Weapon depthing - neat weapon layering trick

Post by **Arcalane** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 6:12 pm

It's a good idea to set the image mode to Indexed and use a web-optimized palette. That skims off a lot of size, but tends to lead to washed-out looking colours.

Aaganrmu · Post by **Aaganrmu** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:07 pm

Nice idea, it really looks like a SNES effect or something. Remind me of the rotating mega-station in Homeworld (the one in the OMGWTF Ion Frigate sphere). There's even perspective 'cuz some parts move on a larger circle than the others!

Only one little, hard to fix thing: the acceleration of the rotating parts. When they reach the end of their motion (when they switch from 'down' to 'up'), there's a bit of a jerk.

Maybe you can fix it by using 2 movers/part instead of one? That way each part can have more than 1 speed, and the transition can be smoother. It's loads more work, though.

Darlos9D · Post by **Darlos9D** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:07 pm

Hey, that actually looks really cool. Impractical, but cool.

One could make neat ships that have simulated internal gravity through rotation. Though they'd probably be civilian ships. Such a delicate system would be easily damaged.

Post by **Kaelis** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:34 pm

What the... do these change depth? That shouldnt be possible...

Chiiro · Post by **Chiiro** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:36 pm

Kaelis wrote:What the... do these change depth? That shouldnt be possible...

I think they return to their initial position after moving over?

TheBlueEcho · Post by **TheBlueEcho** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:06 pm

Chiiro wrote:
Kaelis wrote:What the... do these change depth? That shouldnt be possible...
I think they return to their initial position after moving over?

Yeah, I think its an Optical Trick of Moving Sections. after reaching the desired location, they jump back to there origin with practically zero frames. That probably explains why it don't work as well when a section gets destroyed.

Draco18s · Post by **Draco18s** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 7:01 am

Aaganrmu wrote:Only one little, hard to fix thing: the acceleration of the rotating parts. When they reach the end of their motion (when they switch from 'down' to 'up'), there's a bit of a jerk.

Maybe you can fix it by using 2 movers/part instead of one? That way each part can have more than 1 speed, and the transition can be smoother. It's loads more work, though.

Yeah, there is a bit of a jerk, but I don't know how I can fix it. There's not really a way to "ease" the animation in and out. I'll be screwing around some more later to see what kinds of things I can come up with, but I don't think I can do that.

TheBlueEcho wrote:
Chiiro wrote:
Kaelis wrote:What the... do these change depth? That shouldnt be possible...
I think they return to their initial position after moving over?
Yeah, I think its an Optical Trick of Moving Sections. after reaching the desired location, they jump back to there origin with practically zero frames. That probably explains why it don't work as well when a section gets destroyed.

Correct sir! They have a 1 frame jump and the destination location is 1 pixel away from the start location of the next piece.

Darlos9D · Post by **Darlos9D** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:00 am

If you could somehow parent them all to each other - which doesn't make sense in the current system - then you could set it up so when one is destroyed, they all are. I don't think such a system would function well at all if it lost a strut.

Draco18s · Post by **Draco18s** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 10:09 am

Darlos9D wrote:If you could somehow parent them all to each other - which doesn't make sense in the current system - then you could set it up so when one is destroyed, they all are. I don't think such a system would function well at all if it lost a strut.

Eh, I can't really. Best thing I could do is make a large, basically invisible, piece that exists around them (barely) and parent them all to that.

Oh, and I want to animate Xscale and Yscale too.

Put fins on those suckers and they'd expand their Yscale as they move (slightly) causing them to appear to rotate (and be paper thin

)

Edit:
Messed around with trying to make a moving section that was attached to a moving section with a smaller number of frames (so it moves at one speed, then another speed during the delay). But on the return it flickers badly, as if on one frame the first section moves, then on the next the other section moves.