Renzatic on 26/10/2013 at 00:04
Quote Posted by PinkDot
If you can have objects extending into sky - let's say a dome or a cylinder with transparent layers of clouds, can you not make it rotate slowly using Tweq rotations? With several of them rotating at different speed, you could achieve some three dimensional effects, I belive.
You might not have to use multiple brushes to achieve that effect. If I remember correctly, NewDark allows for multiple texture stages on a single texture, and each stage could probably have its own animation perimeters set to it. An alpha masked set of clouds set on top of another alpha masked set of clouds on top of yet another, each scrolling or rotating at different speeds could make for a very quake-like sky effect.
ZylonBane on 26/10/2013 at 00:25
Quote Posted by Renzatic
You might not have to use multiple brushes to achieve that effect. If I remember correctly, NewDark allows for multiple texture stages on a single texture, and each stage could probably have its own animation perimeters set to it.
"Parameters", and yes. Here are a couple examples of using multiple material render passes on a single surface--
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoIkE3iYWcs)
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd3F0oSr35A)
(these look much smoother in-engine due to YouTube's 30 FPS cap)
Renzatic on 26/10/2013 at 05:04
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
"Parameters"
Damn my first draft posting, and tendency to spell things phonetically.
All joking aside, did you do those textures, ZB? They're pretty damn good.
PinkDot on 26/10/2013 at 09:55
Quote Posted by "ZylonBane"
Wrong. NewDark's material system supports UV animation, to include panning, scaling, and rotation.
Ah, thanks - I like being wrong in such cases. :)
There is a
uv_mod command indeed.
BTW. why is this new material system, which is one of the biggest improvements of the New Dark, such underestimated, unknown to the community and broadly unused? I don't play many FMs these days, but apart from a few tech demo examples, I can't recall any released FM utilizing any new material effects.
FireMage on 26/10/2013 at 10:23
Wrong: Half Assed Wedding from me.
I used the mtl for reflection effects! :)
And many others are in test phase. Actually, It's hard to know how to use the mtl because the only tutorial that exist is a txt by newdark's makers that isn't very accurate... :erg:
But I'll use it, trust me.
LarryG on 26/10/2013 at 11:48
Quote Posted by PinkDot
... BTW. why is this new material system, which is one of the biggest improvements of the New Dark, such underestimated, unknown to the community and broadly unused? ...
I believe it is mostly unknown and unused because it is command based, not GUI based. You have to write a series of commands in an editor, save the file, go into DromEd (I believe you have to open a fresh instance of DromEd for each change made to see the effects), go into game mode, look at the effects, shut down DromEd, open the mtl file, make changes, save the file, go into DromEd ... and so on. Bluntly, it's not integrated into DromEd, but a bolt-on that is a pain to use, let alone explore how to use. And, whether Firemage is right about the tutorial being inaccurate, there are not enough detailed, step-by-step tutorials about how to use this capability for the range of effects possible. Given the difficulty of use and the short time we have had to explore all of the new features, is it surprising that the easiest ones to access and the most obvious of use are the ones trumpeted so far?
PinkDot on 26/10/2013 at 14:23
Quote Posted by "FireMage"
Wrong: Half Assed Wedding from me.
I used the mtl for reflection effects!
I said 'I don't recall' - not 'there isn't any'.... There was nothing wrong in my statement. :P
Anyway, good to hear you had used it.
Quote Posted by "LarryG"
I believe it is mostly unknown and unused because it is command based, not GUI based. (...) Given the difficulty of use and the short time we have had to explore all of the new features, is it surprising that the easiest ones to access and the most obvious of use are the ones trumpeted so far?
Yes, some good points raised here.
Maybe writing a GUI could become a next goal for one of the coders around (RSoul ? :) )
But the fact that you have to restart Dromed does not sound encouraging... I thought you just had to go out from the Game Mode and back in again to see the changes. :erg:
LarryG on 26/10/2013 at 16:03
I could be wrong about exiting and restarting DromEd. IIRC that going into and out of game mode works sometimes and in some cases, but not all. I've given up on trying it because it takes even more time when it doesn't work. I just exit restart, reopen my mission, move the POV to where I was before, and then go back into game mode to see texture or object model changes.
LarryG on 26/10/2013 at 17:01
So you have to alt-t, then find the texture, then remember that you have to create a mtl file first, then exit DromEd, make a dummy mtl file, go back into DromEd, pull up your mission, alt-t, find the texture, then edit the mtl file? I don't call that well integrated. You should be able to select a face with the texture, & hotkey directly to the mtl file, creating one if needed along the way. Besides the menu is "View Material", does it allow editing of the file? It sure doesn't let you create a missing one.
No, if it were well integrated, it would have been implemented as parameters in the texture's archetype. Instead it was implemented by a bolt-on capability. I'm sure there were very good reasons for it being done that way, not the least of which was that doing it "right" would have required changing the cow/gam/mis file structures. And a bolt-on capability is 1000% better than no capability, which is what we had before. Don't get me wrong. It's a great new functionality. It is just awkward as hell to develop a material file when you don't know what the effect of the parameters you set will really be like in-game.
