Waterfall Mission Pack 2 DoE

[webangel]

Hello,
gdiddy62 and I have worked on this running water, the last "few" days.
Now we are on a point we need some suggestions from you.
Please have a look at it here:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smpwK4vQkRU&feature=plcp[/ame]

It needs Sevens SmallModCompilation for Darkplaces!!

At the moment it is not really good for your game performance.

Regards
web@ngel

[talisa]

looks pretty cool web@ngel.

the streaming effect looks great. the particles could use some improvement though, right now it kinda looks more smoke-like rather then splashing water.

perhaps try increasing the amount and decreasing size of the particles?

except for that it looks great

[gdiddy62]

Hi splitterface,
Thanks for the feedback. You don't know how much Webangel and I have fussed with that very issue. What you are seeing is my last effectinfo attempt. We are trying to cover the water model behind the effect. If you look closely at the edges of the fall you'll see what I'm referring to. It is the old "blocky" fall model that was there originally. We can't figure out if or how to remove it.

I'll play around with your suggestion to see what that might do. If you or anyone has suggestions please offer them! I think we need more splash at the bottom of the fall???

I'm really not sure how to do what we want and not kill fps. So anyone with more knowledge please pipe up.

Isn't the running stream texture webangel created cool!

[metalseed]

I think it looks awesome from a distance!

[talisa]

yeah it is indeed totally cool

and yeah i can totally understand the issue. if you try create such effect itll quickly start looking like smoke or such cuz those effects are quite alike.

hmm isnt there a way to create a special particle-font and add an extra particle entry to it which is used only for that effect?
and make the particle itself be like a spray of drops and use that for the effect?

cuz i think that without using a special particle-texture for it it might probably always keep looking smoke-like.


and about the structure behind the waterfall... couldnt you include a modified map file which has those polys removed?
i know it wouldnt make it only usable for sp unless everyone else uses the same modified map but id gladly take that as solution

[gdiddy62]

Webangel might know how to do what you refer to splitterface. I'm not sure. I don't know how to yet.

[Seven]

Hello gdiddy62,

Good to see you working with Effectinfo Scripting.
If you use the existing effectinfo.txt as your base, you can add new textures for:
37, 38 and 39 into the font.
Those are not used by any effect.
Simply replace the "old" ones.
You can of course also use 1 texture (from each) rows: 1 till 3 if you need more.
The difference will not be noticable for the existing effects.
(editing the "tex" params for these will be necessary of course)
You can add every texture you want in there (small "shambler babies", or smilies, or waterdrops)

Some feedback for your waterfall effect:
Try to add a little bit more color
Try to make it look less like steam/smoke
Try to not overbright the visual (you seem to use a very high count value...)
Try to add more variation into it.
Add watersplashes when the waterfall "hits" the water (important !)
Add some circle waves if you like.

It looks promising

[webangel]

Hi Seven,
thanks for your ideas.

@gdiddy62
I guess we should try it

@Seven
Sorry - the video is too bad but this points are already done

Add watersplashes when the waterfall "hits" the water (important !)
Add some circle waves if you like.
)

[gdiddy62]

Time to start looking for some new particles/textures then isn't it webangel!


Thank you for the feedback Seven!

[Bloodshot]

Yeah definitely make it less bright.

And add a very slight hint of a gray-ish blue to the particle maybe

[IronWarfare]

Very nice!

[Seven]

It reminds me somehow of that waterpipes that some crazy dude did for E1M1.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdrP07el_1U&feature=plcp]e1m1_water_supply_2.avi - YouTube[/ame]

In my opinion the waterfall should have mainly watersplash effect particles when hitting the water surface.
Multiply the count shown in the above clip by 10 or 20 and raise the z-velocity of the splashes to get the squirrling visual.
The waterfall itself is normaly (in real life) less visable.
That is maybe an idea that you can try to further improve your waterfall.

Best wishes,
Seven

[gdiddy62]

I seem to remember those crazy pipes too Seven

The effect you achieved here was the starting base for my effectinfo. Thank you for the suggestions I'll give them a try!

[Seven]

Hello gdiddy62 & webangel,

I wanted to add some more words to help creating particle effects.
Regarding colors:
As you know, the color values must be given in 2 digits HEX-code for each RGB colors (00 to ff).
For this, it is always very helpful to have a color-palette at hand.
There are these 2, that I always use:
Here
and Here

If you chose the base color, you will most probably want to finetune it.
There is a very helpful page, that allows you to quickly see your requested color and RGB values:
Here
You can enter your color values in various formats directly into this site and the page color turns into that color.


Now back to the waterfall.
I think there are in principle 2 types of waterfalls:
1.) The ones where the falling water is opaque (not transparent).
Examples:

2.) The ones where the falling water is transparent.
Examples:


I guess the one you need (to hide the missing world texture problem) is the 1st.
As you noticed, both versions have this big white-ish opaque splashes area when the waterfall "hits" the "waterpool".


I just had an idea that you might want to try.
Give your waterfall effect the "rain" type:
type rain
Use a high count with defined falling area coordinates.
That will automatically spawn some splash effect on impact.
Add additional splash effects if needed.

Try to add a new waterdrop texture (as mentioned on previous page) to the font. You will get something like this:

[gdiddy62]

Thanks Seven. I knew you had posted the tables of color codes somewhere before but I did not know where and now I have them. This will help a lot!

will have to wait until after work to experiment!!