Need Healp... your opinions matter.

Noruas · Post by **Noruas** » 17 Dec 2007, 03:26

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEZmPslU ... re=related

I need haelp.

I need outside reviews to see what they like about the effects displayed in this video and or what they would like to see too!

I dont care if its just, the orange plasma sucks, or wutever. It would be nice though to get a good reason.

Oh forgot to mention its for xta...

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 17 Dec 2007, 04:09

looks nifty, are the purple ones the plasma?

Noruas · Post by **Noruas** » 17 Dec 2007, 04:14

The purple is from the head of the krogoth, which fires a purple laser. -_-

clumsy_culhane · Post by **clumsy_culhane** » 17 Dec 2007, 04:14

ooo Pretty.... Plasma effects are cool

Snipawolf · Post by **Snipawolf** » 17 Dec 2007, 04:17

I saw this video a long time ago.

Pretty sweet.

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 17 Dec 2007, 06:14

My only criticism is that some of the rocket/projectile trails look patchy. As in you can see that the trail is made up of lots of separate particles. While not a huge deal, it doesn't quite look as good as a distinctly solid trail looks.

Wolf-In-Exile · Post by **Wolf-In-Exile** » 17 Dec 2007, 10:43

Stuff that needs fixing
1. The smaller missile trails are really 'patchy', as Maelstrom pointed out. I noticed the missile trail for that big missile looks fine, however, so you might want to change all the missile trails to follow that one.
Patchy trails might still look acceptable if they're more 'connected' with each other, but look more random in shape, and they should dissipate slower.

2. The muzzle flares last too long. From the video, the most obvious example of this are the Guardian's muzzle flare FX, it lingers for one whole second before very obviously 'changing' into smoke.

Muzzle flares should, by right last only a few nanoseconds before disappearing, unless its a rapid fire weapon such as machine guns, miniguns or chain guns which seem to have an extended-duration muzzleflare, but its really due to the rapid-firing of multiple bullets.

3. Missiles and other projectiles like the Bertha's plasma shots should travel alot faster. Now it just looks like they're out for a Sunday flight.

Take a look at World In Conflict's muzzle flares, missiles and explosion FX, it has some of the very best i've seen in an RTS. You should also take note of the projectile speeds in the game.

DandyGnome · Post by **DandyGnome** » 17 Dec 2007, 14:08

To me in general the effects look slightly grainy in that there don't seem to be enough particles. There are the aforementioned gaps in the missile trails. Additionally the explosions could also use some more stuff flying around, as right now it looks a little sparse. Also more smoke probably wouldn't hurt. The speed of shots could definitely use an increase as it looks somewhat like a kids super-soaker game at the moment. However it still looks really cool, good job.

rattle · Post by **rattle** » 17 Dec 2007, 14:15

Use smaller textures in case you aren't, XTA was using huge textures for tiny particle effects in the past.

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 17 Dec 2007, 14:53

Wolf-In-Exile wrote:Take a look at World In Conflict's muzzle flares, missiles and explosion FX, it has some of the very best i've seen in an RTS. You should also take note of the projectile speeds in the game.

I don't think WiC is all that pretty, Company of Heroes looks a whole lot better, especailly the arty impacts.

Noruas · Post by **Noruas** » 17 Dec 2007, 23:56

Wolf-In-Exile wrote:Stuff that needs fixing
1. The smaller missile trails are really 'patchy', as Maelstrom pointed out. I noticed the missile trail for that big missile looks fine, however, so you might want to change all the missile trails to follow that one.
Patchy trails might still look acceptable if they're more 'connected' with each other, but look more random in shape, and they should dissipate slower.

2. The muzzle flares last too long. From the video, the most obvious example of this are the Guardian's muzzle flare FX, it lingers for one whole second before very obviously 'changing' into smoke.

Muzzle flares should, by right last only a few nanoseconds before disappearing, unless its a rapid fire weapon such as machine guns, miniguns or chain guns which seem to have an extended-duration muzzleflare, but its really due to the rapid-firing of multiple bullets.

3. Missiles and other projectiles like the Bertha's plasma shots should travel alot faster. Now it just looks like they're out for a Sunday flight.

Take a look at World In Conflict's muzzle flares, missiles and explosion FX, it has some of the very best i've seen in an RTS. You should also take note of the projectile speeds in the game.

1.The patchiness of the smaller missiles will be fixed.

2. Muzzle flash is long, ill shorten the guardians flash, but people were complaining it lasted too shortly.

3. Its xta, the projectiles move slower in arty range.

As far as World In Conflict, there is no way Spring can compete with Direct X 10.

To me in general the effects look slightly grainy in that there don't seem to be enough particles. There are the aforementioned gaps in the missile trails. Additionally the explosions could also use some more stuff flying around, as right now it looks a little sparse. Also more smoke probably wouldn't hurt. The speed of shots could definitely use an increase as it looks somewhat like a kids super-soaker game at the moment. However it still looks really cool, good job.

I needed to tone down effects for the sake of lag, the guardian explosions that look grainy use more than 140 particles, which is now fixed to 40.
The bertha used over 300 at first, now 100 about.

Use smaller textures in case you aren't, XTA was using huge textures for tiny particle effects in the past.

Itd be helpful to know which ones..

Pendrokar · Post by **Pendrokar** » 17 Dec 2007, 23:59

smoke and explosions GREAT, other meh such as plasma and some flames!!

pintle · Post by **pintle** » 18 Dec 2007, 00:19

Is there any chance of the BLOD weapons having something similar to the wavy-pulse-thing on peet's anni mk2? Lag be damned

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 18 Dec 2007, 08:37

That pulse is a really slow laser shot with a particle trail. Not feasible without a huge AOE or immobile targets.

Wolf-In-Exile · Post by **Wolf-In-Exile** » 18 Dec 2007, 08:55

KDR_11k: Haven't played CoH in awhile, but the overall quality of the effects in WiC made a bigger impression on me because they felt pretty epic, especially the MLRS battery fire.

Noruas: I'm not saying XTA should 'compete' with WiC's DX10 features (which are only the ability to use split-screen and have prettier smoke effects).

The things I pointed out are perfectly feasible in the Spring engine.

You can solve the problem of muzzle flashes by reducing the yellow/orange flare's duration, but letting the smoke linger for a second or so.

About the slow projectile movement, i'm not sure what you're implying with that but they're moving too slow regardless.

Snipawolf · Post by **Snipawolf** » 18 Dec 2007, 13:00

Haven't played CoH in awhile, but the overall quality of the effects in WiC made a bigger impression on me because they felt pretty epic, especially the MLRS battery fire.

Sherman Calliope wins

Teutooni · Post by **Teutooni** » 18 Dec 2007, 14:44

Looks awesome. Imo TA-based mods should have stylish/cartoonish look, rather than 'realistic' effects - and you are doing an awesome job.

To separate laser and plasma, I'd like to see all lasers as long pulses/rays, not just different looking projectiles.

Mooseral · Post by **Mooseral** » 19 Dec 2007, 01:14

The smoke effects could look better too, IMO. The huge flamey missle thing's impact hits, and creates a large cloud of smoke which sits for a bit, then dissapears all at once. Would it be possible to make it stagger a bit, fade away more gradually and possibly in chunks (don't know exactly how Spring effects work, but perhaps with multiple particle groups fading away in sequence)?

Also, when I first saw the video, one thing that struck me was that the missle's impact was inordinately small compared to it's trail. More smoke in general may help as well (as well as teh fire

).

Also, the guardian flare does look floofy. One thing that may help is to make the smoke sharper looking, and possibly go further? The big, spring-generic looking knob-ended ballsmoke looks not so much like smoke to me.

And on the Krog beam: that thing always struck me as more of a lance, which wasted things by piercing them through more than by being a big zappy ball at them. A long effect, possibly with a small whitish "bow wave" might do the job better.

Big improvement over the old effects though, overall. Keep up the good work.

DZHIBRISH · Post by **DZHIBRISH** » 19 Dec 2007, 14:31

Teutooni i totaly disagree unless you were being sarcastic.
TA based mods should have realistic looking effects..just make the mnicer..plus the main reasons mods look outdated is casue of models/textures not shooting effects.

Teutooni · Post by **Teutooni** » 19 Dec 2007, 15:21

DZHIBRISH, I wasn't being sarcastic. If you want ultra-immersive 'realistic' gaming experience, try some new FPS or something.

TA is more about the gameplay and strategy. 'Realistic' effects and models can often make the overall look messy (supcom

) and therefor I prefer 'simple' and stylish ones. This doesn't mean they shouldn't look nice, though.

Spring RTS Engine

Need Healp... your opinions matter.

Need Healp... your opinions matter.