Building smoke fix

Discussion in 'Art' started by Empty, Aug 15, 2009.

  1. Demented

    Demented Member

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    That part is unchanged from your example (it seemed decent enough).
    All I really added was the built/unbuilt part.
    Fire/smoke doesn't matter to me so long as I can tell what's what.

    Buildings start at 12.5% health when placed, or equivalent to -12.5% health in that table. -13% seemed like a good spacing for telling you if a building has just been placed. Likewise -99% means it'll have at least some smoke until the building is built, so you know that the building still isn't finished.
     
  2. Empty

    Empty Member

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    I don't honestly care how it's hooked up reef.
    You set it up however you like and I can actually work backwards from the error messages due to missing effects.
     
  3. Reef

    Reef Member

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    I will code it if You will promise that You will make the particles before the release.
     
  4. Reef

    Reef Member

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    Code:
    |a-p|100%|>90%|>80%|>70%|>60%|>50%|>40%|>30%|>20%|>10%|>0% ||>0% |>35%|>55%|>77%|100%|
    | 0 | -  | L  | L  | M  | M  | M  | M  | M  | H  | H  | H  || U  | U  | U  | U  | -  |
    | 1 | -  | -  | L  | L  | M  | M  | M  | M  | M  | H  | H  || U  | U  | U  | -  | -  |
    | 2 | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | L  | M  | M  | M  | M  | H  || U  | U  | -  | -  | -  |
    | 3 | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | L  | L  | M  | M  | M  | H  || U  | -  | -  | -  | -  |
    
     
  5. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Yknow it would probably be a lot easier if you could just output building damage percentage to a control point, then we can use the scale emission to control point parameter to control the intensity of the smoke.

    I'm not sure exactly how it works though so you'd have to check the code to see how to implement it, but in any case that's what it's for.

    If nothing else you could remap control point to scalar to affect the initial alpha of the smoke so it becomes darker the more damage it takes. Not to mention fading radii and velocity in much the same way.

    Both would be far easier than all this tabulated crap and would give you a much smoother transition, if you wanted to you could even make a pair of effects and use the alpha to fade between them, and you'd only need one effect per building anyway.
     
  6. Demented

    Demented Member

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    Counting the number of smoke plumes is so much easier than trying to measure the density of smoke. If the smoke plumes are visibly different, such as between fire and non-fire, that gives more options without much difficulty.

    Though, if the smoke is on the other side of the building and you can't see the fire, only the plume, that could cause some confusion.
     
  7. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    You can keep the number of smoke plumes you currently have, and as I said you can blend between two smoke effects, one for less damaged and one for more damaged.

    All you really need to know is if a building is damaged or not, and possibly if it's sabbed, if it's damaged it needs repairing, if your entire base is damaged to the point where you need to prioritise based on damage you're losing and no amount of repairs will help you. You only need fade effects to improve the visual quality and prevent the damage from going from instant black smoke to instant no smoke and vice versa.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2009
  8. Demented

    Demented Member

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    Preposterous. Knowing the damage level of building is invaluable when attacking or defending.

    The "tabulated crap" goes on.

    _______

    Code:
    |a-p|100%|>90%|>80%|>70%|>60%|>50%|>40%|>30%|>20%|>10%|>0% ||>0% |>35%|>55%|>77%|100%|
    | 0 | -  | S  | S  | S  | S  | S+ | S+ | F  | F  | F+ | F+ || U  | U  | U  | U  | -  |
    | 1 | -  | -  | -  | -  | S  | S  | S  | S+ | F  | F  | F+ || U  | U  | U  | -  | -  |
    | 2 | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | S  | S  | S+ | F  | F  || U  | U  | -  | -  | -  |
    | 3 | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | S  | S+ | F  || U  | -  | -  | -  | -  |
    S = Smoke
    S+ = Heavy Smoke
    F = Fire
    F+ = Heavy Fire

    First tier of damage: First smoke is at any damage.
    Second tier of damage: Second smoke is at 69%. Heavy smoke is at 59%.
    Third tier of damage: Third smoke is at 49%. First fire is at 39%.
    Fourth tier of damage: Fourth smoke and second fire are at 29%.
    Final tier of damage: Heavy fire is at 19%. Conflagration at 9%.

    I'm not really sure what you were going for with the 35%/55%/77% reef, so I left it there.
     
  9. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    It's a building, you blow it up, which building you blow up depends on whether it's easy to hit, or whether it's the barracks.

    Grenadiers always attack the VF, everyone else always attacks the barracks, then you blow up everything else, if you have lots of tanks you blow everything up.

    As I said, the existing 'more fire for more damage' is more than precise enough to determine how damaged something is, and combined with a nice steady fade in would make damage smoke look good and serve its purpose, although to be honest it already looks fine if you put some effort into the particles.

    This is all pointless busy work and a waste of video memory, you don't need a million particles and the implementation is unspeakably shoddy when there is provision for a perfectly smooth transition system already in the particle system.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2009
  10. Reef

    Reef Member

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    Lets imagine a half-smoke, half-fire (50% alpha on both). Does it look nice? No.

    Lets imagine a smoke that is 75% translucent. It doesn't look nice either.

    I see where You are going to and it's a really cool idea. But it will look bad in this case, imo.

    Demented: I have used 3 particles and my layout is distinguishable within 10% correctness, so You can see how badly the building is damaged from some distance. You have used 4 particles and for 1% to 29% damage the effect is the same. Also a-p's 2 and 3 should have the same particles if possible, because they could be visible from different sides of the building.

    3 is a good amount of particles as it can be easily remembered by players.

    for example:
    1 - thin grey smoke
    2 - black thick smoke
    3 - fire

    Then it is easily distinguishable, unlike a scaled particle. I like the idea of scaling particles very much and I would like to stick it somewhere else in the game where it would fit nicely (exhaust pipes perhaps?).
     
  11. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    My smoke is about 50% translucent I think, and it's designed to work with four of them together, it also looks fine when you have one of them, the alpha is a perfect method of changing the intensity.

    I wouldn't suggest it if it wouldn't look good, and as I'm the particle artist and not you, I have more knowledge of it than you do.
     
  12. Demented

    Demented Member

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    I was going to use just 2 particles, smoke and fire, but heavy versions seemed visually interesting more than technically useful (there's also a behavior of heavy smoke preceding fire, but only because heavy smoke had no other logic to rely on). Hence why damage is organized in five tiers, rather than 10% margins; 2 particles didn't offer enough granularity.

    "Also a-p's 2 and 3 should have the same particles if possible, because they could be visible from different sides of the building."
    Hm, I hadn't considered that. Though with the particles we already have as examples, smoke is tall enough to be seen from all sides, while fire occurs only at the base. Fire could have a colored smoke.... But I'll go with that, for now. It does make fire more crucial for determining a severely damaged building, since the 4th plume is the same as the 3rd.

    Code:
    |a-p|100%|>90%|>80%|>70%|>60%|>50%|>40%|>30%|>20%|>10%|>0% ||>0% |>35%|>70%|100%|
    | 0 | -  | L  | L  | L  | M  | M  | M  | M  | H  | H  | H  || U  | U  | U  | -  |
    | 1 | -  | -  | -  | L  | L  | M  | M  | M  | M  | H  | H  || U  | U  | -  | -  |
    | 2 | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | L  | M  | M  | M  | H  || U  | -  | -  | -  |
    | 3 | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | -  | L  | M  | M  | M  | H  || U  | -  | -  | -  |
    (The 4th row is esssentially redundant.)
    49-40%: Third smoke plume.
    29-20%: First fire plume.
    9-0%: Full fire.
    
    Armory
    |a-p|100%|>90%|>80%|>70%|>60%|>50%|>40%|>30%|>20%|>10%|>0% ||>0% |>35%|100%|
    | 0 | -  | L  | L  | L  | L  | M  | M  | M  | H  | H  | H  || U  | U  | -  |
    | 1 | -  | -  | -  | L  | L  | L  | L  | M  | M  | H  | H  || U  | -  | -  |
     
  13. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    My particle system brings all the boys to the yard,
    And their like
    It's better than yours,
    Damn right it's better than yours,
    I can teach you,
    But I have to charge
     
  14. Empty

    Empty Member

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  15. thetim

    thetim Member

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    Chris, Chris, Chris. One day, your incredible self-belief and tactless arrogance is going to meet the realities of, for instance, working for someone who doesn't have to put up with it.

    Until then, enjoy the freedom that you have (I believe you're at uni?) and good luck.
     
  16. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    with all respect thetim

    that all depends on his job, for example if i would hire a person like chris i would expect him to give me his critique, because thats why i hired him

    im not gonna hire a person like chris to do repetative boring work with no output, because if i will chris will obviously not feel good with his job and quit or get really depressed and start going sick far to often

    people dont look for jobs to fill in, jobs look for people that complement it with there character
     
  17. Demented

    Demented Member

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    Chris is like the catholic church. He's perfectly fine so long as you agree with him. =P
     
  18. CyberKiller

    CyberKiller Nyooks!

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    Lol, that sort of quote is sig worthy.
     
  19. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Anybody skilled enough to be rich enough to hire other people of greater skill and personality than I, would obviously also be intelligent enough not to make stupid comments, and thus would never encounter my more acidic opinions.

    You could pay me more, that would also encourage me to be nice.
     
  20. Empty

    Empty Member

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    You continue to make me laugh at your presumptions about the world. Yes, the people who attain power must be smarter or equal in intelligence to those underneath them Chris.
     

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