It would be nice to have some feedback, like if a kinetic weapon hits the shield, display some kind of shield dispersion effect, just a small one...so you know that something realy bad for your shields hit it.
Funny thing - we already have some shield animation graphics for just this purpose. Just haven't had time to add those in :) Btw, the "shield hit" sound is different for kinetic damage vs everything else, though it's easy to miss in the heat of battle.
Shields have been on my list of "graphics to improve" for a while now. I wouldn't say they're *bad*, but we've got some ideas.
Here we go!
What about shield visual updates? Alex's work must never be done.
(Edit: oh, regarding shields: I'd messed with them some here and there, but there was never anything promising.)
Here we go!
https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1321869905180925952
And here's a screenshot (the twitter link has an animated gif):
(https://i.imgur.com/dp7Hl3u.png)
Click image to see it fullsize.
(Edit: oh, regarding shields: I'd messed with them some here and there, but there was never anything promising.)
Adjusted the venting effect a bit. Main thing is making it contour the ship; the original effect was done before "being able to figure that out easily" was a thing in the code. So, now it should look nicer with longer/thinner ships. Also tweaked the colors a bit...Damn, that looks menacing.
https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1321925526584516610
one thing i noticed is that the effect is not tied to the ship orientation and if the ship turns does not look like its following the ship.
Adjusted the venting effect a bit.
one thing i noticed is that the effect is not tied to the ship orientation and if the ship turns does not look like its following the ship. As a result, if the ship is changing its orientation it looks like there is some sort of modifier on the ship rather than its dumping something into space.
Yea when i first looked at it though it didn't look like it was particle based but rather stuck on. Imagine a hose. If you're spraying the hose and turn it you don't make the water from the original spray follow the nozzle but you do make a nice curve in the water as the later water now has a new direction. As you add hoses and spin them you make spirals when viewed from the top. This happens even if add enough hoses such that there is no surface without a hose.one thing i noticed is that the effect is not tied to the ship orientation and if the ship turns does not look like its following the ship.
Ah - it's particle-based, so when a ship turns or slows or w/e, the particles that are already out there don't get affected. It *could* also be done so that the particles are tied to ship orientation - in fact a slightly earlier version did that - but to me that made it look too... not "pasted on" but something like that. It felt less real and more like an "oh, here's an effect tied to the ship position".
@gothars. But not in the vacuum of space. There is no air resistance to slow the particles down and make that trail. That would only happen if you were accelerating in a particular direction.
@gothars. But not in the vacuum of space. There is no air resistance to slow the particles down and make that trail. That would only happen if you were accelerating in a particular direction.
Mh? Particles don't have to slow down to form a trail, there just have to be fewer of them were you are going than were you are coming from. Of course the trail would dissipate quickly and not hang around like in atmosphere.
The new vent animation literally looks 100x better! But... I think there is one more thing that could be done to really make the most of it :)Completely agree here. Something that sells the "violent, dam breaking nature" of the vent, especially at high flux, would help make it even better
Make the start of the vent sequence more energetic, like a pressured release followed by the steady flow. So right at the onset have a denser wave of particles (that also maybe moves a bit faster).
The new vent animation literally looks 100x better! But... I think there is one more thing that could be done to really make the most of it :)Completely agree here. Something that sells the "violent, dam breaking nature" of the vent, especially at high flux, would help make it even better
Make the start of the vent sequence more energetic, like a pressured release followed by the steady flow. So right at the onset have a denser wave of particles (that also maybe moves a bit faster).
For me it's not the lack of turn following, but that ship forward movement has no effect on it. If a moving and venting ship would leave a little bit of a flux trail (like engines do) that would sell it perfectly.
Make the start of the vent sequence more energetic, like a pressured release followed by the steady flow. So right at the onset have a denser wave of particles (that also maybe moves a bit faster).
Completely agree here. Something that sells the "violent, dam breaking nature" of the vent, especially at high flux, would help make it even better
If you want a more energetic start, consider having the first particle white and fade to the standard purple over 5-10 frames.
That looks really good! It's amazing how a small change like that can add so much. The idea of a "pressure wave" that's just a millisecond long and travels out at a much higher velocity, followed by the existing animation would be kind of cool but it I wouldn't shed any tears if it didn't happen.
It’s more thick at high flux and tapers off as flux is removed.
I think I worked out what looks weird when the ship is rotating. The venting gas is being released from the edge of the ship, so when the ship is rotating, the gas should have some extra velocity due to the fact that the point it's being released from is moving relative to the center of mass of the ship. It looks like the gas just inherits the velocity of the center of mass of the ship. I could be wrong about how the gas velocity is being calculated, and it also could be a lot of trouble to adjust that.