Black "light" stuff...

01-01-2007, 06:52 PM

I have in mind a little special effect, but I r n00b so help plz lol. In short, is a black ray of various intensity. I need to know two things for it:

- how to animate the transparency so that the mesh (I'm not using particles) would be, lets say, 100% invisible at the start of the animation and completely visible at the end.
- what material should be used in this case. Additive and Transparent obviously won't work. Blend maybe?

01-01-2007, 07:16 PM	#2
richie_lich	You can animate alpha values in the materials field or use a geoset animation with a linear interpolation that goes something like this: (start frame): 0 (end frame): 1 Blend filtering should work for this. Or if you're really clever, you can try modulate.

01-01-2007, 07:43 PM	#3
Guesst	Example: Code: Textures 1 { Bitmap { Image "Textures\Black32.blp", } } Materials 1 { Material { Layer { FilterMode Blend, Unshaded, static TextureID 0, Alpha 5 { Linear, 0: 0, 1616: 1, 3333: 0, } } } }

01-02-2007, 09:31 AM	#4
Rao Dao Zao	I'd say Modulate might be the filtermode you're looking for, or Modulate2x or whatever the other two/three might be. God damn, how I wish they had a simple subtractive... Modulate makes stuff dark, so it's probably the right one. And yeah, Guesst's example is what you need.

01-02-2007, 02:22 PM	#5
Nasrudin	Thanks people, but sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I'm trying to give that effect a smooth transparency effect; so at times it will need to fade and other times to look more "solid". I've tried to set it with materials and geosetanims, but it only turned it "on" or "off".

01-02-2007, 03:42 PM	#6
Rao Dao Zao	Smooth fades only work with certain filtermodes. None and Transparent only allow on or off (well, Transparent seems to let you got to 98% or something weird like that, then switch off). Modulate I'm reasonably sure is fine with fading, as is Blend.

01-02-2007, 04:19 PM	#7
Nasrudin	Nope, modulate is "on off" either. Blend does work, but it's not a good material for this kind of effect. Gotta use plan B.

01-02-2007, 04:24 PM	#8
Rao Dao Zao	Try Modulate2x. It's funkier. And possibly Modulate4x. It's funky too.

01-02-2007, 04:50 PM	#9
Guesst	What is wrong with blend for this? I mean, what are the graphical differences between what you get with black on blend and what you want?

01-02-2007, 05:33 PM	#10
Rao Dao Zao	My only beef with Blend is that you quite often get oddness with the depth order of your triangles. Damned annoying, but thankfully most of my fade-outs are quick enough to get away with it.

01-02-2007, 05:34 PM	#11
Guesst	You could try playing around with SortPrimsFarZ, or NoDepthTest, or some such flag.

01-02-2007, 05:45 PM	#12
Rao Dao Zao	I've done so, I'm afraid: SortPrimsFarZ has no apparent effect at all, and neither does NoDepthTest; except when combined with NoDepthSet, in which case, the geometry appears behind everything (e.g. in skyboxes).

01-03-2007, 11:52 AM

#13

Nasrudin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guesst

What is wrong with blend for this? I mean, what are the graphical differences between what you get with black on blend and what you want?

I need a filtermode that makes the bright parts of the texture less visible and the darker parts more concrete. Right now the borders of the mesh are very visible.

Rao, Modulate2x completely ignore the commands. Haven't tried 4x yet

01-03-2007, 02:04 PM	#14
Rao Dao Zao	Damn and blast. Use blend and go with a custom texture, I suppose, and fiddle with the alpha channel. It should technically be do-able.

01-03-2007, 02:22 PM

#15

Nasrudin

There's one thing I don't understand: I've been looking the undead Shade trail, and it uses a ribbon emitter with modulate filtermode. The texture is a black circle over a white background (it goes darker in the center). Ingame, it leaves a smooth trail that is almost solid in the center with transparent borders. So it seems to act the opposite way of an Additive filtermode; but if I apply it to a mesh, the white parts are as solid as the darkest, wtf?