heres some shots of the localized volumetric (faked) nebulae project. Those are multiple glowmaps THAT KEEP MATCHING MY ORIENTATION!!!. They ROTATE WITH ME!!! It must stop. >=(





If I can get the orientation problem to stop, think of the possibilites! A nebula that you can enter and leave. Great hiding spots that can be Fredded to disable radar, perhaps shields, and other stuffs.

If sprite problems could be solved, Freespace will have the potential to no longer be "empty" space but LOADED space. The playing area could be loaded with astronomical phenomena, making a wonderfull arena with lots of stuff to hide in fly/fight around. We coould have planetary rings, nebulas, dark matter, balckholes (if gravity can be faked with invisible beams with fabled negative mass, or somethin)

Interactive arenas people!!!!

[StratComm]

Anyone else think that Omni's "concession" looks as good, if not better, than the actual planet model?

:drool:

Could you make one for Mars?

[Deepblue]

Gurgle.

[Ulala]

[Setekh]

That nebula. Can you get some screenshots of you in it?

[Fineus]

...Coo!

Ok, having recovered my speach... (wow..just..look at it) there's a couple of questions...

1: How big is it?
2: Is there any way to keep the lighter parts of it "dark"? There's nothing producing the light really so it shouldn't exactly appear white.
3: When are you releasing it?

[Turnsky]

my god.... it's awesome...

[Sticks]

If the glows don't rotate to match your viewing plane, the nebula will look very odd when seen "edge" on.

How would you prefer it?

[Omniscaper]

The rotation issue is a major road block for me. Unless I can use the same method explosions are rendered, I cannot use that example of the nebula which are glowpointed objects. Explosions always face you, but they DONT rotate with you. If you wizards of SCP can give us modders access to that type of rendering it would be VERY helpfull.

Otherwise I'm trying to come up with an actual 3d model of a nebula which won't look glowy around its edges (like my planet model) as it would a sprite object. I finally figured out how to phase in and out glowpoints but that FREAKIN rotation bane is haunting me still.

[Bobboau]

the thing with how sprites are rendered is they have to be rendered in 3d space and I wasn't able to come up with a better way of doing it, I would have thought by now that someone would have come up with a diferent way to doing it, but we havn't, hopefuly a better solution will be developed before 3.6

[Omniscaper]

How are explosions handled in the game? Is there anyway to transplant the way explosions are rendered into an alternative glowpoint solution? Its already in the game, so I would assume no major programming would be required. Explosion rendering seems to be the only way I can get sprite like objects to be used for a volumetric nebula.

I find it ironic, with today's 3d graphics capabilities, I find my self looking for old school effects like sprites to get the job done.

[Bobboau]

they use the same method

[Omniscaper]

Explosions don't rotate with you and glowpoints do, thats what I meant.

[KARMA]

omni, what about thruster glows?
something like a pof with multiple thruster glows in many directions using some nebula anims on some irregular thruster plumes models instead of the standard thruster anim.

[StratComm]

They spin with the camera too, so that solution isn't any better than glowpoints.  You could get some plume effects if you did the tails right though.

[Omniscaper]

I recently tried to incorporate my Earth into a sky box and I took a MAJOR performance hit, down to 3-9 fps when facing the planet. Speculars, glows, and rotation have disappeared.

 I simply made an untextured, face flipped cube (to keep the existing stars) and put my model off to the side within the cube.

The Hierarchy is as follows:

Earth
.....cube
.....earth group*
..........sphere
...............Cloud2**
...............Cloud1**
...............Shadows**
...............Crust**


*(group contain original hierarchial structure of the model)
**(grouped with light)