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Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 4:40 pm
by blutwurstchen
Anyone have any ideas about how I could create a star wars blaster type bolt?
Have tried attaching a bolt, light and a corona effect to a projectile. The results are pretty random and unsatisfactory. I think I want to keep the geometry visible, but have it give off an intense glow.
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:36 pm
by Zidane
Attach a spout entity
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:05 pm
by blutwurstchen
I tried using an actor spray effect, but for some reason it didn't work and it crashed the demo. I know this is a bit more complex than a standard spray, but I want the projectile to look three dimension (it is a long bolt of light) rather than flat.
Does anyone have a working effect.ini entry that they could post so I could take a look at it? I would really appreciate it.
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 12:43 am
by blutwurstchen
Well,
I achieved a reasonable effect using a projectile actor. The problem I had, was trying to get the thing to look like a glowing bolt of light, and even with a light effect and a corona effect that wasn't working for me. In the end I just used a flat polygon that I applied a tga texture (with alpha) too. I copied this and rotated it 90 degrees and mirrored it over to the other side. Because its so low poly, it will be possible to create some pretty intense multi-pawn shoot outs.
I'll post a screenshot or capture, as soon as I figure out how to make one.
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 7:59 pm
by blutwurstchen
Well, here's what I've got so far. Haven't yet aligned the projectile so it comes from the right part of the gun. I'm going to scale it up and shorten it, so the bolt is fatter, that way it will still be as visible when it is speeded up.
I'll probably need to put a few more cross sections in too give the appearance that the thing is round when you see it in first person view.
Does anyone have suggestions?
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 9:42 am
by metal_head
Yay, that looks pretty good! The only problem is that it cannot get any brighter (saddly there's no FullBright for actors

)...
Hey, sorry for the off topic, but were did you get this blood decal on the secon screen? I've looked everywhere for a blood decal like this one and no luck, tried to make my owns, but they didn't look good...
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 4:26 pm
by blutwurstchen
I made the brush using Photoshop. Though it is not the best. It was my first attempt at something like the blood spatter in Counterstrike Source. I will make some better decals when I get round to it - some finer spatter, and scorch marks for the blaster. Feel free to mess around with the settings so that it doesn't look too much like ketchup.
One problem I've found is that if you shoot the wall near a doorway - you see the full decal, even the blood spatter on the open space! And if you shoot in a corner a decal will not be applied to two adjacent brushes so you'll just see half of it. Looks odd.

- blood.jpg (42.04 KiB) Viewed 3382 times

- a_blood.jpg (34.33 KiB) Viewed 3382 times
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 10:22 am
by zany_001
There is also this useful tutorial for GIMP which I use for my blood textures and decals:
http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/bloo ... xture.html
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:01 pm
by blutwurstchen
Thanks for that. It looks cool. I never used GIMP.
Would it be possible to use a brush in RFEdit that was used as a projectile. You can make brushes emit light and be transparent, move and damage pawns.
The problem would be how you could get them to be triggered by clicking the fire button, align to the player (wherever he was), and respawn every time you fire etc.
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:03 pm
by Juutis
Would it be possible to use a brush in RFEdit that was used as a projectile. You can make brushes emit light and be transparent, move and damage pawns.
The problem would be how you could get them to be triggered by clicking the fire button, align to the player (wherever he was), and respawn every time you fire etc.
Even if this was possible (which I don't think), it would hardly be worth the trouble.
Have you tried attaching a light effect to the projectile?
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 9:04 pm
by metal_head
wouldn't the light effect affect the walls,floors, ceilings and objects arround the projectile and not the projectile itself?
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 9:15 pm
by Juutis
Just make it very small and be sure to attach it near the origin of the projectile actor and it should be fine.
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:13 pm
by blutwurstchen
I've actually got a light effect attached to that projectile. The problem is, even turned up to maximum intensity, its still not very bright. I'm going to try making the default level lighting quite a lot darker, and putting in a few more medium intensity room lights to see if that helps.
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:58 pm
by metal_head
hmm, I decided to make myself a projectile of that type, I made the tga texture, made the model, I set everything to 255 255 255 so in Milkshape, no shadows were applied on the model, it was really bright.. so I put it ingame, I attatched a light effect to it, but the result was still the same, the projectile wasn't at fullbright...
Re: Star wars blast type projectile
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:55 pm
by blutwurstchen
So I guess actors cannot be fullbright.
Are there any other options?