Voodoo Man on 22/8/2005 at 03:17

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Holy S**

Haha sorry i came in on a late note but i love to sword!

You know you guys make me want to jump on DromEd and do something cool like you all. I'm dedicated to my work but i'm trying to focus to getting dedicated to DromEd like you all are. Oh don't worry i will!

I'm know you guys can teach me to make a multi coloring sword! lol well i'm gonna have to do something for you all first but,

A sword that has.......

1 you pull out the sword

2 It glows Red Flame

3 Fades into Blue Flame

4 Fades into dark black flame

5 Repeats it's self

I smell the taste of mystic powerful Medievil times.


I'll be sure to look at this piece for my future FM. (Which i hope i can get started!)

Thank you to the people who have the knowledge to make that.

Hopefully i can get my question answered on the little sword i imagine.

Nameless_Voice on 23/8/2005 at 01:06

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Okay, let's see... first I'll sum up how I made the original fire sword.

First, I used VK's TrapSMTrans script on the sword to listen for InvSelect messages.
I hooked this up to a timer, and the timer to a conversation. (Slightly later, I replaced this with a delayed EmitterTrap that emitted a Genie.)
The conversation added a metaproperty to the object PlyrArm (which is the special 'arm' object that gets created by the game when the player has a mêlée weapon drawn).
This metaprop had the Renderer->Mesh Attach property, set up to attach a concrete object (#21, IIRC) to the appropriate joint of the mesh it was applied to.
Because that property can't be inherited, I used S&Rs on the mprop to copy it from the mprop to the concrete PlyrArm object.
That was basically it. I also had TrapSMTrans listening for InvDeselect, which was linked to another timer which would trigger another conversation to teleport the particle effect into a blue room when the sword was put away (to stop it from lingering around.)

However, that system was very buggy, mainly because the amount of time between the player selecting the sword and the arm being created is variable, depending on what weapon the player had equipped before.

But anyway, that's not a problem anymore, because I have a custom script to do all the work much more reliably. I will now explain its setup:

Create the flaming sword object (or archetype), and give it the NVNewWeapon script.
Set up the Editor->Design Note property as follows: NVWeaponMeta="M-FlamingSword"; NVWeaponAttach1="SwordParticles".

Go to the object hierarchy and create a metaprop named M-FlamingSword.
Give it the Renderer->Mesh Attach property:
Attached Obj 1: (any number. It won't be used.)
Joint of skeleton: 3
x angle (0-65535): 13500
y angle (0-65535): 20500
z angle (0-65535): 0
Offset: X: 0; Y: 0.50; Z: 0
(If you do not specify the Mesh Attach property, the game will crash when you equip the weapon. I should probably write a failsafe into the script to avoid this...)

Also give it a Renderer->Transparency (Alpha) of around 0.50 (tweak it until it looks right to you.)

Now, create an archetype named SwordParticles under SFX->FireFX.
Set its properties as follows:
Renderer->Dynamic Light: 125
Renderer->LightColour: Hue: 0.10; Saturation: 0.75
A->AmbientHacked: Radius: 20; Schema Name: fire_flame

Add SFX->Particles:
Active: True
Particle render type: Single-coloured disc
Particle animation: Launched continually
Particle group motion: Attached to object
Number of particles: 240
Size of particle: 0.20
Bitmap name: (Leave blank OR use Eshaktaar's flame TGAs.)
Velocity: 0, 0, 0
Gravity Vector: 0, 0, 0
Colour (Palettised): 125
2nd Colour: 188
3rd Colour: 47
Alpha: 90
~
Particle Fade Time: 0.50
Launch Period: 0.01
~
Always Simulate: True
[All else false]

SFX->Particle Launch Info:
Launch Type: Bounding Box
Box Min: X: -0.05; Y: -0.05; Z: 1.20
Box Max: X: 0.05; Y: 0.05; Z: 3.50
~
Velocity Min: X: -0.50; Y: 0.00; Z: 0.50
Velocity Max: X: 0.50; Y: 0.00; Z: 0.50
~
Min Time: 1.00
Max Time: 1.50


That should do it.

_3rdEyE_ on 24/8/2005 at 21:59

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Thanks NV! Even though I'm glad your script makes adding particles to weapons easier/cleaner, that original method is classic Dromed ingenuity. "What do you mean I can't do this? I'll show you, infernal software!" :thumb:

@Targa: That's as far as I have gotten as well with attaching things to arrows.
For a "flaming arrow", though, I would think the fire should be at the tip, like it's coated with burning pitch, or something. A fire arrow has its SFX at the tip, but if I set up a broadhead with the same link data as a fire arrow, the SFX still appears in the middle. I'm guessing this is because broadheads don't have a Vhot at the tip, and fire arrows do. Adding a Vhot to the tip of the broadhead model in Anim8or should take care of that...
But my real problem is that there are no particles on the arrow when it is in the bow before you fire. And a "flaming arrow" loses a lot of its realism if it's not on fire until after you shoot it.

I'm interested to know what others have learned about the "player bow arm".
Is there a mesh representing the player arm with the bow? And are the arrow models the same as the ones used out of the bow?

Yandros on 25/10/2005 at 19:21

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Thanks to NVNewWeapon and the tut above, I've got this working. I tried to do it myself years ago but of course failed miserably.
I went with Eshaktaar's bitmaps attached to Targa's SwordX and here's the result:

http://wearytaffer.com/temp/temp_files/flamesword.jpg


And again (this is how it will be in the mission I'm using it in) with blue flames:

http://wearytaffer.com/temp/temp_files/bluesword.jpg


As always, Esh's bitmaps look totally scrumptious ingame. NV, my only gripe with your method is that setting Alpha in the Metaprop causes the entire swordarm to be semi-transparent. I don't supposed there's anything that can be done about it though, it looks strange without any flames in front of the sword.

Schwaa2 on 25/10/2005 at 21:56

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You should be able to get rid of the render prop and just adjust the bounding box so the particles are offset more towards the player. Might not show the same with all swing/block motions.

I got a tut in progress.

the SFX/particle launch info/bounding box props control where the SFX emits from.
Box min(defines west,north,bottom:all neg values)
Box max(defines east, south,top,; pos values) think i got em right
these are relative to the world when the obj is created and not rotated any.
if you set
box min 0,0,0
box max 0,0,0
you get a great candle flame, no jitter (the particles randomly create at spots within this space 0,0,0 makes a fixed point so they all come from there

if you set
box min: -1,0,0
box max: -1,0,0
all the particles will start in one place as above BUT they will be offset to the
wets 1 measure (don't think it's in feet though).

if you set
box min: -1,0,0
box max: 1,0,0
particles will all form in an east/west line, but randomly in between those points. The bigger the spread the larger the particle seems