Adding Weather Effects

[Legacy_Rubies]

               I can't find a 2da for any weather entries (except for the ones in environment.2da) so I'm curious if this is hardcoded or not. Does this just have to be done (at a performance disadvantage) through placeables? Better yet, could it be done through tile animations?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rubies, 08 mars 2012 - 03:28 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               I like the way you think. *keeps listening*
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               I was just reading about the environment.2da thing last night.  For weather presets in the toolset, that's what you'd want to edit.  AFAIK, that's all environment.2da is for.  Never messed with it, myself.

The weather does appear to be hardcoded, at least in the respect that fx_rain, fx_snow and fx_lightning01 are all referenced directly in nwmain.exe.  You can edit those models though, but it's going to change the effect everywhere.

If you want to play around with making custom weather effects, like new types of rain, maybe experiment with VFX first instead of placeables?.  Rain is just an illusion.  When it's raining, it's not raining everywhere in a level. Just on the player.

Here is a link to a modified fx_rain.mdl which should allow you to see more clearly how rain really works.  It has been modified quite a bit to exaggerate the beahvior of what rain does and how it's applied.  Just pop it into your override and go into a rainy area.

Change the camera orientation, move around, etc.  See what I mean?



I'm not sure how well this would actually translate over to VFX or what kind of gotchas are hiding there or, perhaps, in multiplayer situations.  Might be easiest to start there, though.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               OTR - with a VFX like that, is it possible that only the player will see it? In other words - is it possible to restrict visibility of a VFX to a single player?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rubies]

               Yeah I've already made a few edits to the standard weather effects but wanted to try a light/moderate/heavy rain and also to fix the fact that weather effects aren't shown when zoomed in (likely due to the fact it's 2x2 emitters) without having to use placeables. Shame! (As a note try using motion blur/trail effect on rain, I love the look of it). '>

I think you can accomplish the individual weather look through NWNX, though I'm not entirely sure -- it's not possible in standard NWN with weather effects, at least.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rubies, 08 mars 2012 - 07:54 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               @heneusa - My guess is any user-made effect like that would be visible to other players.

@Rubies - Hrm...Interesting.  I'll have to check out those plugins.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               Since the subject is more or less relevant here, I thought I'd ask the question here rather than start a lumpily pointless new thread, see if there's any response...

As Rubies mentioned, weather effects, especially the (none-too-clever in the first place) snow, vanishes in-game when the camera is zoomed in close to the PC. This is deeply irritating at a profound, even molecular, level. I've tried all manner of things with no worthwhile results... unless "nothing at all" or "crashing the game" can be considered worthwhile results.

I need vast, sweeping polar blizzards, not one pathetic snowflake per hour glimpsed at the side of the screen... So, before I finally start creating IMMENSE weather VFX Placeables and straining the game hideously by piling a hundred of them into every area, has anyone out there had any success in solving the "Vanishing Weather When Zoomed In" issue?

Any suggestions gratefully received. Thanks in advance, PHoD.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_KlatchainCoffee]

               In one of my old hakpacks there was a placeable of falling snowflakes. And also moving cloud placeables floating around at the top the the Z axis.

It sounds like it needs to be bigger than just a placeable.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_dusty.lane]

               

PLUSH HYENA of DOOM wrote...

Since the subject is more or less relevant here, I thought I'd ask the question here rather than start a lumpily pointless new thread, see if there's any response...

As Rubies mentioned, weather effects, especially the (none-too-clever in the first place) snow, vanishes in-game when the camera is zoomed in close to the PC. This is deeply irritating at a profound, even molecular, level. I've tried all manner of things with no worthwhile results... unless "nothing at all" or "crashing the game" can be considered worthwhile results.

I need vast, sweeping polar blizzards, not one pathetic snowflake per hour glimpsed at the side of the screen... So, before I finally start creating IMMENSE weather VFX Placeables and straining the game hideously by piling a hundred of them into every area, has anyone out there had any success in solving the "Vanishing Weather When Zoomed In" issue?

Any suggestions gratefully received. Thanks in advance, PHoD.

If the VFX placeables are not covering enough area that you need to use hundreds of them in each area, why not make them cover a more vast area? Or better yet, area variables that tell scripts whether it is (weather type), and then apply a visual effect unto the player. Though that may not work too well if you zoom out really far.

Either way, you could have a super weather placeable, whom depending on how you activate it, gives off different weather effects.

I just don't believe that any other method will always end in a lot of lag.

Also I really hope one day we can get a sandstorm visual effect.

Edit: I would even make it if somebody figured out a reliable way to make custom weather!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par dusty.lane, 16 octobre 2013 - 06:10 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               +1 for sandstorm. '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               @PHOD have you looked at the December 2011 custom content challenge (Winter Stuff)? Specifically Cestus Dei's Snow Flurry submission. The full result for that month's challenge can be found on both vaults (Old vault link - new vault link). Hope this is of some use.

TR
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               Tried vast Placeables for weather, having had some success in doing BIG things for the PHoD New VFX Hak on the Vault, and although I managed to extend fairly focused "beams" over something like 15 Tiles in a single direction, a "square" area VFX Placeable (which you'd need for weather) never seems to exceed a couple of Tiles no matter what values you append to the scale. I did have a few further thoughts of things to try with VFX for weather that might increase the size, or the particle spread at any rate, so I guess I'll go back and hit things with some new and different bricks...

+2 for sandstorm... I tried making a Placeable sandstorm a couple of years back and, although it sort of worked a bit, slightly, sort of, from certain angles, the problem was that however much it billowed, it remained in one spot.
A sandstorm does many things; sitting still is not one of them. Haven't yet had any brilliant flashes of inspiration on how to get a constant succession of billowing sandstorm (or blizzard) Placeables to constantly rush along from one end of an Area to the other.
There was the "River" VFX I did in my PHoD New VFX Hak which hurtled along across 15 Tiles, but it was a fairly focused stream, as mentioned, and trying to spread the emitter to a huge, broad, sandstormesque front proved rather less than effective. Adding multiple streams just brought everything to a hideously laggy end.

Sounds like I'm going to have to keep putting the boot in on these VFX Placeables of Outrageous Proportions until I stumble accidentally over - I mean, until I brilliantly devise an astounding work of genius.

Thanks for the suggestions!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ShadowM]

               Ok since everyone seem to want it and I have some free time I started work on it. Making good progress starting off with the pixie dust emitter. The trick of getting this over a big area will be a combination of emitter life/spread/velocity and animating the emitters or invisible placable the emitter are attached to.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShadowM, 17 octobre 2013 - 04:37 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_ShadowM]

               The question is how many particles do we want flying around? I mean a sand storm would have a lot. I have it working on about a three tile by three tile area coming down similar to snow. I slowly adding more and I see how it effects things.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               sand storms look more like dust clouds that you can't see through. Maybe a mix of small particles and big particles would work best and help cut down on the number.