I'm not using this (so far) in EVN Firefly, because ships in the Firefly universe have no shields to speak of. But someone else out there might want to make use of this neat little 3D trick I discovered.
If you take a ship and apply a texture with nothing but a bit of "glow using material color" to the entire thing, the result looks like a briefly-active shield in-game. It's really simple, and rather neat, IMO.
@lnsu, on May 28 2006, 11:16 PM, said in Simple "shield effect" trick:
Yes, but can you get the shield glow to brighten and soften gradually when the ship is hit?
I'd have to play around with the feature to find out. I'd think a flicker would be more cool-looking anyway, though.
If you want gradual fade of sheilds look at "Sheild Bubbles" or in one of the Polycon files I dont know which one though. But the sheilds in those plugs flicker to the % of the sheilds remaining % of the full pic of the sheilds image type thing then fades out unless it is hit again. So basicaly the formula is something like this: S/I where S= percent of sheilds remaining and I= the sheild Image. 'Least I think thats what it looks like.
Did that make sence at all?
This post has been edited by WonderBoy : 29 May 2006 - 10:19 AM
Quote
So basicaly the formula is something like this: S/I where S= percent of sheilds remaining and I= the sheild Image. 'Least I think thats what it looks like.
Did that make sence at all?
Well, your equation is incomplete. And I don't have much graphical knowledge, but I think there can be only one shield animation in nova per ship, though, don't quote me on that because I really don't know. I think I've read that somewhere on these boards. That would mean that the "shield bubble" wouldn't actually be linked to the amount of shield left, only if there is shield left at all. Maybe nova fades the shield with the percentage remaining itself, but I doubt it, as in some cases it could be really bothersome. Of course the single animation for each ship could fade in and out gradually, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the amount of remaining shields(unless none remains, then the animation just doesn't appear).
And as a side note, your shield animation equation should look more like this: A={Round down to integer((S/T)*100)} + I
A = Shän ID of the ship with the shield animation
S = current amount of shield
T = Total amount of shield
I = Ships normal shän ID
You probably wanna split the result a few times to limit the number of animations you have to create for each shielded ship.
it fades it like it fades engine glows. Just look at the Vellos. as you speed up, the glow gets brighter. Its also why if you have an afterburner, it glows brighter when you use it.
Like I said "Least thats what I think it looks like" I'm gona look for what Polycon did to make the Sheilds work like they did.
(Edit): I think the makers of Polycon just used the extra frames or something. I cant find out right now EVNeW is crashing every time I try to look at a resourse that has a picture in it.
This post has been edited by WonderBoy : 29 May 2006 - 08:06 PM
Ok, nova can handle doing the fading, and apparently, its doing a nice job at it. So basically, all you need is a glow which size fits with the ship, have it linked to the ship and
B OOM!
You have shield glows.
And the ressources used are in the corresponding shän of the ship. Pop the right RL-type files at their respective places and you have bubbles! And engines. And flashing lights. And weapon animations. And cookies. Yeah, I wish.
This post has been edited by Mumbling Psycho : 29 May 2006 - 08:33 PM
@rmx256, on May 30 2006, 08:30 AM, said in Simple "shield effect" trick:
Just set the shield sprite to be the same as the base sprite. Looks good enough.
Damn. I've been sitting on that simple trick for almost three years. Never got around to using it. 
If the identical shield image effect looks as good as you say (I'm assuming it transparently overlays the base image, momentarily making the ship flash brighter) then I will be utilizing it in something that will first be seen by another human being this coming Friday. Hmm, that's in two days... I better implement it tonight.
:gryptic crin:
Apparently I did describe my shields trick on this board before. Step into the Wayback Machine....
@dr--trowel, on Dec 5 2003, 10:15 AM, said in Free Shipyard, Outfit Mall, and Planet Procurement - New Stuff Available:
Since this thread already includes Onyx's great tips for engine glows, I'll drop my tips on adding cheap and easy ship-specific shield graphics here, for anyone who finds them.
The simplest way to add shield effects to an EVN ship is to simply repeat the resource numbers for the ship's main sprite in the shan's fields for shield and shield mask. Since the engine apparently "adds" color values from the shield to the values for the ship itself, the ship flashes brightly when hit by fire. It's not fancy, but it works just fine, and it won't bloat your plug's file size because it doesn't actually add any resources. I've only tried this with a whitish ship -- the effect might be even stronger with a darker one, but I can't confirm that right now.
The second simplest method is to apply a photoshop filter to a copy of the ship's base sprite. You can get a neat effect with the a "plastic wrap" filter, but others can be interesting, too. You may want to use the "maximum" filter on a copy of the mask for the ship graphic so that the white cut-out holes grow a bit; this will allow the shield effect to extend slightly beyond the sides of the ship so that it looks like the shield is a form-fitting sheath encircling the ship.
That's not nearly as detailed as Onyx's tutorial, but perhaps it might be useful to somebody else out there who's trying to make the most out of old EV & EVO sprites.
@edwin-, on Jun 1 2006, 03:22 PM, said in Simple "shield effect" trick:
yes, but now can you make the shields glow on the side that was hit?
There simply isn't engine support for that.
Unless you did some really wierd thing with point defense weapon graphics. Even then, I'm not sure it's possible.
