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Viability of making Singularity Cannon more unique?


Raywalker

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Hi,

Looking the picture added and at the particle effect sprite sheets I am wondering how viable is it to make the Singularity Cannon explosion more unique from the "Really big MAG round big explosion" effect?

Is it possible to make an expanding and contracting explosion( as the explosion is controlled as I understand from the xenopedia and the fury auto-win combat screen) or something more unique like a dome explosion and make the projectile, until explosion, for it perhaps a spherical object.

This is not a small order I can imagine as there will probably need a new spritesheet for the projectile and explosion also some recoding to get the desired effects in.

*As a note, if there is something similar in X-Division, I apologize I haven't got around to downloading it yet :P.

Or if it is in another mod, I would appreciate the link :)

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i remember from XNT that Tactical dragon made a special particle for one cannon that got that feel of explosion-expansion-vacumm-implosion secuence i think you are refering for.....

im not sure but i remember him telling in his tread he made it by adding more sprites in the secuence ending with something like:

1>2>3>4>5>6>5>4>2

being 1 the beggining of the explosion and five the ending...after the "climax" peak he kind of vacumm-ed itself leaving light particle effects...ask him for more information and i hope this is the answer you are looking for.

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Thank you for the link :)

It does look closer to the explosion that is special :).

Seems I will have a lot of reading involved now :P Can't do much now as the power is out, but I will give this modding concept a try..

I will credit everyone whose code and ideas I take a look at as this will be my first dive into this kind of stuff.

Also mentioning photoshop I assume.. I have photoshop elements and maybe I can try edit the huge explosion spritesheets with the idea you gave and apply that to the singularity cannon.

I am not sure, but I will have to see how things go.

Thanks for the help. Maybe I will try this tomorrow when I hopefully have power. :)

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To modders and anyone that is knowledgeable or who can give advice.

I was able to tweak the image in photoshop elements(plasmaexplosion spritesheet) and made it black and tweaked the projectile also black( from heavymag image, tried a circle but the game doesn't process it properly as it leaves a trail xD). Also I slowed and increased blast radius of weapon projectile, but the explosion is over so quickly :(

Is there anyway way to alter the timing of the explosion to make it go through the frames slower.. I am sure that using Tactical Dragon's technique would look better but I am only taking my baby crawls with the modding sub-category of tweaking, copy paste from original content and adjusting things to make them work. :)

Thanks for any help

Also thanks blackwolf :), helping me to try and do something my own. :D

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To modders and anyone that is knowledgeable or who can give advice.

I was able to tweak the image in photoshop elements(plasmaexplosion spritesheet) and made it black and tweaked the projectile also black( from heavymag image, tried a circle but the game doesn't process it properly as it leaves a trail xD). Also I slowed and increased blast radius of weapon projectile, but the explosion is over so quickly :(

Is there anyway way to alter the timing of the explosion to make it go through the frames slower.. I am sure that using Tactical Dragon's technique would look better but I am only taking my baby crawls with the modding sub-category of tweaking, copy paste from original content and adjusting things to make them work. :)

Thanks for any help

Also thanks blackwolf :), helping me to try and do something my own. :D

As the simplest way, you can double the frames in the xml file for it..

For example:

<framelist>

<frame regx="70" regy="67" name="bloodexplosion_00.png" w="160" h="132" x="1218" y="666"/>

<frame regx="92" regy="107" name="bloodexplosion_01.png" w="203" h="206" x="0" y="1172"/>

add one or more after every frame

<framelist>

<frame regx="70" regy="67" name="bloodexplosion_00.png" w="160" h="132" x="1218" y="666"/>

<frame regx="70" regy="67" name="bloodexplosion_00.png" w="160" h="132" x="1218" y="666"/>

<frame regx="70" regy="67" name="bloodexplosion_00.png" w="160" h="132" x="1218" y="666"/>

<frame regx="92" regy="107" name="bloodexplosion_01.png" w="203" h="206" x="0" y="1172"/>

<frame regx="92" regy="107" name="bloodexplosion_01.png" w="203" h="206" x="0" y="1172"/>

<frame regx="92" regy="107" name="bloodexplosion_01.png" w="203" h="206" x="0" y="1172"/>

i am not sure it will work with this code.. if not, just reedit the frame numbers..

<framelist>

<frame regx="70" regy="67" name="bloodexplosion_00.png" w="160" h="132" x="1218" y="666"/>

<frame regx="70" regy="67" name="bloodexplosion_01.png" w="160" h="132" x="1218" y="666"/>

<frame regx="70" regy="67" name="bloodexplosion_02.png" w="160" h="132" x="1218" y="666"/>

<frame regx="92" regy="107" name="bloodexplosion_03.png" w="203" h="206" x="0" y="1172"/>

<frame regx="92" regy="107" name="bloodexplosion_04.png" w="203" h="206" x="0" y="1172"/>

<frame regx="92" regy="107" name="bloodexplosion_05.png" w="203" h="206" x="0" y="1172"/>

this should slow the animation down..

I dont want to say "try xdivision" any more to you.. but %95 of your questions asked by me when i start this mod and the answers at in xdivision.. not as a mod to play but as the coding and examples.. i created new explosive versions (color edit of defaults) for every tech branch, alenium,plasma,fusion,singularity even with emp and ap.. and tons of new gasses including static fields..

Another photoshop user would be very nice aditions to my mod team for much more creative explosion/projectiles..

But as i said this is the last reply to u about xdivision..

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Thanks for the help and support blackwolf and drages. :D

Attempted solution. I mixed it up and added more frames 10 in some areas.

But it still runs quick, but an improvement :). But it is alright, a proper version is already being made and I can live with the black explosion until v1.0 :P

And it seems I need to read your X-Division "mod developer" diary more so I don't keep repeating your ideas, Drages :P

I have read a lot of the mod recently and had a peek at the lore page as well. Looks to be shaping up well but I am waiting for the 0.32 xce to be release proper ( quicker ai turns such a blessing) and by then X-Division will probably be at V1.0.

It is such a huge mod, which only shows your ambition, dedication and enjoyment towards it. And I can only afford 3GB of data every now and then :( .

My photoshop skills are basic (like being able to resize role images, change colours on spritesheets and objects and fiddle with the special effects that are in plain view :D ). I probably need tutorials or guides to do advance stuff.

I might be getting data sometime this week, if you want, when I get the data,I can pm you some tweaked projectiles and particles to see if I make the grade as an additional helper with photoshop stuff :)

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I don't know how the game splits the images in the sprite sheet although I guess it splits it to an x/y co-ordinates

.

The smoke spritesheet seems readable by the co-ordinates but I am not sure if the explosion spritesheets follow the same rules.

And the projectles seem to a little easier by comparison.

I also just fumbled around photoshop and made a lot of colour changes to the available sprites projectiles and particles which I am sure you have already done.

I know messing with the gore_transformation colours the reapers inflict and wonder why there aren't more unique two-stage aliens in the game.

But getting back on track I am sure I can help even if it is recolouring spritesheets at the very least :P

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I apologize Drages, it seems that changing the explosion spritesheet to something heavier, with an after-effect, allowed me to see what I was doing wrong.

I am not too sure, but I am guessing that the w(width) and h(height) variables are to get the size of the image and used to "cut/copy" an image from the spritesheet, and the x and y co-ordinates seem to indicate where the start point is?

I do not know if what I am saying is making sense or if it is correct.

If am wrong, I would appreciate help to better understand how the game interprets the spritesheet and makes the animation on the screen. :)

Thanks in advance for any help :)

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