[Shivan Hunter]

Playing around with MVPs 5.0 (Thanks guys, it's amazing as always ) there are still a couple specific effects I found underwhelming: Beam impacts, since they weren't making full use of the new particle code and were just spawning an single explosion effect every frame in the same orientation, which looked a bit dull; and all the flak, which was still using PSpew and some fairly meh impact effects. So I souped them up a bit (using the amazing particle/burst resources already in the MVPs)

Includes new vasudan flak types, which look similar to terran flak (naturally) but is subtly different. GTVA flak is more explodey, Shivan flak is more zappy.





idk if the MVPs team will want to use/adapt/tweak these or stick with the effects they've got now. Either way, feel free to just dump this in your MVPs folder (or make a separate mod in Knossos if you're fine fiddling with the dependencies).

[EDIT] Here's an updated version with a couple tweaks. If you've already used the beam impacts for a mod, note that some names have been changed to be slightly more professional

[Nyctaeus]

Love the new, fiery beam impacts. Wanted to make something like that myself but was permanently busy with something else. Definitely stealing for the modpack I'm working on :]

Probably gonna grab flaks too, but I'm yet to test them

[Shivan Hunter]

Thanks

[Mobius]

Looks nice! May I suggest a short YouTube video showing these effects? It would be helpful to modders willing to implement these additions themselves.

[Shivan Hunter]

Thought about doing that - might do it Soon™, can't get to it rn

[Nyctaeus]

Didn't you experience any issues with the largest beams? I tried to apply the beam impacts to my custom-tabled sets of beams and the largest ones seem to be not rendering at all.

[Shivan Hunter]

Damn, I'm away from my FS PC at the moment - I definitely tested the BFRed etc. but it's possible I broke something. Will look at it when I can! Maybe paste your weapon entry here (or Pastebin or wherever)?

[EDIT] Definitely works on my end. Maybe check spelling? (tbh the effects need better names, and the particle velocity on some of these needs to be tweaked - huge one looks both too large for the beam and not dynamic enough)

[Shivan Hunter]

Looks nice! May I suggest a short YouTube video showing these effects? It would be helpful to modders willing to implement these additions themselves.

Here you go I downloaded OBS and Shotcut for this

Video first shows the current GTVA flak in the MediaVPs, followed by my Terran, Vasudan and Shivan flak.

This one shows the current beam impacts - notice the explosion effects creating visible "streaks" - followed by my version (think I need to go a bit harder on the capflash effect, you can't even see it) (Also notice how, when the aeolus finishes exploding, the shockwave just... pops out of existence from full strength? idk why since the anim in mv_effects isn't like that. But it's been doing that for years)

[DefCynodont119]

Oooh, these are fantastic.  I very much like the beam impacts.

I'm doing a zillion things right now, but I will ask Colt what he thinks on it. As well as what the community at large thinks. but yeah I love this, great work!

One thing that's probably just my personal taste: I would make the muzzle effect a tiny bit more subtle and the traveling weapon itself wider and more prominent to better match the rest of the weapon effects. I love the burst, no notes on that.

EDIT: I do want to say though, no guarantees it will be used, but it's good to see people making things like this.

[Shivan Hunter]

Thanks

I definitely agree they still need a bit of tweaking. Use them or not, I just wanted to put them out there, like the radar icon fix I liked the idea of the traveling shots themselves being fairly invisible until they explode, but of course that can change. I might give them another pass in a bit once I finish butting heads with Blender.

[Grizzly]

Very cool! 

[Colonol Dekker]

The shivan flak is gorgeous

[Shivan Hunter]

Thanks guys

Here's an updated version with a couple tweaks. If you've already used the beam impacts for a mod, note that some names have been changed to be slightly more professional DefCynodont119, I took your advice for the flak since I agreed with it - muzzle flashes are a bit less bangy, trails are slightly more prominent. (I don't have a video of that since it's mostly the same)

I also changed beam impacts since I figured out how they work: "Spawns Per Second" does nothing for beams, since a distinct emitter is spawned once every frame on impact. To cut down on the number of particles spawned, I instead use a random range that goes into the negatives: "+Particle Count Per Spawn: (-2 1)" will spawn a particle with 25% probability. This makes the explosions look more fiery and less... spammy/noisy.

Lemme know what you think :)

[Ulala]

I dig these!

Been away for awhile but fun to come back and see things still improving in the FSU world. May have to get the latest and do a replay.