[Omniscaper]

Many of you are probably already keeping tabs on us, but for those who aren't....

Viper Mk7 v2.0 WIP Asteroid field test



Musical track "Flesh and Bone" Bear Mcreary for his musical genious on the Season 1 soundtrack.

THANK U Sandwich for asteroid mesh goodness. Its retextured to fit the BSG atmosphere, but your mesh saved me hours of modelling. Kudos to you.


High Definition WM9 (1280x720 44mb)
http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/Video/BSG_AsteroidField_720p.wmv


Divx AVI (640x360 16mb)
http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/Video/BSG_AsteroidField.avi

[Scooby_Doo]

OMG thats a lot of asteriods! I love it.

[Prophet]

Nothing spectacular... Other than Freespace engine...

[Omniscaper]

Tough critic. Constructive in message and eloquent in backing the opinion.

Compare this to stock FS2 background-less asteroid fields......  Now point me to a FS2 mod that executed an asteroid field in a similiar if not better manner. I'd like to see what other tricks I can use to further the atmosphere I'm trying to create. I'd appreciate suggestions for improvement and more constructive criticism from the veterans of this forum who are well versed in the FSO engine and its latest offerings. Thats main reason why I posted this here. If I wanted "meh...." responses I would not have even bothered to post here.

[taylor]

How about a "holy ****!" response??

Of course, that response was followed by: "Hmm, asteroids disappearing badly.  Need to see about getting that fixed."

But then I watched it again and only got the "holy ****!" response, so maybe the mental bug note was just a fluke.

[Prophet]

Granted, you spent some effort in the backgrounds. They are nice yes.
But since I am not BSG fanboi, a Viper flying around and shooting rocks isn't going to wet my pants. I expected something more. Thought the topic kind of covers everything, so I had no reason to expect more (but I hoped).
But yes the Background is pretty and the feeling of a wast 'roid field is there.
Some more cinematic action (cool camera angels, flying in a formation) would have been better. Shooting rocks with no apparent reason is just WTF feelin' creator.
If your bacgrounds are as well done in your first "release", then I might like it, even if I am not a BSG fanboi.

[aldo_14]

Viper looks nices.  Bit too much roid pop-up for my tastes, but the background looks nice.

[StratComm]

The asteroid LOD levels are probably as much at fault for the popup as the asteroids themselves.  They're one of those things that the LOD swap range is set way too low for best appearance.

[Omniscaper]

Note the title of the video.... "Asteroid TEST". Cinematography and gameplay exhibition was not the point of these WIP videos. This video was made for 2 purposes:


A. To excite the BSG fanboys with this recreation of a BSG episode and its atmosphere.

B. Show a solution to beefing up the boring asteroid fields in FS2 by using a moving background layers in addition to a skybox.


Perhaps I should have made that more clear so that if any other hopes and expectations get shattered, it wont produce useless responses made to vindictively convey disappointment.



Now to the the asteroid field....


I'm open to other methods and tricks of achieving a more immersive and volumetric feel.


The pop up issue is mix of both lod distance and my using widescreen resolution which tends to clip objects before it goes off screen. I'm looking for other methods. Another issue that came up was the lens flares. The rotating asteroid mapped cylinders are using alpha channels to hide the cylinder shape, revealing only asterooid shapes. Those asteroids are rendering on TOP of the lensflares. Possible cause coud be?.........

[aldo_14]

I never actually noticed the background layer was moving.

EDIT; until I looked for it.  Interesting effect.

[Mefustae]

A. To excite the BSG fanboys with this recreation of a BSG episode and its atmosphere.

Show me Scar, then i'll get excited.

[StratComm]

The pop up issue is mix of both lod distance and my using widescreen resolution which tends to clip objects before it goes off screen. I'm looking for other methods. Another issue that came up was the lens flares. The rotating asteroid mapped cylinders are using alpha channels to hide the cylinder shape, revealing only asterooid shapes. Those asteroids are rendering on TOP of the lensflares. Possible cause coud be?.........

Render order.  You've got to remember that FS was never designed to actually handle transparency properly, and only recently has it even been considered with graphics code updates.  It's been supported for a while with tga/dds transparency being advertised, but it's not perfect (as I'm sure you're aware putting cockpitted models in-game).  The issue here is that the background layer is rendering on the wrong end of the lenseflare effect so unless the lenseflare itself is a background component you'd have to pester the SCP coders to swap the render order if they can.  It's nothing you've done if you're using the built-in lenseflare effect.

Of course, it could also be FSO trying to drop you a subtile hint not to use lenseflares

[Unknown Target]

Just reiterating what I said on the BSG forums; if you look at the trails on the Vipers, you can get a rough approximation of what the physics will probably be like in the final release

[supernova]

Awesome video by the way...but yeah, as mentioned before, i hope we can make the asteroids fade in and out better with future builds of FS_Open....great work.

[Singh]

Pure awesomeness as always Omni.

hmm. Small question, but how'd you get the effects in the first place - I'm still at a loss. Having something like this would do wonders to spruce up some of the original FS2 missions.

[Turambar]

actually, lens flares currently render behind everything, ships, effects, and your snazzy alpha backgroudns

it's gotta be fixed in code

[Alan Bolte]

Nothin to add that hasn't been said, but damn yes that's an awsome effect. 

Just a nitpick unrelated to the testing: either the asteroids need to be a lot tougher, or the guns a lot weaker, because the effect of those cannon bursts were making me think of Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
(When he throws things they explode for no reason)

[ni1s]

Great work Omni!

But something thats been bothering me since forever is that those asteroids BLOW UP. Yeah sure, the ones in that video are surely filled with tillium(trillium? Ah, can't remember), but firing your guns at giant rocks should just give you a nice spurt of dust.

This, 'annoyance', and the 'fly-by sound' bug ( I remember hearing it in exuberance in one of the BSG trailer vids) are two things I really would like to see changed/fixed.

And yeah, I know, checkout the code and do it yourself.

[Herra Tohtori]

actually, lens flares currently render behind everything, ships, effects, and your snazzy alpha backgroudns

it's gotta be fixed in code

I personally don't care much about lens flares.

They're all good and shiny in still photos, simulating the lens system of the "camera" that took a "picture". However, when you really are there, you wouldn't be seeing any lens flares, you'd just be blinded by the sun. So I don't care if there is no lens flares in-game. And if there's an option I can use to turn them off in any game, I do so. 

[Prophet]

...you'd just be blinded by the sun...

I recently tested this. And thought I did indeed discover there is no lens flare (what a surprise), I did notice there are effects I have previously not noticed. You should try it. Try to ignore the brightness of the sun and the disconfort it causes, and examine the "effects" the sun has. Imagine you are examining a sun in a game. I had never looked at the sun like that before and it was interesting...

Why are you looking me like a weirdo?