Experimental mutator v3 (split from BA thread, PART 2) - Page 3

Experimental mutator v3 (split from BA thread, PART 2)

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Lippy
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Post by Lippy »

Very Nice guys!

While were on the topic of those lvl3 missile arty (at least in picture terms anyway) I remember testing them out a few weeks ago and completely sucked, especially when compared to tremors (less than 1/4 of the cost as far as I remember)
submarine
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Post by submarine »

Needs less red tbh.
+1


concerning tremors: i dont have hard facts to back my statement but i feel they are a bit overpowered. maybe decrease their rate of fire a bit?
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Foxomaniac
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Post by Foxomaniac »

Catapults are better now that their wobble has been slightly reduced.

@ "Needs less red tbh" :

I know that, my texture guy (Saktoth) is asleep right now :P.

Most explosive FX are going to be the white yellow-ish we're all used to see.
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

alot of smoths explosions look really 2D in screenshots..
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smoth
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Post by smoth »

Image

Out of curiosity, does this one?
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hunterw
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Post by hunterw »

Personally, I miss the big white shockwave ring that any dying unit gave off in OTA. It looked cool, but was also extremely helpful in determining when a unit in some huge pack died off. I think there still is one, but it's either too small to be able to see easily, or perhaps low detail settings prevents some of them from being displayed.

Fox, you really need to have high detail settings on when you are showing off effects. I also agree that explosions should be mainly white with yellow tinge on the edges.


They don't look that bad currently, I would just make them bigger:

Image
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hunterw
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Post by hunterw »

smoth wrote:Image

Out of curiosity, does this one?
Yes, I can tell that the biggest ring (it's sort of deformed around the edges) is a sprite, as the intersection it has with the ground is clearly visible.

Then, it looks like there are two almost concentric sprites a bit higher up, and a flat shockwave on the bottom, and then some dirt particles (sprites).

I would just make use of the white portions to blend all of the sprites and the shockwave together, and either increase the height of the big deformed-ring sprite or decrease its size so that the intersection with the ground is less noticeable.
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Fanger
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Post by Fanger »

Hey guess, what.. thats the best we got, and visually that is as good as it gets in spring atm...

so yeah.. blah blah..

Guess what Hunter, the explosion orginates where the shot hits.. so if we offset it into the air , then the shot will hit the ground and the explosion will happen 10 feet up in the air.. and look retarded..

Please do not critique something in that manner unless you understand the limits it is done with.. as it really is unhelpful..

THIS IS NOT UNREAL... please do not go all fooopah..
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smoth
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Post by smoth »

well, they ARE sprites, we do not have models for explosions or animations we get sprites. It will look 2d, becuase they clip into the ground etc. I am not going to do the overglow either, I find it a bit lacking. Oh well, cannot please everyone.
Saktoth
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Post by Saktoth »

Sorry Fox, it didnt upload the Commexplosion properly after i finished working on it last night. What you are showing everyone is not the explosion i spent 3 hours on. :oops: Check it again, the new one is up now.

I used the groundflash to get that initial, bright flash you are talking about, and i also added in smoke (Lots of smoke, probably too much smoke, the crater smokes for ages afterwards).

To get smoke to float upwards, you use speed. You'll have something like this:
speed=1 r-2, 3 r-1, 1 r-2;

The first and last numbers are the two horizontal directions (I forget which is which), the middle number is vertical. Numbers after r are the random factor. The random factor is 'a number between 0 and #', which is added on top. Thus, if you give it '1' and 'a number between 0 and -2' it will give you a result of beteween 1 and -1 (Which is what you want, so your smoke doesnt all fly in one direction). For the vertical you want a positive number for it to float upwards (There is no point having anything float down, it just goes into the ground). In this case, 3 r-1 is the same as 2 r1.

If you want smoke to come up out of the ground, you need to give it a negative vertical pos (Position, the numbers work just like speed, -300 to -1000 or so is good). Thus it will start in the ground, and slowly float out of it. You'll need to give it a really small ageSpeed in order to get a good effect with this (think in the range of 0.001).

Does anyone know what the difference and relationship between startSize, size, sizeExpansion and sizeGrowth?

Also, has anyone noticed that heatclouds sort of flicker? Especially if they are made to last for a while. Arghs nuke explosion does this, mine was doing it too. Is this something to do with Heat (And an explanation of Heat and Maxheat would be nifty). Thanks for any help with this.

Ive made three new textures for the explosions, that are slightly duller in colour than Smoths:

Image

The .tga's are here.

Ill try to get something firey to replace the crappy square purple flame the pyros are spitting out ATM, i dont know if any of the above are appropriate.

On a final note, I might not have as much time to dedicate to spring in general as i thought i may have. Real Life is rearing its head. >_> Ill still be around to contribute where i can, though.
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hunterw
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Post by hunterw »

Fanger wrote:Hey guess, what.. thats the best we got, and visually that is as good as it gets in spring atm...

so yeah.. blah blah..

Guess what Hunter, the explosion orginates where the shot hits.. so if we offset it into the air , then the shot will hit the ground and the explosion will happen 10 feet up in the air.. and look retarded..

Please do not critique something in that manner unless you understand the limits it is done with.. as it really is unhelpful..

THIS IS NOT UNREAL... please do not go all fooopah..
Thanks for your opinion that I didn't ask for.. as it really is unhelpful..


I'll be sure and think twice the next time somebody here asks for a critique of something.. because I wouldn't want for you to have to come and tell me how not helpful I am..
Saktoth
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Post by Saktoth »

Lets keep it constructive guys. Heatclouds might just be sprites, but who cares when they can look like this?

Image
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Foxomaniac
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Post by Foxomaniac »

;.;.

I sort've figured you uploaded it incorrectly when I saw the the size of the file was exactly the same.

Meh, I spent 4 hours on that thing :P.

Anyhow, awesome looking textures!

@ hunter :

This is as good as it gets for now, it might not be "OMGZ! WOWZA UNREAL!" yet, but this is what me and sak are capable at doing for now, we still have a lot to learn about the explosion generator.

/BOTA PLUG

Oh and the effect you want (white explosions when units die) can be found in BOTA

/END BOTA PLUG

@ Sak :

Just saw your explosion, indeed - too much smoke and it lingers on for too long in the air :P.
Last edited by Foxomaniac on 06 Feb 2007, 10:18, edited 2 times in total.
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smoth
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Post by smoth »

looking neat saktoth.

Are you asking about heatcloud, csimpleparticlesystem or another system?

@ hunter, the problem with unreal, generals and dawn of war is that they all OVER use additive blend. The core of an explosion is only white for a moment, it is mostly red/orange because mostly we see the end of the flame. There is also the large amount of smoke and debris. The almost bloom like explosions used in the games I mention are terribly off and they do not look like a real explosion. That is why I refuse to do that sort of thing. I can do it but I refuse to because it looks really bad to me.

Now, gundam is meant to be a very colorful arcade-like style. However, the effects are shared because they can offer a workable base. My work that I released was meant for that. Now, as far as omgosh bloom looking stuff, yeah, when several impacts happen at once you will see that. I promise you, here are some pictures:

Image Image
(as we say on 4chan, pics or it didn't happen)

However, unlike games like unreal, there are hundreds of explosions happening. These explosions when they happen single look like they do because if I make them REALLY glowy like the unreal stuff then it will just be a white blob in battle. Please take the above shots into consideration.

I am off to bed, I have to get up in a few hours. I'll read your response in the morning.
Last edited by smoth on 06 Feb 2007, 10:30, edited 2 times in total.
submarine
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Post by submarine »

hunterw wrote: I also agree that explosions should be mainly white with yellow tinge on the edges.
+1
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Foxomaniac
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Post by Foxomaniac »

Problems ahoy!

Sak's new textures, while great in theory - are not-so-great in practice >:(.

Here's why :

Image

Notice the "edge"?

'tis like a big square.
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Fanger
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Post by Fanger »

Wait... so smoth knows what hes doing...

Is that what we concluded..

damn...

Smoth right again...

More likely than you think...

Once ignorance is mass produced.... O SHI....
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Foxomaniac
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Post by Foxomaniac »

BombzOr explosions :

Style 1 :

Big explosions :

Image

Image


A bit too big, so I toned the sizes down :

Style 2 :

Smaller ones, L1's might be too small though >_>.

L1 :


Image

L2 CORE bomber :

Image

L2 ARM bomber :

Image

Feedback I got so far :

Demo's : I don't like the orange, looks like a napalm strike.
DemO
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Post by DemO »

Small explosions look better. I dont like the smoke for two reasons:

1. Smoke in TA makes my pc lag to like 6 fps for some reason
2. With mass bombers (how they are usually used) the amount of smoke you'd get on the screen would, i imagine, be pretty excessive.

Out of interest, how long does the bomb flash thing last for? It could be cool if it left some sort of burning ring on the ground after a quick explosion, which fades away after a short time (like burning ground).

My main worry about the effects is that it will be "too much" on screen with a lot of bombers, prohibiting the view of enemy base/structures after/while bombing first run. If you can test it with more than a few bombers and get it to a point where the effects don't inhibit the view of whats actually being bombed then that'll be cool.

From the screenshots, the L1 bomber explosion looks the best to me. Keep the bigger ones for nuke bombers or something ¬_¬
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Machiosabre
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Post by Machiosabre »

they look cool, I think they just need to shoot up a bit of dirt so it looks a bit grittier.
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