problem with vfx and placeable visibility

[Legacy_Monsieur T]

               I am using Axe's brilliant Siege Weaponry system to build a module involving the defence of a mountain pass.
Oddly, I have noticed that the missile and explosion vfxs are only visible up to 4 tiles/40 metres away from the point of origin! Furthermore, the same thing seems to apply to placeables!
By contrast, tileset features such as trees and rocks are visible out to at least 100m.
I have fog turned off (clip distance set to 100m) and have altered ranges.2da to give PCs 75m vision, but nothing seems to help.
Any ideas as to what to do would be greatly appreciated.
By the way, does anyone know what Secondary Range in ranges.2da refers to?
Thanks.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               You are coming up against visibility issues connected to the engine.

I would first look at confirming whether what you are calling a "vfx" is a VFX as in an effect defined in the visual effects 2da and applied by script as a VFX rather than a placeable created dynamically.

Hopefully some others will also chime in to help.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               I also really come across one such limit, found out that you cant spawn placeable into wall where PC doesnt see it and then run its animation - PC wont be able to see placeable (at least always - affected by camera rotation it seems) animating even if animation normally go beyond the wall - good example of this is CEP wall/rolling stone trap

(btw solved it by modifying the placeable's root position and moving it into PC's vision
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 15 août 2013 - 12:10 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...
(btw solved it by modifying the placeable's root position and moving it into PC's vision

Nice trick. Perhaps this could work in this case as well.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <tossing the ball...>

Experimentation with Cestus' Skyball of the Starry Rift (Nov 2012 CCC) and the area-long triggers for the Regional Mod system both showed that things, all *kinds* of things, that are dynamically loaded in are not rendered if the *origin* of the object is more than 40m away from the PC.

Hence, I put the origin of the skyball in the center of a 9x9 area (surrounded by chasm) so the PC can't get more than 40m away from it.

Also, if the origin, the first coordinate of a trigger (transition in this case) is located more than 40m away from the PC, the transition will not be visible (but still work) and debug messages spoken by the trigger will not be seen.

This doesn't apply to static objects or (I think) to *tile* animations that are loaded before any placeables or other objects. But it certainly applies to placeables, VFX & transitions (which I believe are rendered with the VFX sub-system).

<...back into the other court>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Monsieur T]

               Ah well, nothing to be done then.
Thanks to all for your advice, though.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <setting up the...>

Actually, if you are sure of where your PC's will be standing (within 40m) when they should see the seige bombardment, you need only (!) modify some placeables or vfx so that the bombardment happens 100m away, but the origin or root of the object is within 40m of where the player should be.

The skyball I mentioned above is (I think) 150m from the center, to reduce parallax and make it seem for sky-ish. The important point was to place the origin inside that rendering limit.

So just channel your players (with cliffs or boulders or invisible, whispering horrors or something so they arrive at the viewpoint you want and get the full effect of the... er, effect =)

<...cattle chutes>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <clearing up...>

Also, you mentioned something about changing the ranges.2da?
Please be aware that that does not affect PC graphics or visibility at all.

BigfootNZ says...
Now interestingly these ranges of perception are controlled through the Ranges.2da, this 2da not only controls the in game spell ranges (P, T, S, M, L) but also the ranged weapons distance used by the ranged weapon rows in Baseitems.2da. Within this Ranges.2da there are 2 columns, the Primary Range and Secondary Range, for the spell and weapon ranges only the primary range column is used. For all the rest, which are the Perception ranges you can choose for creatures within the toolset, both columns are used.

I.e. the perception ranges are checks used to fire a creature/NPC's onPerception event. They have nothing to do with the PC.

<...a puzzling point>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Proleric]

               

<clearing up...>

Also, you mentioned something about changing the ranges.2da?
Please be aware that that does not affect PC graphics or visibility at all.


I.e. the perception ranges are checks used to fire a creature/NPC's onPerception event. They have nothing to do with the PC.

<...a puzzling point>

Well, as far as placeables and VFX are concerned, that's true.

However, as Virusman recently pointed out, PercepRngPlayer, which defaults to 35 metres, does affect the distance at which creatures render. Increasing this to (say) 100 metres seems to work well in SP, though we're told there can be performance issues in multiplayer.

The main reason I'm playing about with this is to render passing ships and flotsam at sea. With this tweak, creatures work well. Animated placeables incorporating the origin tweak mentioned above, such as Oseryn's excellent Sailing Ships, are great - I will certainly be using them, too. However, for new objects,, I find it easier to make a creature from the placeable, rather than animate it!

It occurs to me that stationary creatures could be made that look like placeables or VFX, in a similar manner to usable armour stands and the like.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Frush O'Suggill]

               

I like the idea of making siege weapons into creatures as well. It would have the added benefit of allowing for positioning and aiming them much more easily.