[m2258734a]

First of all, thanks for supplying the video. My laptop is nowhere near capable of running Freespace SCP, let alone running it smoothly, so I really haven't had a chance to see the beams in action for myself.

This is really hard decision; both Bobboau and your beams look incredible. I was wondering if you fired the beams in the same direction relative to the camera in each shot when you made the video. I ask since some of the beams of the same type appeared to be larger than others and I wasn't sure if this was due to perspective or design. Also, if I may ask, may we see what improvements you and Bobboau have made to all the other non-AAA beams in the game? If it's too much out of your way then don't bother. 

[Mehrpack]

hi,
shivans: Bob, its look more alive and more like a particle stream.

bgreen: Bob or VA; looks both good

sgrean: VA

bvas: bob or VA; looks both good too

svas: VA

Mehrpack

[neoterran]

VA has better slashers than Bob, but I prefer Bob's Shivan Beam.

[aRaven]

i like Bobbau's beams with VA's glows

[Darklord42]

Personaly I prefer Bobbau's beam glows especaily the shivan ones.  The terran ones are interesting.  I vastly prefer the effect of bobbau's beam animations over your's VA however I, and I'm sure others will agree, prefer VA's lighter green color as it feels more cannon.  For the Vasudan beams id say VA's are generaly better and more flame like. Plus i pfrefer the star type glob as oposed to the smooth spherical one as the beams are building up.

On the other note some of us were wondering if cockpits will be fixed on the next version of the media vps.

[DaBrain]

Cockpit fix?

What do you mean?

[Herra Tohtori]

Some ships have their eyepoints situated off-center or otherwise strangely. So if someone wants to use the show ship flag it looks strange, otherwise it could affect where the weapons fire seems to be going if it's badly off-centered.

Take the HTL Ursa for example. It has a perfect view from the front canopy - but the eyepoint is located at the rear canopy, where you get this huge, perhaps a metre wide cockpit strut bar thingy right on front of you, which makes flying a bit frustrated. I personally changed the viewpoint to where the front cockpit's occupant's eyes would be and it is way, way better that way.

In any case, the cockpit hud transparency issues should be solved before most fighters can use the show ship flag to full extent, so it's not a critical fix. But it's something that has to be done if cockpit view is ever going to be officially supported.

Right now making the cockpits visible requires a bit of table magic anyway, and it's not that big a deal to change the eyepoints yourself if you really want...

[Vasudan Admiral]

Ok, well here's my complete beam set now. The media VP man can pull out whichever beams and effects get decided upon.
http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/PurdyBeamSet_V1.1.zip
(I've also taken down the older set to avoid confusion)

And in answer to this:

Also, if I may ask, may we see what improvements you and Bobboau have made to all the other non-AAA beams in the game? If it's too much out of your way then don't bother. 

Well I've tried to give most of them slightly different characteristics mainly, so they're not carbon copies of each other on different scale. It seems to have worked decently enough.
Here they all are:

[Commander Zane]

THOSE ARE AWESOME!!!

[m2258734a]

OK, after reviewing the video and VA's latest post I vote as follows:

Terran and Vasudan beams/glows: VA
Shivan beams/glows: Bobboau

Thanks for taking the time to make and show off the pictures.

[Raven2001]

Terran: Bob
Vasudan: VA
Shivie: Bob

[Darklord42]

Some ships have their eyepoints situated off-center or otherwise strangely. So if someone wants to use the show ship flag it looks strange, otherwise it could affect where the weapons fire seems to be going if it's badly off-centered.

Take the HTL Ursa for example. It has a perfect view from the front canopy - but the eyepoint is located at the rear canopy, where you get this huge, perhaps a metre wide cockpit strut bar thingy right on front of you, which makes flying a bit frustrated. I personally changed the viewpoint to where the front cockpit's occupant's eyes would be and it is way, way better that way.

In any case, the cockpit hud transparency issues should be solved before most fighters can use the show ship flag to full extent, so it's not a critical fix. But it's something that has to be done if cockpit view is ever going to be officially supported.

Right now making the cockpits visible requires a bit of table magic anyway, and it's not that big a deal to change the eyepoints yourself if you really want...

Well the average joe who dls scp or gets a cd from a freind won't want to have to muckabout with table values if they wan't to take a look at the effect.   It's simplicity that is the key with the media vp's/instaler/launcher so why cut out now? Aslo the hercs 1+2 viewpoints don't line up in the cockpit.
 The herc 2 is too far back so it appears if you have a postage stamp of the  cockpit on your reticle and i think the herc is too far forward so you don't see the cockpit.

[jr2]

Terran / Vasudan: VA
Shivan: Bob  (If he can get rid of the hot pink effect )
- Bob's Terran beams have too much Yellow
- Bob's Vasudan beams look too much like a rocket trail or something, rather than a beam... although VA's aren't too much better, IMO.

[Mars]

I love them all...

I like the BF Green because of it's look of being a river of energy... sort of scattered, overblown, raw power.

The SGreen looks like the little side arm it should.

Mjollnir has too many spikes in the glow, but I like it otherwise

Zod beams are all excellent

[Polpolion]

Terran Beams: Vasudan Admiral
Vasudan Beams: Vasudan Admiral
Shivan Beams: Bobbau (maybe make it a bit more red)

[takashi]

thrusterglows: the ones on the right. (the left ones look like retail, and even smell like retail)
terran and shivan beams: VA's
vasudan beams: bob's

[Zacam]

VA, I seriously like your beams, but I have one small little nit.

I can understand the beams needing to have "build up" time prior to the beam itself going out.

But I can not understand why it takes visually apparent "drop off" time that exist for almost as long as the "build up" time.

If it's cycling the anims forward and then backwards, try cutting it off to just a few after the beam is done instead of recycling all of the way back to the begining again.

I realize there will be downtime from one firing until the next.....but the discharge dissipitation from firing the beam should be a lot more instantaneous than it is now.

[DaBrain]

Does anybody have VA's beam set 1.1? I only got the first one and the link is dead.

I need it today, asap.

[jr2]

I realize there will be downtime from one firing until the next.....but the discharge dissipitation from firing the beam should be a lot more instantaneous than it is now.

Have you ever watched a 500 or 1000 watt halogen bulb get turned on?  Ever watched it get turned off?    When the power is applied, it warms up almost instantly.  However, when the power is cut, the heat left in the bulb bleeds off slowly, as there is no power to force it to turn on/off.  However, with a fluorescent bulb, it is almost the opposite; when you turn it on, it immediately starts to about 60-80% of its brightness, then slowly warms the rest of the way up.  When you cut the power, it blacks out almost instantly.

Beams, however, are totally unknown to the Real World^TM, so speculating about warmup / warmdown times is rather useless.  If indeed beams could exist in the Real World^TM, they would have heretofore unknown properties, as we don't have them yet! 

[Vretsu]

Wow. WOW.

VA ---> everything.