Author Topic: NWNCX Suggestion - open "hard coded" visual effects to modification/addition  (Read 6684 times)

Legacy_MerricksDad

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               I think if my weapon fx base file doesn't make it by monday I will go ahead and comment to them. In the meantime it just lets me add to it. I was just surprised at how slow it was now in 2012 and in 2006 it only took a few hours max.

Does anybody have any requests for beam fx? I am just going to mass produce a bunch of stuff from various games until I've got my fill. Starting with diablo 3, moving back to wowc, probably stop at some space games while I am at it, maybe some star wars stuff. If you have a pic or movie, I'd be glad to inspect it.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_OldTimeRadio

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               If you're looking for ideas, the Vault is always a good place to start.  Also the Omnibus is a great place for ideas, too.  I'm going to play around with ideas I find there, mostly.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Shadooow

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MerricksDad wrote...

Does anybody have any requests for beam fx? I am just going to mass produce a bunch of stuff from various games until I've got my fill. Starting with diablo 3, moving back to wowc, probably stop at some space games while I am at it, maybe some star wars stuff. If you have a pic or movie, I'd be glad to inspect it.

prismatic ray please '<img'>

EDIT: though of some more:
- (fire) shuriken projectile-like beam (for the fire shurikens spell)
- whirling blade like Blade sentinel/fury abilities from diablo2 (assassin->traps)
               
               

               


                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 19 juillet 2012 - 01:05 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_MerricksDad

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ShaDoOoW wrote...
prismatic ray please '<img'>

EDIT: though of some more:
- (fire) shuriken projectile-like beam (for the fire shurikens spell)
- whirling blade like Blade sentinel/fury abilities from diablo2 (assassin->traps)

How would you like a prismatic ray? Should it be like a unicorn farting a rainbow, or should it be like a spray of various gems, or shoudl it simply flicker the color palette as it shoots to the enemy. Do you have an example, maybe even if you just draw it and upload it? Otherwise I could do the prismatic ray from starcraft that has a pink and green glow but is just a thick beam.

projectile weapons would be best as beziers I think. I could just take a weapon graphic and fire one off, rotating it as it makes its way to the target. Likewise an actual model of a weapon could be shot out of a bezier effect. The birthrate would set how many objects per second showed hitting the enemy. If a spread was needed, you just do the same thing as a cone emitter. I am not actually sure if I remember how that worked in D2. Was it a cone or a single shot? I will have to see if there are already models out there for various projectile weapons and maybe use those.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Shadooow

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               prismatic ray should be thick or bit fatter ray, as there is already cone-like vfx for prismatic spray that is however different spell, this is beam

blade sentinel is a whirling shuriken moving on the path and back, blade furry is IIRC rather simple to hit shuriken projectile using many shurikens some images are here: http://classic.battl...sin-traps.shtml

anyway just thought from the images of Warlock in DnD: Complete Arcane: would be possible to make an end of the beam explode ? Or maybe something like two beam conjuring from each hand combining into one ? Hmm hard to describe with my limited english, try to find the complete arcane on filestube and look into it, you will understand...
               
               

               
            

Legacy_MerricksDad

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               ok blade sentinel, if you wanted a near match, I would actually just get a shuriken model animate it to spinning in place. Either make it a placeable or apply it as an effect you can move. Script it in so anybody within x meters of the placeable gets hit. That's not so much a spell animation and definitely not a beam. Alternately you could make an animation that moves the blade from its base to x meters away and set up a zone spell. Then when you cast the spell, the effect gains the alignment of your character and stays where you put it, underlayed with your damage causing zone. Again not a beam.

I am not certain by images, but blade fury looks like a spray to a single point, for which you also don't need a beam, although a bezier ray might be more direct to the target the way you want. Bezier can be made to stop at the target while other effects just pass through. Again you need a shuriken model, or at least a shuriken texture, to align flat to the map. I would not use a beam for it personally, but casting the bezier as a beam does give you that end target point. Let me look into this one a bit and maybe I can come up with a good bezier for you.

Working on a few prismatic beams right now.

Beams cannot split at the end, they only converge. You can however cut them short with the threshold value, but never tried it.
If you combine a high threshold value with a high lightningRadius value, random chance could make your beam open on the end instead of closed. That is all theoretical as I have not played with it.
You then apply an explosion impact on your target, filling in the gap. Explosions should be taken care of with impact effects not in the actual beam model.
Making beams come from both hands requires the use of the "up" casting animation and a patch for your character animation models that sets monster nodes at each hand OR spacing the beam emitters so far apart. However spacing them in the beam model will not look right on all races.
Look up "monster nodes", I think OldTimeRadio has a great video on what you can do with that. See if making beams come from special points is something you really want to do on your models first.
If you get that far and have a monster beam set up per hand, you can then do two EffectBeam() functions in your spell script and apply one to "monster1" and one to "monster 2". You'd need two beam effects unless you want each beam to be the same (like Kells and Warlocks in Dungeon Siege 1).
I didn't see any prismatic beam graphics in complete arcane, but I did see 3 pages where beams originated at both hands. That kind of stuff could be done, but depending on how far apart the hands are, the two beams would not combine until the target. So far as I know I cannot cast a beam from hand 1 to hand 2 on the same model either unless I simply guessed at where it was.

Dungeon siege 1 also has some interesting effects most people never see. For instance there is an effect where when casting, the caster's arm all the way up to the shoulder takes on a sparkle. Its not a texture on the model itself, they just knew where the arm model was supposed to be (from what I can see). If you make assumptions you usually lose out, especially when trying to fit something to every race. But if you made a matching effect for every race it would probably work just fine.

here is my second attempt at a prismatic beam. http://www.facebook....2200912&type=3. The first was utter failure so lets not talk about it. I would personally go a bit fatter and brighter for one I would use. A custom explosion is probably also required, however if the DND prismatic beam is supposed to do different things, then maybe the impact vfx already available are sufficient for each effect.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Daijin

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               Nice prismatic stream! '<img'>
               
               

               
            

Legacy_MerricksDad

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               I have two files waiting for approval on NWvault. One for my growing beams library and one for weapon fx library. Hopefully they get published soon. If not I will just make code shares of my models and post my custom textures on FB as png's. I still have 200+ weapon fx to convert to NWNCX and I have no intentions of stopping beam creation anytime soon.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Shadooow

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               perfect
               
               

               
            

Legacy_MerricksDad

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               Would it be too difficult to change the weapon swoosh which seems hardcoded so it was able to take on an effect as well? Maybe make a 2da for it and an effect applier? I'm not really sure what can and can't be done because I am not exactly sure what files are being edited to allow for this new content.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon

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MerricksDad wrote...

Would it be too difficult to change the weapon swoosh which seems hardcoded so it was able to take on an effect as well? Maybe make a 2da for it and an effect applier? I'm not really sure what can and can't be done because I am not exactly sure what files are being edited to allow for this new content.

That would be cool.  I'm imagining a hot sword that trails flames, but only when swung in combat.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_MerricksDad

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               Ok, Errol is currently on vacation on NWvault so if I get a sec today to get some of these weapon fx and beams elsewhere, I will post links here.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_MerricksDad

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               Beams pack. Its small right now but it wont be for long:
http://www.4shared.c...W/BeamPack.html

WeaponFx pack. Its only got 3 models in it, but it has some pics of others of the 200+ weapons I need to convert to NWNCX.
http://www.4shared.c...X_WepFX_20.html
               
               

               
            

Legacy_virusman

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NWNCX Suggestion - open "hard coded" visual effects to modification/addition
« Reply #118 on: August 06, 2012, 12:10:53 am »


               The files are now on the Vault:
http://nwvault.ign.c...s.Detail&id=490
http://nwvault.ign.c...s.Detail&id=491
               
               

               


                     Modifié par virusman, 05 août 2012 - 11:11 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_Failed.Bard

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NWNCX Suggestion - open "hard coded" visual effects to modification/addition
« Reply #119 on: October 08, 2012, 04:41:20 am »


               I noticed the other day, that a shield "parried" arrow, seems to use a variant of the homing arrow VFX that targets the lforearm node.
 Does that mean it might be possible for vfx to be made to target other nodes than impact and head, or is that a specific hard-coded exception?