Enhance effects/graphic ideas/suggestion

pedro0930 · Post by **pedro0930** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 7:37 am

1. Is it possible to make death animation in Allegiance for captial ship and space station? For example, instead of just explode in a large blast, a space station can have small explosion popping out all over the hull then vanish in a large blast, perhaps leave some metal scrap which slowly fade and disappear.

2. Is it possible to animate ships? If it's possible then modeller can make, for example, turrets turnable, that'd be something quite impressive to watch. /ninja.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":ninja:" border="0" alt="ninja.gif" />

3. Missiles actually explode when hitting something instead of just disappear.

4. Is it possible to create a high-def graphic pack for ships and stations or is the current ones already reach the limit of the engine?

5. I think it'd be cool if we can have different particle effects. For now, most of the weapons fire a ball like energy or projectile. Different effects can be like laser beam in StarWar core or projectile fired from AC Drone which has sort of a "tail" which is quite an eye-candy /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

CronoDroid · Post by **CronoDroid** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 8:34 am

1. Dunno
2. It wouldn't make much sense with turrets that can turn in any direction on the X and Y plane.
3. Edit the smoke puff that appears when a missle impacts to a explosion using the MDL tools/Image editor, maybe?
4. We could potentially edit all or some of the skins to make them higher-res (I've just added decals to my new ship skins) using the MDL tools.
5. Again, it could be possible by just editing the MDL files.

Your_Persona · Post by **Your_Persona** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 8:40 am

Pedro wrote:QUOTE (Pedro @ Jul 28 2006, 01:37 AM) 4. Is it possible to create a high-def graphic pack for ships and stations or is the current ones already reach the limit of the engine?

Yes, the release after R2 will have the ability to use higher res textures.

We just need somone that has the will to do it. The textures could be recreated at 2048x2048 or 1024x1024, I reccommend 2048x2048 as the engine has the ability to scale down a texture to a smaller size, and with 512mb graphics cards becoming popular, and 1gb ones on the tip of the ice berg, as well as the large size of harddrives and the power of current computers, I see no reason to create the new artwork at 1024x1024 when 2048x2048 would look so stellar.

Post by **Raveen** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 9:00 am

It'd make sense to make any new art at 2048*2048 and scale it either in Alleg itself or in a art program to whatever size is appropriate as long as the 2048 ones are kept and can be applied later when technology catches up.

It'll be a big big job though.

Rakinite · Post by **Rakinite** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 2:22 pm

Pedro wrote:QUOTE (Pedro @ Jul 28 2006, 03:37 AM) 1. Is it possible to make death animation in Allegiance for captial ship and space station? For example, instead of just explode in a large blast, a space station can have small explosion popping out all over the hull then vanish in a large blast, perhaps leave some metal scrap which slowly fade and disappear.

Somewhat possible. I know that the small explosions can be changed from air leaks that happen when you take enough damage. However, they would have to appear before the big stuff died, and getting them to appear all over the hull would be difficult to say the least.

Capships already do leave scraps, but those scraps are cargo.

Anyways, YP, I would love to see 2048x2048 textures, but my graphics card is only a 256 MB non-top of the line card, so if we are increasing the possible amount of detail on the textures, I would make the ultra-hires optional.

Adaven · Post by **Adaven** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 3:34 pm

Rakinite wrote:QUOTE (Rakinite @ Jul 28 2006, 09:22 AM) I would make the ultra-hires optional.

That is the great thing about textures. The textures on your machine don't have to match the textures on everyone else's. So if 2048x2048 is too much for you, then you can simply use the standard ones.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 6:27 pm

2048x2048? pshhh that's only 12mb per texture with maybe 4 different types of ship per sector + 2 bases + 6 asteroid textures, thats only 144mb of video memory for textures alone /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

Ksero · Post by **Ksero** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 9:41 pm

Orion wrote:QUOTE (Orion @ Jul 28 2006, 08:27 PM) 2048x2048? pshhh that's only 12mb per texture with maybe 4 different types of ship per sector + 2 bases + 6 asteroid textures, thats only 144mb of video memory for textures alone /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

Nah... Texture compression should quarter that number. But wait... since when does Allegiance have texture compression? :\

badpazzword · Post by **badpazzword** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:39 pm

Your_Persona wrote:QUOTE (Your_Persona @ Jul 28 2006, 10:40 AM) The textures could be recreated at 2048x2048 or 1024x1024, I reccommend 2048x2048 as the engine has the ability to scale down a texture to a smaller size, and with 512mb graphics cards becoming popular [...], as well as the large size of harddrives and the power of current computers, I see no reason to create the new artwork at 1024x1024 when 2048x2048 would look so stellar.

Stellar download times for who use those galactic dialups.

For each texture, according to madp estimation, that's 12mb =~ 1h 12min. That's frustrating

Flower · Post by **Flower** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:45 pm

badpazzword wrote:QUOTE (badpazzword @ Jul 29 2006, 02:39 PM) Stellar download times for who use those galactic dialups.

For each texture, according to madp estimation, that's 12mb =~ 1h 12min. That's frustrating

He was talking about the uncompressed size they will occupy in the videoram. When properly compressed they could be reduced to about 1MB to 1.5MB in file size. (depends on the compression level of course)