[Wanderer]

Tile factor should not be dependant of the beam type... However note that it requires 2 values.  Second one determines what the first one means. And it is only used to set the lenght of the tiles. To get them moving you still need translation value.

[Getter Robo G]

I replaced Sred with the latest Shivan beam pic (5), even after making it darker.. the center bits are unseen and the edges are clssic ray not the flaming particle look... wonder why.



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[Wanderer]

Did you use tile factor?

As if you didnt the texture gets streched over the lenght of the whole beam (30 000 m i think). That is all detail will be lost. And even worse.. if the beam hits anything its lenght will be suddently much shorter resulting in odd transformations in the beam texture if it hits anything

[Herra Tohtori]

Also remember that currently there is black and starry background in the picture I posted. I'm currently making 11 frames of each beam type (Terran, Vasudan, Shivan, white and AAA beams)...

These beams will have opacity (transparent background) into them, so they will (hopefully) look in-game almost the same as that latest Shivan beam picture looks like...


Though I'll need to boot to Windows, grab the weapons.tbl file and then extract relevant beam weapons from therein, and then somehow edit them to use the new EFF animation...

W'll see what comes out of this...


EDIT: I'm sorry if you feel I've stolen your project, Einstine... didn't intend to do that.  I just found a way to create good looking beamz in GIMP and I can't let this chance to learn something new pass by...

[Snail]

You know I was hoping that the new beam texutres would match the power-up .ani. Because whenever I see a Shivan beam power up, the center is orange-ish with the red outside, but when the beam fires it looks purple-ish pink. It kind of made Shivan beams look screwey.

[Herra Tohtori]

I'll take a look into that, but I won't promise anything.

Oh, here's a crappy GIF version of animated Vasudan beam...



It should give you an idea of how the beams will look like... of course there are more colours in the real pics.


By the way, how big should the textures be? Or rather - what is "too big"? Currently they are 1024x256 pixels big... 

[Snail]

It looks like something from a FPS game... But good nonetheless.

Most of the Volition textures are about 15 pixels. So that's a little big... Then again, the SCP beams are about a million times bigger.

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, whaddayaknow...




 


Seems to be working quite well... I might increase the tiling factor for some amount, however.

Anyway, I'd say that texture works pretty well.

[Snail]

(tears of joy)

That is... beautiful.

Now do Shivie beams!!!

[neoterran]

Wanna VP these up for us when you're done, Herra ? These are nice.

[Herra Tohtori]

Sure... when I get the table sorted out.

I'm having little trouble with BFRed. It wants to stubbornly use the white textures, even though I've defined it to use shivan-beam... I'll probably get it done soon enough.

[Herra Tohtori]

Okay, here's some new material...

Who could tell me, why BFRed stubbornly wants to use beam-white2 -texture? Even if I put

Code: [Select]

$Name: BFRed
+nocreate
$BeamInfo:
+Muzzleglow: beamglow4
$Section:
+Index: 0
+Width: 165
+Texture: shivan-beam
+RGBA Inner: 0 0 0 0
+RGBA Outer: 0 0 0 0
+Flicker: 0.1
+Zadd: 2.0
+Tile Factor: 33, 1


$Section:
+Index: 1
+Width: 0.0
$Section:
+Index: 2
+Width: 0.0
$Section:
+Index: 3
+Width: 0.0
$Section:
+Index: 4
+Width: 0.0
into the beamz-wep.tbm, it STILL wants to use the beam-white2 texture... I had to copy the shivan-beam textures and rename them to act as beam-white2... then it uses that texture and appears red. 


Anyway, I've got pretty much all beams covered, except Mjölnir beam cannons... Here be screenies!






First, there's a Shivan AAA beam. Then there's BFReds and BFGreens. High Noon was the mission.


Own comments:

-the shivan-beam texture seems to suffer from lack of brightness in-game.

-the tile factors still need to be adjusted - currently they are a bit too small, I reckon.

-I suppose the violet appearance of that AAA beam is mostly because of the red haze in the screen.

-Whenever a beam equipped with these textures hits something, the texture stops too abruptly and destroys the illusion of a round bar of energy, if you look too carefully.

I'll experiment tomorrow with some kind of center part into the beam, though this already works surprisingly well.

I'm open for suggestions.

[neoterran]

These are ACE ! You've got to rush a beta version of them out so we can test them in-game; beams are always hard to tell from screenshots alone.

[Wanderer]

IIRC... Its the multiple sections and the +Zadd: values that create the illusion of 'round' beams.

[S-99]

Get some variation on those beams plz. The shivan beams look just the same as the vasudan and terran beams.  Shivan beams are as alien to terran beams as they are to vasudan beams. These beams all look exactly the same. Another thing is that they don't quite look no where near as menacing as and bright and brilliant as the current ones in the vp's.
The redone beams here do look completely awesome for a vasudan beam(much better than the particle effect). But, the vasudan beam looks flat. As well as the others(that's why the beams in current vp's are awesome because they have that really sweet active time variation going on). After that, get some lighting for those beams.

[neoterran]

to be clear : I hate the beams in the current vps and I don't use them. The animation looks totally fake and unreal.

[Mars]

I wouldn't say that any beam effects are "real" because if all of the energy is moving towards the enemy ship... why do you see it?

Anyway, I would use a filter or script to add "waves" to the beams and use it to better define the difference between the species.

Like my custom welcome beam... only less cartoonish.

[Getter Robo G]

Ok FYI I made the beam darker already from my original post (meaning took blue and green down 1/4 and messed with contrast) this has not changed! The only change I made this time was tile factor of 38 as 32 seemed too streatched out to me...

This is what the Shivan_beam_5 looks like on my comp now:

[EDIT]: It's HIS texture he posted.. He mentioned his monitor settings and I'm just screwing around, It's NOT MINE!


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[neoterran]

Lol, how many people are making beam textures ? Looks good Robo.

There are 3 different people with 3 different beam textures in one thread. I suggest starting your own beam texture thread so it's easier to keep track of..

[Herra Tohtori]

Here be modified beamz version 1.0. Try them out and throw in suggestions, I'll see what I can do.

-The beams now have a bright center part beneath the animated texture that makes sure that the center part is light enough.

-The animations have a different FPS; shivan-beam is the slowest at 18 FPS, terran-beam is the fastest at 25 fps and vasudan-beam is somewhere in between  by 20 FPS.

-Also, the Tile factors are different. Shivan beams' tile factor is greatest and Terran beams' tile factor is smallest, and again the Vassies are in between.

EDIt: Ookay... They don't work on my Ubuntu version of FS2_Open... 

Or they *do*, but not like on Windows. The texture shows thinner and therre seems to be another, thin white texture that goes around the beam...
However, this is just a version 1.0 and suggestions are taken. If many people like, say, the Vasudan beam more like it was in the first of screenies, I'll make it so. That's just a table change, however. When we get the effect(s) more to our liking, I'll put together another VP file.

Anyway, I post here the current beamz-wep.tbm (in txt form, because the attachment system doesn't allow *.bm's, to enable those willing to try out different values with these textures. The differences are quite remarkable when you change, say, the Tile factor...

Enjoy! 

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