Ejecting Vauss Bullet Casing effect?

[[]V[]essenjah]

Well, the casing effect failed. It seems as though you can only fire a particle effect that is on the round itself, even though it is assigned to the gun. I'm not certain if I can create a particle effect that is assigned to the actual gun by itself. First off, I couldn't figure out what I should assign the shell casing as in the table file so I created a generic object. That didn't seem to work. I even told the gun to look specifically for VShell.oof as that is the file name. Then I used orangespark. The same one that Digijoe used for his Metropololis GT mod. The effect works fine but when I fired it, I noticed that I would see a boat-load of sparks when it exited the barrel and a tiny few when it strikes it's target. So I assume that it just creates a constant effect on the round and the only reason we don't see the spark mid-air is because the project is an instant hit weapon.


I'm wondering, would there be any other way to create this effect? For instance, create some kind of robot that spawns and ejects the shell some way?

[Duper]

I don't know a whole lot about this stuff, but i have an idea.

Look at how the Mass Driver smoke is called up. It uses something like 3 different animated textures of barrel smoke when it's fired.
Perhaps creating the casings as an animated texture would be an easier way to go.

[Testiculese]

I have this on my effects set. It pops an orange spark at the gunpoint to simulate a casing, and I added a few extra sparks to the impact. If you are right up on the ship the sparks look sorta like sparks, but if the ship is a few feet away, it looks pretty much like casings. I'll put it up if you want to look at it.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Go ahead and post it. I can use all the help I can get. I wonder why the sparks didn't work on mine?


So, should I be able to the casings I created to work properly? I would rather get those going as they are actually very detailed, though low poly and 3-Dimensional. I just don't want them to spark with the explosion. It would look odd to have bullet shells splitting off from the explosion when the projectile hits the wall. You would probably have a higher chance seeing it too in this case.

[Testiculese]

The impact is a different object than the firing point. No worries. I'll link you tomorrow.

www.metallisoft.com/descent3.zip

This does not overwrite any d3 files, so you can delete'em all or parts or whatnot. It's the graphics set I play with.

[Glowhyena]

I put those files to D3 file?

[[]V[]essenjah]

Weird. I'm not seeing it Testi. Did you send me a previous version or something?



Update: I downloaded the version on PlanetDescent and I see the effect. It is the same effect Digijoe used actually. I see that I was mistaken in my theory. So I should be able to tweak this into the game. I just am not sure how to get it there. :\\ The effect you created is actually already available. You just had to adjust the table file to use it. It also simply uses a texture, where mine will use an OOF file. I would also like to get the particle effect to move faster. Where the problem comes in, is that I'm not sure what to set it up as in the table.gam file. The model and texture are ready to put in-game.

But should I make the VaussShell.oof into a generic object, a game file, or a weapon? I think your version just looks for a texture and uses that. The problem is that it looks great for low resolution players but someone playing on a 22\" screen at extremely high resolutions is simply identify them as sparks.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Ok, I've created the effect. How I ended up doing it, is I actually set up the vauss cannon to eject the bullet out of gunpoints 3 and 4 while the other two fire vauss cannons. I couldn't get it to work as a particle effect for some odd reason. I may try again but I fought it for quite a while.


The problem I'm having now, is that even though I add 9999.9 mass and 9999.9 gravity and provide 0 thrust, the bullets will still just sit there in mid-air. However, I am testing it in Abend. Which makes me wonder, does Abend have gravity? If not, that's probably why the bullet casings won't drop. Or, I may just be screwed in such a way that I can't have them drop. I hope not though. I can make them fire in reverse and have a short life-span but I'm not really satisfied with that particular effect. :
Also, can anyone point me out to where I can find the virtual compiler used for D3? I can't get D3Edit to work without it. I wanted to test Abend to see what it's gravity settings are but I can't even open the program. :\\

[DigiJo]

yes messenjah, the effects in metropolis_gt are the effects testi created.he was so kind to let me use them back when i made that thing. they looked so cool and needed allmost no extra resources when it comes to fps.

however there was one mod with real oof-shells ejected from the vauss-barrels and dropping to the ground if gravity was in, looked extremly nice but i cant remember in what level it was used and who made that effect.

the technolgy used there was 2 extra gunpoints on the pyrogl to eject the shells from there.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Yep, the effect you and Testi created were actually very cool effects for what they were. What amazes me is how D3 has so many resources available that were never used. Stryker and I were talking about the fact that the original D3 gam weapon files looked like they were thrown together as a rush job. Look at what I did last night for instance. It took me all of about 10 seconds to put together a better looking plasma orb and modify the sound a tiny bit and get them in-game. Not to mention, they probably require less resources since I used only a total of three glow effects to create it.


I was hoping that I wouldn't have to poke around so much in the gam files to create these effects but, you've gotta do what you've gotta do to get the job done.


I appreciate all your advice DigiJo. You have been actually really helpful and I still love your mod. Hope we can get another game up soon. If you can remember the name of that mod, let me know. I could really use the help.

Stryker has also been very helpful to me with his advice. All hail the mighty Gam-master

[[]V[]essenjah]

Ok, with help from Stryker, I have finally managed to slap this thing together the way I want it. I need to adjust the textures on the bullet shells however. But I think I'll start taking care of things that are a bit more pressing such as new concussion and homing missiles.

[Neumaennl]

aren't the shells a bit big?

[[]V[]essenjah]

They run about the length of a 50 cal. I wouldn't judge anything in D3 by exact size. There are characters walking around in the game that are as big as the ships!! The shells are long because the design is based on 50 caliber machine gun bullets. You are looking at multiple angles. Some are closer than others. I can easily shrink them down if people don't like it. I also plan to adjust the textures. This is a very VERY early stage. I'm just happy to have the physics working properly.

[Black Widow]

however there was one mod with real oof-shells ejected from the vauss-barrels and dropping to the ground if gravity was in, looked extremly nice but i cant remember in what level it was used and who made that effect.

the technolgy used there was 2 extra gunpoints on the pyrogl to eject the shells from there.

I think thats my mod you're talking about.
I wasn't very happy about the effect, because all the shells rotate and fall at the exact same speed.

In later version of the mod I used particles for the shells because I used the additional gunpoints for the spreadfire cannon.

[[]V[]essenjah]

however there was one mod with real oof-shells ejected from the vauss-barrels and dropping to the ground if gravity was in, looked extremly nice but i cant remember in what level it was used and who made that effect.

the technolgy used there was 2 extra gunpoints on the pyrogl to eject the shells from there.

I think thats my mod you're talking about.
I wasn't very happy about the effect, because all the shells rotate and fall at the exact same speed.

In later version of the mod I used particles for the shells because I used the additional gunpoints for the spreadfire cannon.

1. Shells seem to look ok to me when they drop. I would like them to use the physics system a little better but what can you expect from a game made in 99.

2. Why would they effect the spreadfire cannon? With spreadfire, you just spawned an invisible robot that would rotate and fire from 3 different gunpoints didn't you?

3. How did you get it to work as a particle effect? I couldn't get the game to recognise an OOF as a particle object. Maybe I'm mistaken though. That was my first theory actually.

[Black Widow]

1. Shells seem to look ok to me when they drop. I would like them to use the physics system a little better but what can you expect from a game made in 99.

Because gamtool doesn't allow randomness in parameters every casings moves exactly the same as the one before it, which isn't very realistic.

2. Why would they effect the spreadfire cannon? With spreadfire, you just spawned an invisible robot that would rotate and fire from 3 different gunpoints didn't you?

Actually, my spreadfire cannon works by putting 2 extra gunpoints on a rotating sprite in front of the ship. Because D3 only allows 8 gunpoints per ship I didn't have any gunpoints left to use for the casings.

3. How did you get it to work as a particle effect? I couldn't get the game to recognise an OOF as a particle object. Maybe I'm mistaken though. That was my first theory actually.

I meant to say sprites

[[]V[]essenjah]

Are you saying that you had casings for the spreadfire cannon? It's an energy weapon. It doesn't require casings.


I just used gunpoints 3 and 4 for the casings. Works like a charm and I imagine I could still create a spreadfire cannon. That only uses 4 gunpoints. And I thought D3 only allowed 6-7 gunpoints per-ship?


Yes, there isn't enough randomness but it isn't HL2. It's D3. It looks fine for an older game. Consider that Dues Ex had some of the ugliest physics I have ever seen in a game but it was still fun and I liked what was there.

When you used sprites, did you just use animated oaf files then to generate randomness? I don't see the difference in gunpoints between spitting out animated sprites and 3D bullet shells?

[Black Widow]

Are you saying that you had casings for the spreadfire cannon? It's an energy weapon. It doesn't require casings.

No, I used the extra gunpoints for the spreadfire, which means I couldn't use them for the vauss casings.

And I thought D3 only allowed 6-7 gunpoints per-ship?

It's 8 max . You'll get a "ANTIGRAV FAILURE" image in the reticule though.

When you used sprites, did you just use animated oaf files then to generate randomness? I don't see the difference in gunpoints between spitting out animated sprites and 3D bullet shells?

I did it the same way Testiculese did, except I used an image of a casing instead of a spark. This made the casings much more random, but also made them random in size

[[]V[]essenjah]

Are you saying that you had casings for the spreadfire cannon? It's an energy weapon. It doesn't require casings.

No, I used the extra gunpoints for the spreadfire, which means I couldn't use them for the vauss casings.

Hmmmm, so you used three gunpoints to fire three sprites one way, and 3 to fire the sprites the other way?


I still don't get it. What do the gunpoints when using one weapon have to do with another? I mean, I used the gunpoints normally used for quad firing for the shell effect and I can still use quad fire super-lasers no problem. I didn't use or create extra gunpoints for my effect, other than the quad-fire lasers. I mean, you can fire as many different kinds of missiles as you want out of the same gunpoint and MD and Napalm use the same gunpoint....

BTW, did you toy around with the wiggle amplitude on those casings? I was trying to get that to create randomness but to no avail.

Sorry, I'm just trying to understand what your telling me here. It doesn't make any sense to me that if you use gunpoints 3 and 4 for the spreadfire, that you can't use 3 and 4 for the vauss cannon if you can still use them for other various weapons. Unless you mean that you re-positioned the gunpoints and they look bad when ejecting the casings?

Makes more sense to me to just spawn a robot that is an invisible board that rotates and has three gunpoints attatched to it. Of course it is fixed no to a specific rate of fire. Unless, after you fire it, it doesn't remain in front of the ship, which would make sense. I might have to look at the gam file for the spreadfire cannon. :/

[Black Widow]

I put gunpoints 7 and 8 on the wings and used those to eject the casings sideways.

My spreadfire cannon works with 3 gunpoints attached to a rotating face, so I had to move gunpoint 7 and 8 tot the front of the ships.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Ah, I see. I just eject them behind the ship using a slight reverse initial thrust.

[Black Widow]

Heh, I didn't even know reverse initial thrust was possible

[[]V[]essenjah]

Yep, you CAN actually do that. I wondered if you could do that so I just typed in a negative number and it worked so I kept it. I didn't want to mess with firing the shells out of the sides of the ship. You have to watch the orientation of your projectiles though. If you want something to fire out the back of the ship for some reason, make sure to flip your mesh around before exporting to D3. Otherwise it will look odd. In the case of my bullet shells though, it looked fine.

[Theftbot]

You notice the shell castings on last Mercenary boss, I wonder if something like that is possible.

[Black Widow]

The casings on the merc boss was a script in the level.

It's possible to recreate, but it requires you to edit the original level script, which can only be done if you have the script source.

[Blackvertigo1]

On the Vauss it materializes its rounds.. same goes with the mass driver.

[Testiculese]

Hi! Welcome to last decade.

[Glowhyena]

I put those files to D3 file?

Oh my, look at my old post! Why did I say 'file' instead of 'folder'?

[Testiculese]

Why did it take you 5 years to figure it out?!