[shiv]

What about scripting? And do effect like in NFS, with drops that leave on the screen IMO it'd look cool.

[Turnsky]

the rain effect coupled with other things such as shader trickery would make for very sweet eyecandy.
add into that the odd lighting strike to craft would make for interesting situations. 

[Aardwolf]

I doubt it would take much codework to make an option to disable the random rotation of nebula poofs, and at the same time add in on-screen splooshes.

[Galemp]

the best idea I've heard so far is to modify the motion debris.

Ditto. I think what could be done is to force all the motion debris to drift in a particular direction-- as if your fighter was constantly sliding that way.

[Mobius]

What a nice idea!

I think we should give modifed nebula poofs a try. Modify only one of them as set it as the only poof in FRED, that'd create an interesting effect.

While modifying motion debris may seem the most effective solution I'd like to see what a "particular" nebula can do. We can even use thunders with no textures and change thunder sounds to get a proper noise ingame!

I know, there's no rain in space, but think about atmospheric missions for a second...

[JGZinv]

Or a slowly vaporising ice field...

[Herra Tohtori]

What a nice idea!

I think we should give modifed nebula poofs a try. Modify only one of them as set it as the only poof in FRED, that'd create an interesting effect.

While modifying motion debris may seem the most effective solution I'd like to see what a "particular" nebula can do. We can even use thunders with no textures and change thunder sounds to get a proper noise ingame!

I know, there's no rain in space, but think about atmospheric missions for a second...

If the nebula poof alignment can be fixed, then it can be used to create a very good effect of "background rain" and to limit the visibility, but the close proximity rain/snow would probably be better with motion debris system.

What we need is two features (although either of them would be great) from the coders:

1. A way to adjust motion debris density and consistency so that it uses particles rather than models, and can be set to drift to a direction with some velocity

2. A way to fix the nebula poofs to a single gameworld vector.


Clouds are going to be a problem, though.

[redsniper]

Just make a model with LOOOOOOTS of fluffy glow points. BAM, volumetric cloud.

[JGZinv]

Lots of small localized white/gray nebulas with lightning added?

[Mobius]

We don't necessarily need lightnings. We want a rain effect, it doesn't mean the rain has to be like the one we see in cloudy days.

[Trivial Psychic]

How about adding to the lightning by having a random flashes in the background, followed by the thunder sound?  Have the flashes vary in size, and have the size of the flash as well as the thunder delay and volume related so they can appear to be from greater distances.

[Galemp]

Uh... we already have lightning. Played a nebula mission recently?

[Trivial Psychic]

With the current lightning you see bolts near you.  I'm talking about distant lightning, kinda like sheet lightning.

[Bluepilot]

In order to make rain we should not forgot that cockpit are coming and if the rain directly splash on the screen it'll looks quite weird.
It should be able to splash on the cockpit winshield only no?

[LeGuille]

With the current lightning you see bolts near you.  I'm talking about distant lightning, kinda like sheet lightning.

You could make a weapon that just 'flashes' like you're talking about, and spawn in a make-weapon SEXP around the player at a random interval / random distance from player.

Since weapons emit light, the closer, the better. Just some modified weapons work, too. And poofs are excellent: white/grey poofs.

We need an option in the FRED2_O to 'pull down' poofs just like nebulae effects. Modified lightning to make rain is a neat idea as well.