Re: Effects showroom!

I could write a lengthy post explaining where this came from, how it works, etc. But for now, I am content with just a video. Please note that this is my personal mod Itano Circus, not Flak. However the ambient explosions can be implemented into other mods with some work.

Copy Paste this link for high quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyciCjGLL2w&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyciCjGLL2w&fmt=18

This is a short clip from my personal mod Itano Circus, a mod inspired heavily by both the Ace Combat and Macross Series.

Before the video starts I was in a pretty minor dogfight, this ended when a Molly Destroyer, escorted by 4 fighters shows up. (0:13) I do my best to keep my distance and isolate the fighters from the Destroyer. Fortunately for me, two squadrons of 8 Navy fighters join the fight. (1:02, bottom-right) They take down the Destroyer with a huge barrage of missiles (1:40) Funnily enough, just having a single 8 ship squadron spawn is a rare event, let alone two.

if u maybe resize those explosions into a larger size u can use it for suns

it would be awesome

missile spam is awesome ;D
Although, engine trail looks a bit overdone to me

have you checked how much the torpedo effects slow down FL?
if there are 4-5 on the screen the fps go down

Totally dependant on the user’s machine, not FL.

yeah but im already on a pretty good system

After I’ve seen very nice things… err effects, I decided to try creating some myself. I think they are nice

I have no idea whats going on in those screenshots, but it looks awesome. Also nice to see my use of EVE lights (the long horizontal lens flares) has caught on. I love those things.

Those are my custom ones, however many thanks to you, because the idea is by you

awesome

@Firekiss:

Those are my custom ones, however many thanks to you, because the idea is by you

Let me know if you figure out an efficient way to implement EVE lights onto ship engines. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but it requires a lot of in in depth pretty tedious work. I don’t know of a way to do it efficiently to every ship.

Maybe this isn’t the method you were looking for, but I don’t know about faster ones…

I think this should work: duplicate the engine fire effect, and set the correct width… use zero value for pressure and make low lifetime (so that it fits frequency, 1-2 particles should be shown on the screen at the same time)… Now you have the ale, implant the effect. Attach the effect to the ship with an AttachedFX entry (select_equip.ini). If you want the EVE light effect to be brigher when you go faster, set the correct frequency values (zero or very low when you don’t move, and higher for full throttle). After that, add the use_throttle line to the AttachedFX entry, and set its value to true.

That’s a really interesting technique, I will have to look into that.

Lately I have been messing with timings to create delay-launch missiles. Makes for hugely dramatic launches. Most of all for weapons like this:

Copy Paste for high quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCrwmxQpDxA&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCrwmxQpDxA&fmt=18

The secret to this is pretty simple.

Emitter_Frequency = {
Flag = 4
Entry = 0.0000000000000000, 100.0000000000000000
EFlag = 0
SubFlag = 1
SubEntry = 0.00, 60.00, 0.00, 0.00
SubEntry = 0.24, 60.00, 0.00, 0.00
SubEntry = 0.25, 30.00, 0.00, 0.00
SubEntry = 0.79, 30.00, 0.00, 0.00
SubEntry = 0.80, 60.00, 0.00, 0.00

I found that using multiple sub-entries allows for creation of an absolute timing scheme rather than the relative scheme that is normally found. When they are used in the emitter_frequency context anyways. This is basically saying that from time = 0 to 0.24, there is a short puff of smoke, then from 0.25 to 0.79, there is a slight smoke trail, then from 0.80 to the rest of the effect, the engine is ignited, and there is a full trail. Note, values greater than 1 are entirely possible, its just that in this example I only needed fractions of a second.

You will also need to modify your missile engines and muzzle velocities to create a believable motion for the missile. For my normal missiles I actually have the muzzle velocity at -20, dispersion_angle at 0.0001 (dispersion angle cannot be zero when there is a negative muzzle velocity, otherwise the missile always fires backwards), an acceleration of 100, and motor lifetime of 2.

[Edit]

Also, Youtube now has a super HD quality thingie. You can now watch videos uploaded in 1280x720 in their native-ish resolution. Meaning you can now watch them full screen with much less artifacts than before. I will definitely be taking advantage of this. “Another short clip of the mod. Since last video, torpedoes have been adjusted to be mounted on applicable fighters in pairs.”

Copy - Paste link as usual. SIlly Starport auto-embed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1jRqTGi6Xw&fmt=22

Outstanding stuff mate!! Its guys like you who are advancing the Freelancer modding knowledgebase. Keep it up. high five

I totally agree with Forsaken here. Amazing work, Why485. And thank you for sharing your fantastic work with us!

@Why485:

Copy - Paste link as usual. SIlly Starport auto-embed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1jRqTGi6Xw&fmt=22

Lol, shall i see if i could disable it? (more than likely) or would it be better making a poll because some people might like the auto embed feature.?

@cheese:

@Why485:

Copy - Paste link as usual. SIlly Starport auto-embed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1jRqTGi6Xw&fmt=22

Lol, shall i see if i could disable it? (more than likely) or would it be better making a poll because some people might like the auto embed feature.?

You cannot embed high quality YouTube links, so I have to post direct links instead, which is impossible with the auto-embed. For the most part, auto-embed is good. I just want some way to override it and prevent it from happening in situations when I would prefer to directly link to YouTube. Which just happens to be nearly always.

what i dont like is that at low speed (below the already said speed of (-)20) the missiles will fire backwards no matter what you do

i can imagine that this might have some unwanted side effects
example: i fired a missile yesterday and a few secs i was hostile with the entire system coz i accidentially hit a battleship which was behind me ^^

@OPR8R:

what i dont like is that at low speed (below the already said speed of (-)20) the missiles will fire backwards no matter what you do

i can imagine that this might have some unwanted side effects
example: i fired a missile yesterday and a few secs i was hostile with the entire system coz i accidentially hit a battleship which was behind me ^^

Considering that missile speeds are so dependent on the speed of the parent ship, I’m surprised any Freelancer player would still fire missiles from a standstill, or worse, while flying backwards. This is a valid issue though, I won’t deny it. I personally can live with it.

Also I realise this is becoming a bit… advertise-y, but this is still somewhat relevant. It is after all showcasing the majority of effects coding I’ve done recently. Not to mention extensive ini modifications to NPC behavior, weapons, etc to make battles as cinematic as possible.

For awesome quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqYS0U7ZvBM&fmt=22 (Recommended)

For high quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqYS0U7ZvBM&fmt=18

This is a video of a stress test in Itano Circus. Basically throw in lots and lots of ships, and see what happens. Obviously several gameplay mechanics were broken in order to do this, such as the much more numerous spawns and the fact that I have dual micro-missile launchers (A terrible idea in the real mod due to ammo consumption) and over 9000 rounds for said launchers.

EDIT by FF: Fixxored those links. Awesome work

EDIT by Why485: No, they are supposed to be broken. If I put in the address direct it auto-embeds, which is the standard icky quality. The only way for me to possibly give a YouTube link without it auto-embedding at super low quality is to do what I do. It forces you to copy-paste, but there is no alternative.

EDIT 2 by FF: In which case TinyURL is your friend ;D

EDIT 2 by Why485: Wow, thanks a lot, thats perfect.

After watching the FREAKIN’ INCREDIBLE video, I’ve decided one thing:

I want to steal your brain….

Spectacular stuff, Why…my lord…