The Role of Graphics in Games

[Argh]

I tested it, and it looks like it's an additive overlay, yup. Sorry, if my technical explanation was lacking there.

It adds the teamcolor value to the underlying value, using it as an alpha channel, then it renders that resulting gray value with the value RGB offset by the gray value, IIRC.

Which is why, when you get higher and higher values of gray on the teamcolor, you wash out more and more detail on your texture1, because the alpha is higher and higher, so it's overdrawing it, basically.

And Smoth, I really would not want my units to look like that. It just doesn't fit the aesthetic I want my game to have. It's well-executed, but it's not appropriate to the look and feel I want for my game's art. I would not want to see that, even on selected surfaces- it really detracts from the rest of the model, if everything is fairly realistic, then all of a sudden you have this section that's mainly just a grayscale with a color value. Looks cartoony, I think I'll keep playing with the concept of using lights instead.

[Snipawolf]

[smoth]

The way it works argh is the ALPHA OVERLAY that spring uses is just that.

you have an alpha for a solid color(your teamcolor) that is then overlayed on the model. NOT added to the underlying colors.

That is why higher levels of ALPHA obscure more and more of your texture because it is an overlay.

go in photoshop, have a texture, make a layer of solid color then make a layer mask. that is what spring does. I know this 100% for sure is how it works.

[Peet]

It adds the teamcolor value to the underlying value,

No.

using it as an alpha channel,

No.

then it renders that resulting gray value with the value RGB offset by the gray value, IIRC.

No.

Which is why, when you get higher and higher values of gray on the teamcolor, you wash out more and more detail on your texture1,

No.

so it's overdrawing it, basically.

YES

[smoth]

so it's overdrawing it, basically.

YES

also known as an overlay and not an additive blend.

[Argh]

<shrugs> Ok, I'm wrong about how it works, even though I understand what it does, in a practical sense. It doesn't really change anything about what you do, or why. The offending paragraph has been altered, lest anybody read anything from me that isn't 100% correct

[smoth]

there is NO additive argh, just overlay.

think like an animation cel.

seriously, remove the math, that isn't how it works.

GUYS, it is ALL VERY SIMPLE it works like this:

overlay

Additive blends are much like the effects in spring. they will lighten a surface. Spring uses an overlay. It is just like taking a sheet of glass and painting over it. you would then place that sheet of glass over the image.

[Argh]

Word "additive" cut, from the two remaining places in my essay. I think the rest of it's accurate now.

[smoth]

Look, argh, I am at work, when I get home, I will clarify this further.

You misunderstand how this is working and I am not getting any farther trying to show you here where I have no access to my files.

[Argh]

It's not that I don't understand how it works, at a practical level, Smoth. Alpha, additive blending... meh, it's just the words, not what I actually do, which is paint, either in grays or in color. Sheesh. If we're all happy with all of the paragraphs, or you want to edit it and correct it, fine, do that, stick it in the Wiki. But I'm not wasting any more time on this, I have vehicles to paint.

[kiki]

in a practical sense, those words mean very different things.

[Fanger]

Argh it would seem to me that you DONT have a practical knowledge of how this works.. since you have no idea what you are talking about at all, as smoth and peet have pointed out..

[smoth]

Ok, the RX78 is a WHITE unit. If the spring team texturing was actually additive, if I invert the team texture and it actually is additive, solid color would still show white:



THEY DON'T WHICH MEANS IT IS AN OVERLAY

[ralphie]

Hey lets have a 3 page catfight about how team colour works

[Argh]

Smoth, to be honest I don't see any winners here, man, it's just a waste of my time, being involved in any thread you're in, these days.

Hey, in this case, I'll grant you that I was wrong about how the Spring engine is drawing stuff... but, meh... was that worth a page of argument, increasingly rude arguments, at that? None of what you said changes the actual process of making the bitmaps for our skins, man. And I edited my essay according to what you've said, so, meh, it's doubly irrelevant.

I can't believe how you just think that every time I venture an opinion, you should trash whole threads, lest I actually say something that you disagree with.

You should see the results, man, you're like Threadzilla

You'd do a lot better, and feel less stressed, if you just ignored my posts. Offer an advice column for the noobs, or something, help out people like that guy with the MG Rex... do something positive and constructive. This wasn't worth either of our time.

[clumsy_culhane]

Argh, I don't think the above comment was necessary . the thread had finally stopped being a flamefest.

{EDIT} you edited your post above.

[Forboding Angel]

It seems that I was out of line last night when I told you two to stop derailing and get back on topic. Prolly cause of some whining on TT.

That said... I would like to see a continuation of what was being discussed on the first page as it is rather interesting to me.

How about we drop the whole spring aspect of it and discuss it as a generalized subject? I think in the long run it might be a more beneficial discussion for all of us.

Which brings me to a question. In a game, more specifically an RTS, which is more important to you: Pretty models or pretty effects.

Dark reign comes to mind. Of course it was using sprites, but the models weren't all that awesome, but I loved the effects so much that I hardly cared. I think I've always been that way tho. I remember thinking that the units in TA were rather fugly, but I loved the game and loved the fact that in large games everything everywhere was exploding. It never really occurrec to me that most of the time, the explosion gfx were all the same image.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Are the two (that is, effects and models) mutually incompatible, or inversely proportional? I would say no, it's just very hard to do extremely well in either category, so seeing them together is rare - but not necessarily because of an interrelation between the two.

And for the record, I thought the OTA models were really excellent, especially given the time (the thud is something like 20 polies), and brimming with character. For a comparison, I think the SupCom units designed so much later, for all their advanced texturing and hundreds of polygons, for the most part miss the depth that the TA designs offered.

[Forboding Angel]

Actually I was referring more to the look (texturing) than anything. THe models were plain farking awesome because they were 3d, not much more you can say than that. 3d in 97 rts = win.

[smoth]

In an rts effects are more important then a model. The models can be boxy etc that is part of the representative aspect of an RTS but effects add pizazz to the game and add excitement. Hence why I crusaded until some of the *a mods added effects.