[Getter Robo G]

yeah the ai fighters move a LOT  so you have them firign moving runnign out of energy and shoot again. the trail in front is the previous shots fading. I ordered my wingmen to attack and took the screenie.

This is more what you see when you are reletively on target, and hold the trigger till energy runs out (thanks to TBP for the nial table). There are two versions, this one is the runabout style phaser...


the other is temporarily using the Defiant Pulse by Omni for Fighter Pulse Phasers.

[Wanderer]

I just wondered the edge that is seen in those effects... About halfway to the beam there is a clear 'step' in the earlier pic. Sometimes mipmaps seem to cause such things (though that was with missile trails).

[DaBrain]

Just a wild guess, but it could be mipmapping. Plus bilinear filtering of course.

We've seen that problem with missile trails before.

[Getter Robo G]

  Be slowing down for the week.

  Romulan plasma for fighters done, Fed Micro Quantums done.

  I got the Cap rom torp done but of course .ani  not implimented yet (uses stock Omni defualt red torp static image).

  IS there an easy process to enable it? Can you PM it to me or is it a trade secret?

l8tr!

[DaBrain]

Do you want to know how SoL is doing the animation for this?

It's no secret.

Well... it involves a bit of work though.

[Wanderer]

I didnt post that as i thought it was a secret... oh well..

Yeah, thats how you do it, the animated thing (the green one) is used as a map for the model (made out of three planes) to create the effect. If this is combined with several weapons.tbl options like "apply no light" flag and the transparency effect then you can make animated secondary weapon..

Though I have been thinking that it might also be possible to utilize scripting to create 'real 2D' animated secondary instead of our version

[DaBrain]

It was secret... kinda...

But I think it's too much work for a simple effect anyway, so it will probably only get used by projects that need exactly this effect.
Which means: Starfox mods and Star Trek mods.

Could you send the charged laser files to Star Dragon if he wants to take a closer look at this?



BTW, we got way cooler secrets now. So I guess it's ok to give out some of the older ones. 

[Wanderer]

Sure.. as soon as i get back to my own cpu

[Getter Robo G]

Cool, I think I understoof half of that though

Anyway, I have similar objects to the planar thingy you posted (thanks to Klingon Academy and the fact I am the ultimate cyber packrat hehe...)

Appreciate the help. I will have some things to test by the weekend, I'm gettign ideas..

BTW can BEAMS be replaced by .ani's? I tried to do the moving value thingy in table but never got it to work though I copied table entry as firecrack posted last year.

GOt something that migh look neat fro B5 vorlon ships (teh blue area that undulates)... One of teh experiemnts I plan to try...

l8tr!!! And be afraid, very afraid!

[Wanderer]

I emailed the claser to you...  probably noticed already but more as a notice to DaBrain...

Beams can not be animated with anis or effs but it is possible to use translational elements within the beam that make it look like it would have been animated.

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Weapons.tbl#.24BeamInfo:
And mainly the +Tile Factor: and +Translation:

[starbug]

just read the thread from the start and WOW!! i love the movie(TOS) style federation ships! always thought that they looked better than the TNG.

[Wanderer]

Just finalized something.. Perhaps easier solution to the animated secondaries issue... I made a scripted version of it based on my scripted flak effect. So if you have the frames of the animation some where separate (like eff file set) i can easily make a functional animated and homing secondary weapon.

Scripting.tbl

Code: [Select]

#Global Hooks

$Simulation:

[

if missioninit == nil then
-- // MISSION INIT //
-- define and load anitexture01.. anitexture10
-- remember to //LOAD ALL// the required graphic files!
   anitexture01 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0001")
   anitexture02 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0002")
   anitexture03 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0004")
   anitexture04 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0006")
   anitexture05 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0008")
   anitexture06 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0010")
   anitexture07 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0017")
   anitexture08 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0008")
   anitexture09 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0004")
   anitexture10 = gr.loadTexture("blast_0002")
-- define nullvec
   nullvec = ma.newVector(0,0,0)
   missioninit = 1
end


-- // PER FRAME // Simulation
-- get the proper weapons
for i = 1,mn.getNumWeapons() do
   frametime = ba.getFrametime()
   weapon = mn.getWeaponByIndex(i)
   weaponname = weapon.Class.Name
   if weaponname == "Hammerhead" then
      lifetime = weapon.LifeLeft
      -- set //LENGHT OF THE ANIMATION //
      anilenght = 0.3
      -- calculates the required frame number
      modulolife = math.mod(lifetime,anilenght)
      remntlife = ((modulolife - math.floor(modulolife)) / anilenght)
      -- '10' is the number of frames
      -- //ADD MORE// if additional frames are required
      remntlife = 10 * remntlife
      if remntlife > 9 then
         anitexture = anitexture01
      elseif remntlife > 8 then
         anitexture = anitexture02
      elseif remntlife > 7 then
         anitexture = anitexture03
      elseif remntlife > 6 then
         anitexture = anitexture04
      elseif remntlife > 5 then
         anitexture = anitexture05
      elseif remntlife > 4 then
         anitexture = anitexture06
      elseif remntlife > 3 then
         anitexture = anitexture07
      elseif remntlife > 2 then
         anitexture = anitexture08
      elseif remntlife > 1 then
         anitexture = anitexture09
      elseif remntlife >= 0 then
         anitexture = anitexture10
      end
      -- finally, be nice and draw the particle
      ts.createParticle(nullvec,nullvec,frametime,10,"bitmap",-1,false,anitexture,weapon)
   end
end

-- Odd method is used for rendering to prevent all the effects from being in the same 'phase'
-- Also this is to avoid possible issues of having too long affects that would 'keep' on the
-- effects course but which would not actually be attached to it

]

#End
In the example blast_0000... blast_0018 are frames from eff animation and "Hammerhead" is a name of a missile weapon (quite like "Harpoon").

[Getter Robo G]

So I would have to turn the completed .anis to eff's?
   (Just to show you where I am at graphically. I tried to make an explosion .ani three years ago and finally got it right yesterday)   


Hehe, thanks Starbug!  I kinda dislike TNG era ships myself. From best to last in my list are

1.) "Future Feds"
2.) TMP Era
3.) TNG
4.) TOS (except for the Connie, Connies rule!)

I decided that since I made Fighter versions of all standard and racial types of torpedos, fighters in the FUTURE era will have Micro Transphasics (for Borg), but I think that Micro Tri-Cobalts are overkill...

Fighters don't need to be armed with a torpedo capable of destroying a cap ship in ONE shot! 


[EDITED]

Spent a few hours on this.  Initial weapon works but not visible. Changed dds textures to .pcx, still not visible.

Edited pof to have romtorp ani. as texture,still not visible.

 Planar model I made works but only on front plane (mapping messed up on other planes, if possible can I send it to you?) I use normal cyclops table for it.


I caved inand made a romctorp (meaning cap) primary for now... Also going back and refining all existing torps to take the white flash frames out (tried both with and without for rom torp, I like it better pure) also messed around with framerates and found that 20 is best speed for what I want.

Yay last night of work!  l8tr...

[Wanderer]

I can probably take a look at the that weapon... Just PM or email me the table entry and graphic files.

[Getter Robo G]

Hmmm had an idea. I took the cob , copied it and then double sided it, merged with original and saved.

It worked, all faces now show properly, however you can see the blackness around the square parts when it moves in front of a ship or lighter background... Is this normal? Same for the .ani I made from the dds to pcx's (unless I accidently stripped a quality from it by mistake by doing that, like transparency?)

NO matter, they work till a better solution is found



[attachment deleted by admin]

[Wanderer]

Did you put in the transparency table option?

[Getter Robo G]

er.... no. How does that work exactly? I can reset the tables to be the C-laser, but these are new flags to me.

Also, someone should really do (or finish) that weapons tutorial on expalining how the tables work aside from the obvious (range/damage ect.) so when people mess around with them they know what these values effect.
Might be able to try some more ideas out then..

Will edit in a few minutes if it worked..

[Cobra]

Did you put in the transparency table option?

don't you have to put in the transparency during the effect making?

[Wanderer]

Well.. yes, but that transparency option in the table is a bit different. It can be used to create effect 'animation' via altering the alpha the effect has for example. So you can theoretically animate single frame shots with the tranparency option.

The problem is basically that if two effects (model textures) utilising blending are drawn on top of each other they cause the model textures and also weapon textures to have full alpha (ie. totally transparent). To avoid this it is currently possible to use -trans textures (models) or transparency option (weapons).

Weapon tutorial is a good idea though (i take the weapons.tbl in wiki is not clear enough).. I have some little things that i could put there and i'm sure others have much more and improved options as well.

[Getter Robo G]

I'll leave that to the experts. Was just wondering a that does not effect primaries (no model) only the planar thingy.

Back to what I do best, gather and convert.

Thanks to Senior Citizen (from KA) we can expect a few very nice ships. For example:

Look in upper left corner, that was old stock shuttle.
Now below is the new ship... Glows custom of course... Can dual purpose as Lt fighter or single person shuttle (pending approval of retasking)



wings glows added later after pic was taken, two spotlights on symbols...

l8tr...