Arcing effects

(Xterm1n8or) #1

Hi,

I was wondering, is it possible to create an arcing effect? Like electricity from one point to another. A bit like a tesla coil. It doesnt need to move as such, just kind of buzz between 2 points.

Many thanks

(MrLego) #2

RTCW had a nice one in the single player game on the first level, but they have a entity called “shooter_tesla”.

I believe you could do it with a series of arcs or lightning bolt images and an animated shader and then trigger a sound at the same time.

(Xterm1n8or) #3

Thanx for quick reply. Have spent last few hours or so looking through posts but didnt find anything.

I think i get you mean. I need to get or make a kind of bluey lighning effect on a transparent background. Then another 3 or 4 maybe with slight alterations (to give the appearance of movement) which would be done through an animated shader?

I havnt had much experience with shaders and most that ive tried ended with yellow/black boxes. I certainly dont know about animated ones. Know of any good tuts or any usefull links to get me started?

Many thanks.

(th0rn3) #4

Check the post called “Slideshow”. It must be in this forum page. I have made a reply there about how to make an animated shader.
PS: When you get those orange/black boxes, what does the console say? And is it powered by 2 scale (if I said it correctly)

EDIT: http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17106 - here’s the link

(isbowhten) #5

http://www.heppler.com/shader/
i like this manual.
now just be sure that paths are correct and like th0rn3 said tteyxtures are power of 2 scaled

(-SSF-Sage) #6

[QUOTE=isbowhten;181488]http://www.heppler.com/shader/
i like this manual.
now just be sure that paths are correct and like th0rn3 said tteyxtures are power of 2 scaled[/QUOTE]

Here’s an update of that manual.

(ailmanki) #7

http://www.bpeers.com/software/q3ase/

q3ase could be usefull, just be aware its for q3 not for et, so some stuff does look different in et as in the preview of q3ase.

(shagileo) #8

Well the trick with the slideshow is solved, and maybe it can help you, maybe not, but it works with me.

It’s with the animap command.
I used 7 TGA’s and wrote a shder file for it with the following text:

textures/meldert/roll0
{ 
   qer_editorimage   textures/meldert/roll0.tga
   q3map_material   Computer 
    { 
        map $lightmap 
    } 
    { 
        animMap 0.2 textures/meldert/roll0.tga textures/meldert/roll1.tga textures/meldert/roll2.tga 	textures/meldert/roll3.tga textures/meldert/roll4.tga textures/meldert/roll5.tga textures/meldert/roll6.tga
        blendFunc GL_DST_COLOR GL_ZERO 
    } 
}

The TGA’s had these dimensions: 256X256 and had pixel depth / colors : 24/16 million
I named my TGA’s (as you can see) roll0, roll1 , …

It’s a very simple shader command I found, but it works fine. :slight_smile:
Now, to create your effect, you can tweek the speed of the animated TGA’s. I think you should set it to 10?
I’m no specialist in it either, but you can try it out.

(Xterm1n8or) #9

Many thanks all.

Been a bit busy with work lately. Will have a go at this on my day off. Got a bit of reading to do. Thanks for the shader script Shagileo, much appreciated.
Just 1 thing: I know the power of 2 bit but does it have to be square. Can it be, for example, 256x64?

Again, many thanks.

(IndyJones) #10

yes, it has to be a power of 2 (256 and 64 is).