Plasma Beams (like in Halo and Halo 2)

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Plasma Beams (like in Halo and Halo 2)

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#1]

OK - I posted this at my own website, I don't really know why. Although I've opened it up to guests. You can reply without registering. (And feel free to put your code in the "Algorithms" section. Here's the link: http://noenemies.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=advanced&action=display&num=1104116654

Uber Lieutenant (Posted 2004) [#2]

Well, if you take the Plasma Gun in Quake 3 for example, that used sprites for the projectiles, and I believe this was also the case in Halo 2. I don't know any specifics, but I'm pretty sure the plasma is a tiled sprite; tiled to make a sort of 'beam', if you will. I assume you're talking about the effect seen with the Scarab's beam cannon (Halo 2) and the distress beacons (Halo). I don't think the Sentinel Beams in Halo 2 were done differently. EDIT: Oh, the plasma rifles (aka the standard weapon for the Elites) did use sprites for the projectiles. If by "sprites wouldn't look right" you mean simple alpha blending will look too dull, use the EntityFX(sprite,3) command which sets the specified entity to be rendered with addictive blending. Plasma, hoy!

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#3]

ok

WolRon (Posted 2004) [#4]

addictive blending?

Ross C (Posted 2004) [#5]

lol @ WolRon. You may need to use a couple of sprites with additive blending to get it looking bright enough. Remember and set the sprites to FULL BRIGHT also. Check this stuff i did a while back. The file called "lightning.bb" is a single beam of lightning. Could be used for a gun. It creates a cylinder mesh, and deforms it in real time. The other file called "lightningTYPES.bb" is the same thing, except i wrapped it all up in types so you can generate as many as you want. Each lightning beam is 2 surfaces, so don't generate too many ^_^. Converting to single surface soon :o) Arrow keys to rotate camera. "LightningTYPES.bb" the mousebuttons zoom in and out too. www.rosscrooks.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/lightninggun.zip

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#6]

There's the only problem. I'm shooting lots and lots of them. As the in plasma rifles from Halo. But let's see what you got.

Ross C (Posted 2004) [#7]

Well, these are lightning beams. You shouldn't need lots of them, cause, it's like a constant beam. :o)

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#8]

Yeah - I'll probably use these lightning beams for another weapon.

Ross C (Posted 2004) [#9]

No problem.

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#10]

by "sprites wouldn't look right" I meant that they would always be facing the camera - and even if they weren't, they wouldn't look thick enough.

jfk EO-11110 (Posted 2004) [#11]

You need to use 3 (or more) fullbrigt, doublesided quads that are intersecting like a star. Then you need a few animated lightning textures. You have to edit them so they tile vertically. Then you need to calculate the distance between the plasma impact and player. Use this distance to determine a static texture tile size, so depending on the distance you'll tile the texture on the quads, and of course also scale the quads based on that distance. Playing an animated texture on each quad, choosen and restarted randomly, will give you a nice plasma effect. but of course, needs to be additive blending. I wouldn't use real Sprites here since they are not that flexible and don't support fog.

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#12]

I'll try that....

puki (Posted 2004) [#13]

Also, you might want to have a look at the 'Mega Blast' demo by "Reda Borchardt" in the 'Open DNA' folder of the B3D Samples folder. Might be something of use in there - The demo has a kind of 'plasma gun' look to it.

Erroneouss (Posted 2004) [#14]

Open DNA Folder????? Where do you see that? I don't think I got that?

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#15]

nope, definately not there.... could you e-mail a .zip to me, puki? steven@...

xmlspy (Posted 2004) [#16]

It would also be good if you stayed with one nickname. NoEnemies DigitalFortress and now Optomistic. What's next?

Erroneouss (Posted 2004) [#17]

.

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#18]

@xmlspy: I know, I'm really bad about that :( Keep thinking of good nicknames that no one likes. :( Ah well...life goes on....

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#19]

I got it to work using code from "TunnelRun" in Games. :) it works now. Thanks guys.

gosse (Posted 2004) [#20]

Here's a little something I did: Graphics3D 640, 480, 0, 2 SetBuffer BackBuffer() tmr = CreateTimer(60) Const MAX_SPRITES = 50 Global CClr = 2 Global CThick# = 2.3 Global CLength = 31 Global CSpread# = 0.4 Global CSpeed# = 0.8 cam = CreateCamera() CameraZoom cam, 1.6 tex = LoadAnimTexture("suns_joseph.jpg", 2, 128, 128, 0, 4) base = CreateSprite() EntityBlend base, 3 EntityTexture base, tex, CClr EntityAlpha base, 0.25 EntityFX base, 1 HideEntity base pOrigin = CreateCone() RotateEntity pOrigin, 90, 180, 0 PositionEntity cam, 10, 10, 10 PointEntity cam, pOrigin While Not KeyDown(1) WaitTimer tmr Cls If KeyHit(57) Then CClr = CClr + 1 If CClr = 4 Then CClr = 0 End If EntityTexture base, tex, CClr End If CThick = CThick + 0.1 * Float(KeyDown(200) - KeyDown(208)) If CThick < 0.1 Then CThick = 0.1 End If If CThick > 5 Then CThick = 5 End If ScaleSprite base, CThick, CThick CLength = CLength + (KeyDown(205) - KeyDown(203)) If CLength < 1 Then CLength = 1 End If If CLength > MAX_SPRITES Then CLength = MAX_SPRITES End If CSpread = CSpread + 0.1 * Float(KeyDown(13) - KeyDown(12)) If CSpread < 0.1 Then CSpread = 0.1 End If If CSpread > 2 Then CSpread = 2 End If CSpeed = CSpeed + 0.1 * Float(KeyDown(201) - KeyDown(209)) If CSpeed < 0.1 Then CSpeed = 0.1 End If If CSpeed > 5 Then CSpeed = 5 End If If MouseHit(1) Then newBeam.Beam = New Beam For i = 0 To CLength newBeam\Sprites[i] = CopyEntity(base) MoveEntity newBeam\Sprites[i], 0, 0, -CSpread * Float(i) ShowEntity newBeam\Sprites[i] newBeam\Life = 100 Next End If For Beams.Beam = Each Beam Beams\Life = Beams\Life - 1 For i = 0 To MAX_SPRITES If Beams\Sprites[i] Then If Beams\Life Then MoveEntity Beams\Sprites[i], 0, 0, -CSpeed Else FreeEntity Beams\Sprites[i] End If End If Next If Not Beams\Life Then Delete Beams End If Next MoveEntity cam, 0.1, 0, 0 PointEntity cam, pOrigin RenderWorld Text 0, 0, "Color: " + Clr() + " [hit space to change]" Text 0, 15, "Thickness: " + CThick + " [use up and down key to change]" Text 0, 30, "Length: " + CLength + " [use left and right key to change]" Text 0, 45, "Spread: " + CSpread + " [use + and - key to change]" Text 0, 60, "Spead: " + CSpeed + " [use page up and page down key to change]" Flip Wend End Function Clr$() Select CClr Case 0 Return "Yellow" Case 1 Return "Blue" Case 2 Return "Purple" Case 3 Return "Orange" End Select End Function Type Beam Field Sprites[MAX_SPRITES] Field Life End Type You'll need to grab that texture:

danjo (Posted 2004) [#21]

nice one there GoSsE :D

Alienforce (Posted 2004) [#22]

Great GoSsE!!!! You dont have a Nuclear blast also ?????? Please ? Alienforce

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#23]

All I see is a spinning gray cone. :(

Alienforce (Posted 2004) [#24]

Hit lmb! to see some cool beems ;) /Alienforce

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#25]

ooooooooh, ok.

Matty (Posted 2004) [#26]

Optomistic - here is an old program that I did in Blitz. Source code included. I made some changes to this a while ago, which are not in the download but look a lot better so let me know if you want them. http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~gezeder/lloyd/SpaceBattle.zip Have a look at the beam.3ds object to get an idea of how it is done.

Alienforce (Posted 2004) [#27]

Looks GREAT!!!! Do you have some more stuff? Alienforce

wizzlefish (Posted 2004) [#28]

OK, currently my computer won't start up because of some stupid hacker, so I'm using this old computer. So I'll take a look at it later, sorry.

Chad (Posted 2005) [#29]

@ GoSsE Korupted I get Memory Access Violation..

BlitzSupport (Posted 2005) [#30]

Chad, have you put the image in the same folder as the source code? Nice effect, GoSsE.