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[Dalmp]

Dal MP's aesthetics pack for PR. Beta 0.3

 DalMP_pack_for_PR_v0.3b.zip   249.28KB   649 downloads




Readme:
Overview:
The goal of this package is to make Phoenix Rising look and sound better. It should not change Phoenix Rising's gameplay or balance in any meaningful way. Feedback is appreciated, especially with regards to the degree of lag in your game (I feel it's actually less on my PC, but mileage may vary).


Installation:
Find the data folder in this zip file and copy it into your 'Phoenix Rising Space' directory (.../data/mod/Phoenix_Rising_Space) and overwrite the files. Saved games should not be adversely affected, but will now use the newer graphics and sound. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to back up your existing copy of Phoenix Rising before installing this package.


Compatibility:
-Compatible with Zarkis AI pack. This pack shares no files with Zarkis AI as of this writing. You can run one, both or neither at your preference.


Feature list:

Graphics changes:
-all turbolasers have been replaced with custom models, for a much cleaner, brighter effect.
-Dual and octuple turbolasers have their own custom multi-shot appearance.
-A custom projectile has been applied to the Venator's SPHATL. (still tweaking this a bit, but it looks pretty awesome!)
-Guns now fire at slightly more random intervals, so that they aren't so synchronized. Avg rate remains the same.
-The strike cruiser now properly sports octuple turrets at mark IV.
-New hull and shield damage effects, scaled to the projectiles.


Sound changes:
-Subtle changes to the timbre and volume of the various firing sounds, to set more powerful and more advanced guns apart from the rest.



Known bugs/errors of this version:
-None known yet

Credits:
-Custom ALOs and textures, other than the particle ALOs: AVENGER85, FoC Additions team
-Phoenix Rising for his awesome mod, and xml files, of which I edited only a small part.
-Notepad++ for it's powerful editing tool.

Note:
The custom models and textures in this release are not mine, but are used with permission from swcorpinox of the FoC Additions 5.0 mod team. The XML files belong to Phoenix Rising of the Phoenix Rising mod team - I only edited them. Please do not borrow these files without the permission of their owners. Do not post this package to another site. It is for the fans, by a fan, and should be downloadable only from the Phoenix Rising forums at this point of time. If you own any of the content in these files that I am not aware of, please let me know and I will adjust the credits, or alternatively remove the file from the package at your request.


Probable features coming in the next version:
-Improved ship Death explosions.

Changelist:

v0.3b
-SPHA-TL beam effect has been noticeably improved.
-Damage effects improved, and perform considerably better in terms of system resources.
-converted DP-20, blockade-runner and gamma class projectiles to single-fire rather than dual. They are just too small to look proper firing a dual projectile.
-scaled the speeds for smaller lasers, so that they actually appear in a video frame. Previously their short range and high speed meant they often didn't even show in a single visual frame, especially with dogfighting fighters. Turbolaser speed is unchanged.
-Rescaled projectile size and sound a bit (again). I think we're getting close to the proper scale now.
-fixed: octuple projectiles emerging off-center from the turret.
-fixed: some guns using the wrong firing sound.


v0.2b
-Added scaled hull damage and shield damage effects. A bit flashier, but I'm still trying to be on the conservative side.
-All-new custom SPHA-TL beam effect.
-Fixed: some ships getting dual TL's sooner than they should.
-Fixed: Dual and octuple turboions now fire a properly colored projectile.
-Altered: The arc of the SPHA. I wanted it to be a little more usable, so I left it with an arc that extends both below the ship and a narrow arc to the port and starboard sides. Think of it as if it can fire out of the side hangers as well. It will require some careful positioning to get it to fire, but it can now fire at more than dreadnaughts.

Have fun!

Edited by Dalmp, 14 September 2008 - 09:52 AM.

[Pred the Penguin]

Looks pretty nice!

[Phoenix Rising]

Wait, it's Dal MP? All this time I'm calling you Dalmp... sheesh .

Anyways, great efforts; it's good to see you're letting other people get some use out of it as well. You know the mod crosses a certain threshold when other people start to mod on top of it . Just for the record, I don't mind if people want to release stuff like this, I'd even encourage it, as long as you're not repackaging my entire archive. In other words, as long as you still have to download the official release in order to use it.

By the way, do let me know on the lag differences between this pack and the release because I'm considering implementing the double/triple/etc. projectiles officially. Thanks!

[Dalmp]

Just for the record, I don't mind if people want to release stuff like this, I'd even encourage it, as long as you're not repackaging my entire archive. In other words, as long as you still have to download the official release in order to use it.

Hey great to know. I was a little worried as I hadn't asked you for permission, but then I realized you would just delete it if you didn't like it. So long as it was kept on this forum, I figured I'd be on the up-and-up.

[jdk002]

Slight bug, thought I should mention it in here but turbolasers look like white rectangles kinda meshy. Thought it was rather odd considering I reinstalled PR and installed the pack again and still got the problem.

[Dalmp]

Slight bug, thought I should mention it in here but turbolasers look like white rectangles kinda meshy. Thought it was rather odd considering I reinstalled PR and installed the pack again and still got the problem.

Hmm that's really odd. I tested the pack on a fresh install of PR to make sure I had included all the proper textures. The white rectangle thing will happen when you are missing a texture (it is a white placeholder texture with orange text). In this case one or more of the w_turbolaser_(color).dds files would be missing in the data/art/textures directory.

Did you download the pack again or just re-install the one you already had? Unless somehow the files found their ways into the wrong directory, either you have a corrupted zip, or the site itself does - I'll find out which.

Edited by Dalmp, 08 February 2008 - 07:06 PM.

[jdk002]

Weird.. I just tried a fourth time today and it worked. That was really strange..

Btw, this looks great, the turbolasers look awesome. Also to point out the lag comment PR, even my computer runs fine with linked turbolaser fire.

Edited by jdk002, 08 February 2008 - 07:26 PM.

[Dalmp]

Fantastic, I hope you have fun with it! Had me worried for a second there hehe.


Coming next version (still tweaking it a bit):

• Scaled shield impact effects for every gun.
• All-new SPHA beam effect that looks great at high projectile speed - complete with it's own ongoing hull-damage and shield ripple effects (to match the duration of the beam)
• New hull damage effects for octuples, duals and larger guns.
• Rescaled projectiles across the board.
  The light TL's were too small to see coming from an ISD, and the large guns look a tad too big imo. This will affect the lag a bit, so I'm trying to be conservative here, but it needed to be changed.
• Changed the blue color of the octuple and dual ion cannons so it looks the proper shade.
• Bug fixes for those bugs listed in the first post.
• Cleaned-up and re-organized a mess I made in a few xml files (for those who care about that stuff).

Edited by Dalmp, 08 February 2008 - 08:31 PM.

[Phoenix Rising]

The light TL's were too small to see coming from an ISD, and the large guns look a tad too big imo. This will affect the lag a bit, so I'm trying to be conservative here, but it needed to be changed.

It shouldn't. Tris are tris, no matter how big or small they are, unless of course those projectiles have different LOD meshes.

By the way, I've changed the function of the SPHA turbolaser to make it a little more useful. It's now a splash projectile that operates on the 3.0-second recharge of the standard turbolasers. So it's more like the SPMA in EaW than what's in RotS, but that's okay. Of course, the arc is still pretty poor, but I've allowed it to track fighter movements now, so a lucky shot could cause some damage.

[Dalmp]

It shouldn't. Tris are tris, no matter how big or small they are, unless of course those projectiles have different LOD meshes.

Ah ok, good news then

By the way, I've changed the function of the SPHA turbolaser to make it a little more useful. It's now a splash projectile that operates on the 3.0-second recharge of the standard turbolasers. So it's more like the SPMA in EaW than what's in RotS, but that's okay. Of course, the arc is still pretty poor, but I've allowed it to track fighter movements now, so a lucky shot could cause some damage.

Too bad, because this beam looks amazing.



Got it pretty close I think!

Edited by Dalmp, 09 February 2008 - 08:46 PM.

[Dr-Ludvig]

Wow, now people begin modding a mod? cool
great job Dalmp, or was it Dal MP?
this looks really nice, so far i've had no problems at all, and it's just plain good looking!
And that SPHA really looks cool, this is how EaW should have been from the start man

[Dane Kiet]

Lol, now it looks like the movie Venator is shooting the game one

[Pred the Penguin]

Nice beam for the Venator!
Looks a tad bit thick though...

[Phoenix Rising]

Got it pretty close I think!

I don't think I could've done it better myself . Is that another custom model, or what? There's really no reason why it can't look the same.

Also, it's interesting to note the comment on the SPMA projectile:

<!-- This should be blue -->

I actually agree with green, if the color variation can be explained by different types of blaster gas (opposed to variation in the actual weapons). I think it's somewhat like our grade of petrol fuel in the real world. Imperial green is probably "premium" (Tibanna?), while the Rebels use the red "economy" grade (Irolunn?). In that sense, blue is just yet another mix that the Republic used.

[Dalmp]

Is that another custom model, or what? There's really no reason why it can't look the same.

It's a particle animation. I'm getting pretty good with mike.nl's editor, after some familiarization.

There are some serious limitations to conquer with making beams (other than using a re-colored piett-beam ability, which everyone seems to be doing these days. It's a real challenge to mod developers atm I think. Judging by RaW's demo video, for instance, they are using the recolored Piett-beam solution.

I thought of using a model, but I'd need to pulse the projectile to get it to a fixed length, and it can't be pulsed fast enough (0.1 max pulse speed) to look good at higher projectile speeds. It also looks goofy as the beam is sprayed back and forth over the target. I've seen those solutions and they are ugly.

I thought of using a recolored Gui ability Piett Beam, but I don't know a way to control arc and damage, and I'm not even sure that it's possible with an ability atm (I don't think so??). Doesn't seem that anyone else has made that work anyway.

The problem with a particle animation is there's a limitation on the way it draws between where the projectile is located in two frames. The faster the projectile speed, the worse the problem gets as there is less frames in the shot. it ends up shifting the location of the beam in a really ugly way. I tried various solutions up to and even including getting the shield impact to fire a beam back to make up for the (somewhat random) shortfall. But none of those really fixed the situation, looking funny in too many situations. I ended up just focusing on mitigating the problem via settings, and trying to use various effects to distract the eye from the problem. I think it looks pretty good atm, but we'll see how it runs on other people's PC's.

But it's better than any other non-ability beam I've seen so far in FoC, imo. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with it - but not satisfied, if you know what I mean hehe.

I actually agree with green, if the color variation can be explained by different types of blaster gas (opposed to variation in the actual weapons).

Yeah I agree. And it's easy enough to change to green. I left it blue for the moment just because I designed it from the picture. But color changes are easy enough - I can do that for next version if everyone wants it green.

Looks a tad bit thick though...

Yup, it does to me too. And it looks even a tad bit thicker now in my latest version.. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I'm not done with it yet!! I gave the beam a split-second flash effect as well, but I want to fatten and shorten the flash a bit (like the movie) and thin the beam (like the movie). ATM it's far from perfect, and there's lots more I want to do with it.

But I think I'll release it for now just so everyone can play with it for a bit hehe. I'm just zipping up (and re-testing) the next package now.

Edited by Dalmp, 11 February 2008 - 09:36 PM.

[Phoenix Rising]

There are some serious limitations to conquer with making beams (other than using a re-colored piett-beam ability, which everyone seems to be doing these days. It's a real challenge to mod developers atm I think. Judging by RaW's demo video, for instance, they are using the recolored Piett-beam solution.

Yeah, not a good solution IMO with the UI limitations. I think IA2 has particle-driven turbolaser bolts from the looks of it, but who knows if you'll ever get to play it, hehe. It is expensive to do it right though, since you're using a lot more pieces to make one whole.

I thought of using a model, but I'd need to pulse the projectile to get it to a fixed length, and it can't be pulsed fast enough (0.1 max pulse speed) to look good at higher projectile speeds. It also looks goofy as the beam is sprayed back and forth over the target. I've seen those solutions and they are ugly.

Yeah, whoever added that check to the code is annoying a lot of people right now... I really don't see the purpose for it whatsoever. But what can you do.

I thought of using a recolored Gui ability Piett Beam, but I don't know a way to control arc and damage, and I'm not even sure that it's possible with an ability atm (I don't think so??).

It's not.

The problem with a particle animation is there's a limitation on the way it draws between where the projectile is located in two frames.

I'd suggest looking at the flak projectile for the anti-air turret if you haven't already. That's basically what you'd need to do for a beam, methinks.

But it's better than any other non-ability beam I've seen so far in FoC, imo. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with it - but not satisfied, if you know what I mean hehe.

Well, you've certainly spent more time on it than I ever would be able to, given prioritizations and whatnot, so the mod will ultimately be better of because of it.

[Dalmp]

I'm so damn edit-happy sometimes, I pulled out all the things you quoted (figured I was rambling). Anyway, I re-edited the edit so as not to bollox up the conversation haha.

I think IA2 has particle-driven turbolaser bolts from the looks of it.

Yeah, I was playing around with making ion bolts as well. The particle editor is flexible, but I think I prefer the clean-ness of a model.

I'd suggest looking at the flak projectile for the anti-air turret if you haven't already. That's basically what you'd need to do for a beam, methinks.

I hadn't looked before thank you.

Edit: It looks like it only fires at speed 30, where the problem is not great enough to be noticeable anyway. It's not really evident until speeds over 100, and not a serious problem until 200+.

I went for 300, and managed to cover up most of the problems with various settings and tricks but it will still beam through a target by a small amount now and again. It looks good, but not perfect. Slow-moving beams look horrible to me, so I felt it was a good balance.

Well, you've certainly spent more time on it than I ever would be able to, given prioritizations and whatnot, so the mod will ultimately be better of because of it.

Absolutely, if it is useful, awesome. If not, well, I am having fun with it anyway. I'm not done with it yet though; I'll probably be tinkering with it for quite awhile hehe.

Edited by Dalmp, 12 February 2008 - 01:09 AM.

[Dalmp]

New version (v0.2 beta) posted with changelist in top thread.

The new beam doesn't seem to cause me untoward lag (on my middle-road PC), but feedback is still appreciated on it. If any of you find that it is lagging you excessively, let me know and I'll post up a less-intense version you can substitute it with, until I streamline it further.

Next version I will probably be spending more time on hull and shield effects (and more time on the SPHA). I want to find a nice balance between realistic movie-looking damage effects, and still try and keep the lag relatively low. But that will probably be version 3.

Have fun!

Edited by Dalmp, 11 February 2008 - 10:31 PM.

[Dr-Ludvig]

Just wanted to say that i get less lag with this addon or whatver you call this thing, i havent tested it with fraps or anything, but it's quite noticeable when i play, especially when a lot of caps get in battles, Great job Dal MP

Edited by Dr-Ludvig, 11 February 2008 - 11:24 PM.

[Phoenix Rising]

Yeah, you'd just have to keep increasing the particle count as you increase speed I guess. But yours looks fine as it is. I can't imagine that a weapon as unique as the SPHA would cause any sort of major lag issues. If the other bolts are faster as doubles and such, then all the better.