[Einstine909]

and saved as a tga...


i am working on the others

[Einstine909]

so to keep u all waiting i decided to finish them all before showing them off ... well its eaiser for me...

but it will be soon...

[Getter Robo G]

Hey Einstine909,

   Are you working on a campaign, or just effects for now?

   reason I ask is that there may be some beams I'd liek animated, I know of at least one. It's a form of lightning I will be getting the files together in the future and while on its own it probably wouldn't look right, but when combined with another beam (like the ones with 2-3 entries) I would like to see the results in game.

  Would you be interested in trying them out for the new builds? I will try it for the mods I am making now but 1.) they might now work at all, and 2.) I can't use DDS, EFF, I can only use 8bit PCX ani files (for now)

Eventually I would like to get to a point when I get enough finished that it would be worth getting all my projects updated to work with the newest build and if other like the effects they of course are free to use them independant of my timeframe.

[Einstine909]

Getter Robo G: just effects ... and yes i would be interested, oh and your fireworks are next...

oh and i need a place to host the vp, it is functional and it is only 2.3 mb

and does anyone know of a DDS batch file editor or a plug-in for GIMP -- i need to convert a lot(more than 200) of files from DDS to somthing GIMP can edit and back


no coments on the beams 

[DaBrain]

Try ATI's The Compressonator. It's a pretty good batch converter. You can get it from the developer site on ATI.com

[taylor]

and does anyone know of a DDS batch file editor or a plug-in for GIMP -- i need to convert a lot(more than 200) of files from DDS to somthing GIMP can edit and back

Don't go back and forth, only convert to DDS when you have finalized the effect.  It's easier than trying to mess around with mipmap layers, and you avoid the increasing quality degradation when you recompressed data that has already been compressed before.  And also be sure not to start out with PCX, especially extracted ANI frames, since those things have horrible color quality and you can easily see it in the compressed effect.

For converting to DDS just use the command line nvDXT tool from NVIDIA.  The newest version (out for a while now) has excellent compression quality (using -quality_highest), the best I've seen yet in any DDS utility.  And it can do it's thing on a directory full of files at once so that takes care of your batch conversion issue.

[Einstine909]

http://www.filefactory.com/file/83bbd1/ -- download my beams here ( 2.03mb)

any one can use them for anything( mabey even the hlpbb welcome baner), just mention i made them

and previews:









more updates will follow... eventualy

[Mars]

To be honest I think the old ones looked better.

Use gradients, noise effects and dodge / burn layers, right now they seem sort'a... bi-tonned

[Einstine909]

well they are a gradient... but as a ipo curve in the RBGA values in the particles lifetime...i did these in 3d

i have then all gausiean sampled at 5x and 10y so the paticles get smothed in...

but anyway thanks for the crits i need them...

[Mars]

Good start anyway 

[bkd86]

My 2 cents worth. Your beams have a couple of issues I think. 1. There isn't enough color varitions within the beams, just white and whatever color. For green you should have some yellow, whitish centers, then some yellow to green. Red with some orange etc. 2. Your particles in the beams are only on the edges not throughout the beam. Adding more particles within would help, also see above reason would help with the monotone color. 3 The outer most edge (particles) doesn't fade enough and is pretty obvious next to or over another color, looks ok when over black space.

[Einstine909]

well i maxed out on particles... its more than u think, around a billon or so... like i said its the blur...

[Einstine909]

well how about these...






this better?

[Getter Robo G]

Ooo I like that red one...

  Something touched on but not elaborated was the edges... People might like them better if the beams don't seem so "soft". If possible can you make the outer edges (only) hard or solid looking like usual beams? Am I stating this correctly? 

As is it may be the particles give the beam a "furry" or "fuzzy" look, but that's just my observation.

[Harbinger of DOOM]

anything you can do about the black edges?
They look rather ugly.
Other than the black edges, the beams look really nice!

[Einstine909]

yes i am currently working on those edges

they are, well... the black...is intersting to try to get rid of...

[S-99]

The type of beams your working on look like they would go better with a star trek mod than fs2. These beams are cool looking, but they don't show off the ferocity and brilliantness and sheer awesomeness that makes you **** your pants when you fly too close to them.

[Einstine909]

i got rid of the black, and changed things around...



is this good? 

[Don-DiZzLe]

Very very COOL!!!

[BS403]

holy ****
these are Amazing