[Mefustae]

That is sooo sexy. But what we really need is having an effective means for ships to fade out quickly as they come into contact with the vortex without having to resort to HDR [at least, until it's established officially].

[Colonol Dekker]

I like watchingcapships jump out side-on, It makes the Vortex seem that much more *cool* kinda like the old series Sliders.

[Axem]

A few more pics. If everyone's happy with it, I can release it.

GTD Orion coming out of subspace.


From the side (the most annoying thing to get right with this model)


And the NTF Iceini escaping into the Knossos.

[Gregster2k]

GTD Orion coming out of subspace.

There's nothing wrong with the actual effect --- it's perfect --- but...

The subspace portal isn't giving off any light!!!

The jet black appearance of the Orion is clashing with the portal's whiteness. It should illuminate the Orion's backend, so that the Orion is brightly lit at the end touching the portal, fading to darkness as it pulls out. There should be no "abrupt light change" between the edge of the Orion touching the portal and the portal itself. Light Blooming does not even come close to what I'm talking about here.

In the following image

The yellow lines indicate the direction of the lighting. Anything inside the "yellow zones" is lit white on any sides facing the portal's center.

So is this a code problem, or can this be solved with what the SCP already has?

[Axem]

Actually it looks like you're half right. The subspace portal does give off light, just not to the ship coming through it.

Take a look at the Knossos pic, the inner parts are lit up.

And this pic.


The Orion's side is lit up, but the Hecate is dark. To me it looks like a code problem.

[Gregster2k]

Aha...yeah...that is odd! Your effect is pretty darn good though, reminds me of the original cutscene effect. I like. The only thing that could improve your effect is a shader to swirl everything visible behind the portal (stars, ships, etc) --- all in good time.

But yeah...i don't get why ships coming out of/going into subspace portals arent lit... >_> that doesn't make any sense.

Your subspace portal remains the best one I've seen yet.

[Mehrpack]

hi,
wow really sweet  .

Mehrpack

[castor]

But yeah...i don't get why ships coming out of/going into subspace portals arent lit... >_> that doesn't make any sense.

Hmmm.. it looks like the light source is located at the center of the portal, i.e. right behind (and blocked by) the ship coming out?

[neoterran]

can you release it ?

[Axem]

Well since there are no complaints about the pics, I'll assume that everyone's okay with it.

http://www.game-warden.com/narfin/models/warpeffect.rar

warp.pof goes into /models/ while everything else goes in /effects/.

I would've made a VP but for some reason VP Constructor Suite tries to put warp.pof into /maps/ instead of /models/.

[Dark Hunter]

I could make it a VP if you want (going to anyway since that's just easier).

[Axem]

Go right ahead.

[Taristin]

Only complaint I could make is that it would look a lot better with the new alpha blending system, like Backslash pointed out. That way it could really fade to black a lot better.
But from working with what you had to work witd/p3 its great.

[neoterran]

I think it looks ****ing awesome, great job ! Makes the warping look more realistic (there would be swirling of space-time with such a portal, and the subspace corridor missions are rotating... why wouldn't the end be rotating too ?)

Now, you wanna spend some time improving the subspace corridors themselves ? They could do with a little Axem-ifying...

[Gregster2k]

Heh, if Axem does to the subspace corridor what he did to the portal, people may be nauseated by the wonderful swirliness =o

I say go for it XD

[Axem]

Raa: Alpha blending would've been great, but my experience with effects is very limited. I didn't really touch the actual files, just their names. If a graphics wizard can improve on that, then that'd be awesome. (witd/p3?)

neoterran: The whole inspiration for it was the FS1 cutscenes. Seeing the Lucifer come out of a swirling subspace vortex was jaw dropping.

[Axem]

Sorry to double post but here's the new effect in a VP. Its named so it should override the media vps so you can actually see it.

http://www.game-warden.com/narfin/models/a_subpace.rar

[neoterran]

This is an awesome effect, but it does impact performance, as the large dds files ( of them) have to be paged in the first time the effect fires and I noticed a slowdown from this.

[Backslash]

You are correct, but the mv_effects.vp already contains the same size files.  So afaik there's no MORE slowdown than before... other than that would be explained by the more high-poly-ness.

I'm curious, how does the game know to use warp.pof instead of the existing WarpHole01?  Is there a table somewhere I'm overlooking?

Hey Axem, could you make your previous model (the one with the fading from a couple months ago) available?  I've got an inspiration for an idea I'd like to try combining the two concepts...

[taylor]

I'm curious, how does the game know to use warp.pof instead of the existing WarpHole01?  Is there a table somewhere I'm overlooking?

It's a cmdline option, or it can be done via sexp too.  Of course, the same graphics are used regardless, the 3D version is a model but with the texture id as an override (ie, it ignores any texture specified in the POF).  So whether you go with the 3D/POF version or not, it's going to use the exact same images to draw with.  The POF just allows it to have a more, aesthetic, visual appeal than the 4 faces of the retail effect gives.  It really shouldn't be any slower though, unless you have some 10,000 poly warp.pof to render of course.