[Lykurgos88]

For 99 % of the time, I like the changes in MediaVPs_2014 compared to the MediaVPs_3612. However it took me a ridiculously long time to notice a major difference, that IMHO does not make sense to be there.

It's about the red nebula, which is used in only one FS2 campaign mission ("As lightning fall") and very rarely in fanmade mods too. For clarity, I'm not talking about skyboxes here, but the "foggy sprites" in which you fly several missions. I'm not also talking about the bloom, since that has been dealt with ;D

Well, in any case, as you know, the MediaVPs_2014 moved to a more unicolor style nebula sprites in the 1.0 version. The Beta 2 version had still the old MediaVPs_3612 multicolor style nebula sprite graphics, so it was impossible for me to notice this during the Beta phase (otherwise I would have made a question about it ).

The blue, violet and green nebula sprites are all corresponding to their old versions (and retail versions too), but the new red nebula sprites are nowhere near the original. In fact, they are not red at all any longer, they are simply black.

Here is a comparison:




I have been told before that MediaVPs mod doesn't aim to radically alter the original visuality, but only to increase to overall fidelity and quality. Well, this is a pretty radical change. While the other unicolor sprites (blue, green and violet) have a definitive main color, this new red nebula doesn't even have a color at all. So I'm really curious why make an exception with the red one. I find myself liking the red nebula the most, since it's the moodiest of them all. The black version just seems bland and empty.

---

So here is my question: How do I replace this black nebula with old red one in MediaVPs_3612?

I have a VP file extractor program, so I know how that works, but I don't know the correct file names for red nebula sprite files, and I don't know if a simple replacement can work, or are there other changes (for example in table files) that have to be made also. This is simply for my personal use, a personal modification one might say. I don't play multiplayer either, so I don't mind if this change breaks compatibility with other players.

OR a better solution would be to recolor the new unicolor style nebula file itself to be "dark red" or "bloody red", but I don't know how to do that either  To be clear, I don't want to change the blue, green or violet nebulas back to their old versions, only the red nebula.

[Lykurgos88]

So uh, do I have to assume that this little modification is harder to do than I originally expected? Quite a lot of people have glanced over this thread, but no one has come up with answers. 

EDIT: At least it would be nice to know how those red (=black) nebula files are called and where they are located in the VP -files.

[Talon 1024]

The red nebula poofs are called PoofRed01.dds and PoofRed02.dds.

In order to replace the new MediaVPs_2014 red nebula poofs with the old ones, you'll first need to create a "data" folder inside your MediaVPs_2014 folder if you haven't done so already.

Inside the "data" folder, create a folder named "effects".

Extract PoofRed01.dds and PoofRed02.dds from MediaVPs_2014 beta 2 or MediaVPs_3612, and place those files inside the "effects" folder you created earlier.

You should now have the old red nebula back.

[Shivan Hunter]

A nebula has two components: the background color, which is the color of the "skybox" (unless the mission has an actual skybox defined) and the color ships fade out to, and the poofs, which are sprites rendered around the player.

The issue is that the original nebula is a black nebula, with red poofs, and it only looks darker now because the poofs are much more subdued (which looks far better imo). There are two fixes: To get a subdued effect, but still a red effect, change the background in the mission from nbackblack to nbackred (requires replacing the mission file, and it will probably look very different). To get the original effect, replace the nebula poofs the mission uses in MediaVPs_2014 with the ones from MediaVPs_3612 (requires replacing poofred01 and poofred02 in effects).

this (sans custom lens flare) is what it might look like with the subdued effect.

[Lykurgos88]

this (sans custom lens flare) is what it might look like with the subdued effect.

Thanks!  This is actually a better solution than I originally wanted! Yeah, I agree that subdued poofs look better, but I didn't know that the nebula background was originally black in "As lightning fall" mission. It's a bit shame really. The black background really kills the sprite color, which probably wasn't an intended consequence when FSU team decided to upgrade nebula graphics.

I think I'll just modify manually (with notepad ;D) every Red Nebula mission in fan-made mods I come across to switch black background to a red one. After all, there aren't that many of them. My FSO installation will look a bit wonky though, with all those added "data\missions" subfolders (I have hoarded over 60 mods since I installed FSO last autumn).

[Colonol Dekker]

No black?



Racist!

[Shivan Hunter]

I think I'll just modify manually (with notepad ;D)

You mean you'll edit a copy of the mission file and stick it in mediavps/data/missions, right? DO NOT edit a VP file with a text editor, especially a retail VP since you might not be able to get it back. VP files contain binary data such as models and textures, text editors will NOT save these correctly.

You probably know this, just being paranoid.

[Lykurgos88]

You mean you'll edit a copy of the mission file and stick it in mediavps/data/missions, right?

Of course I'll always extract any files from volition packages before modifying them, so no worries.

But hey! Thanks anyway for help.  I think it's a tough choice to make in the future, with MediaVPs_2018 (or something like that), how to handle the special case of Red nebula missions which have different color in their backgrounds compared to their sprites. FSU team has to come up with some new magic, if it decides to stick with the original "red-like" visuality in "As Lightning Fall" mission of retail FS2 version.