Wow stupid things that I just though about that work

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:29 am

I can't bevlive I didn't think of this earlier but whatever. The shadow thing the artifacts. Guess what? The shadows are not double sided.

I read quite a few posts about damn those godforsaken artifacts. well why dont you make the shadow models normals fliped? I was just messing with a cardboard guy and it works fine. Now no need even for carbboard guy (exept the great performance boost.) Just flip the normals and offset a tiny bit and your shadows are friggin perfect.

This poly shadow guy is 300 polygons. They are around the guy and just inside him they are normal fliped and the shadow renders on him only if it is correct for the light scrource. Works as a SEP. and as a soley shadowguy player model as in these screens shots.

so if you did this or a carboard guy you could even go with less polys.
then you can use potentialy 8-12 lights for soft shadowing. and still keep a nice 2000 poly player model.

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:46 am

ok so now I have this down to a science can sombody please help me step by step get this into my demo?

Post by **AndyCR** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:06 am

not tested, might very well not work.

Code: Select all

{

Spawn[()
{
LowLevel("setup");
}]

setup[()
{
SetNoCollision();
self.yaw_speed = 100000;
self.pitch_speed = 100000;

self.think = "update";
}]

update[()
{
self.ThinkTime = 0.0;

self.ideal_yaw = self.player_yaw;
ChangeYaw();

PositionToPlayer(0, 0, 0, true);

self.ideal_pitch = -(self.camera_pitch);
ChangePitch();
}]

}

make a pawn entry with stencil buffer shadows enabled, make the actorname the name of the cardboard actor, and apply in your modeling program a texture of 100% transparent tga. stick him in your level with the pawn's spawnorder as Spawn and it should work.

thanks to zen for part of the script.

note that this will not animate it. i'm not sure if/how this could be done. if someone would compile it for me, i could probably add a pawn command that returns the current player animation, which would make it possible.

EDIT: I coded it in, it should work, if there are errors, they should be very easy to fix, can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/andycr/CPawnModified.zip , we need someone to compile an rf exe with it in it before it'll work though. I dont have a compiler that can do the job.

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:59 am

Now we are cookin. ok so how long you figure?

EDIT:

Just thought of something you know a cardboard guy could have parts that attatch to bones then you could use dupes for his actorfiles (Arms legs etc ) and catnt they be added like a weapon like that? I dont know I havn't gotten into weapons yet.

But I heared they had there own animations that mimic the player.

Post by **AndyCR** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:02 am

? How long do I figure for what?

thats true, he could easily simply be added as a third person weapon, supposing you dont have any weapons in your game or they're scripted. youd simply set it up as usual, but dont have it fire anything, texture it with a transparent tga. there would i think have to be an rf change that allowed third person weapons to cast shadows, though, i dont think it can do it currently. great idea!

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:04 am

someone compiles it.

Post by **AndyCR** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:07 am

i honestly don't know. soon i hope.

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:08 am

I was gonna download tha zip file just to poke around and see what I could understand of it. but the link seems off it takes me back to the forum page.
Hey thanks for helping out on this so fast.

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:13 am

Hey wile I got ya here any idea whats up with the ENV mapping?

Post by **AndyCR** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:15 am

no problem, hope it helps.

try copying and pasting the url into your browser, freewebs likes to play games like that. if you get it and want to see what i did, search the files for andycr.

no clue. last time i tried it was 072 or 072a and it worked. havent tried it in 075. (assume you mean sphere mapping)

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:20 am

Yep it turns your water into odd much it "kind" works like if the model in question is an animated model it works but if you move around it it doesn't move the texture.
That with alpha masks in kind of a must for alot of special effects. I am surprised more people are noticing.

Sorry for the typos been at it 48 hrs again

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:24 am

Another qeustion, sorry to be a pest but the more I know the more I can be of help. are there any regulations for custom animations I did few and they crashed the demo. I made a walk and idle and run jump etc. They didn't workout too well. I followed the right percedure acording to all the tit.

Post by **AndyCR** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:28 am

make sure the files used to generate the animations (ie walk.mot or walk.key) all have unique names, and that you reference the correct animaion names where needed.

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:34 am

yeah did that but no good I am trying to use virgils anim now on custom skeleton it "kind works" I'll just keep screwing with it till I get it.