Better Looking Lasers??

[kwyn]

I had no idea ELITE still had such a huge following. Spent countless hrs on my c64 back in the day!!!

Anyway, OOLITE is INCREDIBLE!!!! ELITE on ROIDS!!!

What I would like to know is, is there a mod which makes the lasers look better? Ex) alternate to just the red beam from the bottom.

I think on the C64 the military laser would come from 4 corners to a point in the crosshairs.

THANKS!!!

[ADCK]

Can only change their color, and position, and can only have 1 (visually).

I'm working on a rail gun type cannon OXP (using the pylon slot), if it works it will look good, but completeing it is not on the top of my priorities list.

[Diziet Sma]

Ahruman has indicated he plans to improve laser appearance, after the next stable release is out..

Oh, and welcome, kwyn, to the boards!

[Poro]

I'm working on a rail gun type cannon OXP (using the pylon slot), if it works it will look good, but completeing it is not on the top of my priorities list.

[CracksWhipMenacingly]Then it should be! Cease production on everything until this is done! This shall please me.[/CracksWhipMenacingly]

Oh all right, finish the Behemoths first

[kwyn]

Ahruman has indicated he plans to improve laser appearance, after the next stable release is out..

Oh, and welcome, kwyn, to the boards!

Thanks good to be here! Can't believe this many people are still into Elite (Oolite), my favorite game of all time!!

[JazHaz]

I'm working on a rail gun type cannon OXP (using the pylon slot), if it works it will look good, but completeing it is not on the top of my priorities list.

What are you planning to make it look like?

Just had a thought to add sparks to the missiles, kind of like their exhaust gases...(like the sparks you get from damaged drives). Wondering if that is possible?

[ADCK]

I'm working on a rail gun type cannon OXP (using the pylon slot), if it works it will look good, but completeing it is not on the top of my priorities list.

What are you planning to make it look like?

Just had a thought to add sparks to the missiles, kind of like their exhaust gases...(like the sparks you get from damaged drives). Wondering if that is possible?

Havn't really looked at visual effects/particle effects, it should be semi-possible to do by having the missile constantly spawn little sparks models.

I'm planning to make my rail gun bullets look like a cross between torpedos from Star Trek TNG and comets, havn't really worked out the transparent "comets-tail" effect tho. But it looks like it "should" be possible...

[Killer Wolf]

i don't think Oolite can handle transparency.

[DaddyHoggy]

i don't think Oolite can handle transparency.

Not on modelled polygons that would be true, but the exhaust plumes on ships are definitely semi-transparent, are they not? and you can see the atmosphere of a planet to the stars or objects behind also...

But cockpit "glass" now that would be nice...

[ADCK]

plus the billboards in YAH have 100% transparency, so it can sort of be done by using an ancient technique known as "dithering"

Which i havnt used to fake transparency since the days of designing 2d games, but bascially you make a checkerboard pattern of 100% transparency, at high res you wont even notice the checkerboarding and you'd have a glass-like texture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dither

Look at the red/blue pic about half way down to get an idea.

[Eric Walch]

but bascially you make a checkerboard pattern of 100% transparency, at high res you wont even notice the checkerboarding and you'd have a glass-like texture.

Sounds like how PET-bottles for soft-drinks get their transparency. (PET = Poly-Ethynene-Terefthalate) Unlike real glass it is a semi-crystalline polymer. But the crystals that normally would scatter the light are much smaller than the light wavelength. So the light does not see the crystals either.

[ADCK]

here's an in-game example from my Animated Transparent Holographic Billboard on a constore:



Notice that you can see the planet and part of the buidling through the image.

And thats a low-res image too.

[DaddyHoggy]

Yikes, my poor crappy ATi M3 gfx on this ancient Dell CPx lappy really don't like that dither! I get the point though - nice...

[ADCK]

Yikes, my poor crappy ATi M3 gfx on this ancient Dell CPx lappy really don't like that dither! I get the point though - nice...

If it can handle a standard YAH animated billboard, than it can handle a dithered one too, as there's no diff other than positioning of pixels.
Just thought of another way of doing partial transparencies, although i imagine it will be very graphics-card dependant:
What'd you'd do is, you'd make a 2 frame animated image, first frame is what your image looks like without transparency, and second frame is a 100% transparent image. Have the frames switch between the two at around 25 to 60 FPS and it should trick your eye into thinking you're seeing a transparent image...
Theorhetically that is...
Havn't actually tested it...
If you have epilepsy, I'd avoid doing it...
Disclamer: ADCK takes no responsibilty to seizures caused by his suggestions.

[allikat]

ADCK's suggestion works best when the background of the actual image roughly matches the background that will be behind it when transparent...
Otherwise dithering the image, with every other pixel as transparent would work about as well, and not blow out the brains of people sensitive to flickering images too