Oolite Bulletins

superbatprime wrote:

The new lasers are way more intimidating than the old style. [...] They look more dangerous, they feel more dangerous

...they are, in fact, more dangerous.

In trunk NPC lasers have the same fire rate and heat buildup as the player's lasers. For the ones with beam or military lasers this gives them a significant power boost over a 1.76 NPC. (Their aim has been worsened a little to compensate) So it's not just psychological...

cim wrote:

In trunk NPC lasers have the same fire rate and heat buildup as the player's lasers. For the ones with beam or military lasers this gives them a significant power boost over a 1.76 NPC.

cim wrote:

(Their aim has been worsened a little to compensate)

Smivs wrote:

cim wrote:

(Their aim has been worsened a little to compensate)

The game is hard enough for Jamesons as it is. (But I will be releasing an OXP that enables the various smart AI switches for routine ships, for those who think they can handle it...)

<Smivs applauds>

cim wrote:

The laser is a lot easier to get multiple layers on - there are three layers of beam, using two textures and two different flow rates. The exhaust I can't do the same trick of scaling and redrawing the model to do that because the exhausts are (for good reason!) positioned in world space rather than in ship space.

(Make the texture too opaque, and it becomes very obvious the exhaust has a well-defined edge: there may be some fancy vertex shader magic to be done on supporting computers, but I don't understand vertex shaders well enough)

If it is drawn with additive blending , could it be redrawn over the top several times - or you could use a shader material indeed with the texture coords and do the texture blending there. I would give the shader a try.

cim wrote:

Some new engine flare textures...

Just been having a nice long joust with a Viper or two (r5524)... the drive flares are definitely an improvement (imo).

Re new lasers: so they are a little heavier, eh? No wonder I had such a struggle in IS last night... even the drones were hitting hard (or so it seemed).

*deep breath*

ok... please don't throw me out the airlock for this... >.<
I dunno about the drive plumes, the motion effect or "streaming" so to speak, doesn't feel right to me.
It makes me think of liquid more than thrust or burn particularly with the broken up particle look.
If the old style plumes (or current style technically I guess) could just be made to fade in a softer way... which really doesn't explain much, hold on...

Like this...



That would be enough for me... probably a bit more polished than my hasty photoshop job though.

I feel very cheeky and ungrateful now for saying all that, but it's imho and I'm sure you want player feedback, good, bad and indifferent.

ok...

*runs away*

superbatprime wrote:

It makes me think of liquid more than thrust or burn particularly with the broken up particle look.

The 'conventional wisdom' is that the blue plume we see is some sort of emission or radiation, a by-product of the thrust process. It is not strictly an exhaust in the same sense as a rocket motor - the blue stuff doesn't push you along.
I actually like the 'broken up particle' look. It's like the radiation ionising space dust behind the ship.

superbatprime wrote:

ok... please don't throw me out the airlock for this... >.<

Guards!

No, seriously, all feedback welcome. Shaders and graphics effects are really not my area, and I'm not particularly happy with the new exhaust myself. (I think it's an improvement, or I wouldn't have committed it, but it still has problems)

cim wrote:

superbatprime wrote:

ok... please don't throw me out the airlock for this... >.<

Guards!

No, seriously, all feedback welcome. Shaders and graphics effects are really not my area, and I'm not particularly happy with the new exhaust myself. (I think it's an improvement, or I wouldn't have committed it, but it still has problems)

How about a sort of "corona" effect in which the "hot stuff" fades out much quickly and shows some stripes at the borders?
Something like this:

I think that it look better with a short and truncated plume.

Now that! would be cool.

Tichy wrote:

cim wrote:

superbatprime wrote:

ok... please don't throw me out the airlock for this... >.<

Guards!

No, seriously, all feedback welcome. Shaders and graphics effects are really not my area, and I'm not particularly happy with the new exhaust myself. (I think it's an improvement, or I wouldn't have committed it, but it still has problems)

How about a sort of "corona" effect in which the "hot stuff" fades out much quickly and shows some stripes at the borders?
Something like this:

I think that it look better with a short and truncated plume.

I think this effect looks great.

cim wrote:

Shaders and graphics effects are really not my area

Submersible seems pretty clued-up in the shader department.. perhaps he'd enjoy a break from working on planets to see what he could come up with.. couldn't hurt to ask..

See, superbatprime? no need to feel cheeky for requesting nicer plumes.. "volunteering" somebody else, on the other hand.. now that's cheeky!

Having experimented with that look a bit, I think it's too dependent on the exact shape of the ship it's attached to. It looks quite nice on some ships

but definitely not on others

If there was a single standard engine style across the entire game+OXPs then I could probably do something with it, but with the variety that's out there, a trail-style exhaust is much more practical.

I want to say that I really like what you have done with the lasers in trunk.

A little change, looks that much better. Cool!