Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

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Zalausai
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Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Zalausai »

Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

This tutorial will teach you how to create those nice illuminated engine effects that you have probably seen on other users' ships.

The "glowball" is simple, but first you will need to get it. Go here and download the Doodads 1.02 ini file. It has everything you need, which includes the Fraxy_112 "glowball".
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6977

Ok, now we have our test ship. (It's better that in the previous tutorials, but still sucks.)
Spoiler!
SMscreen043.png
To get the doodad to go underneath the ship's engines, we will need to create some "dummy" sections.
Dummy Section: A small section meant to be hidden underneath its parent section. Its only purpose is to allow the builder to "depth" a doodad.

These sections were much larger, but I have decreased their "scale" value to make them smaller. It is also important with them selected to hold the "x" key and roll the mouse wheel downward to make sure that they are underneath their parent section.
Alternatively, you could right click the "dummy section" and select "send to bottom" to set them below everything.
Spoiler!
SMscreen045.png
Now, give each "dummy section" two Fraxy_112 "glowball" doodads.
Spoiler!
SMscreen046.png
They look ugly, yes. That's because they are still "normal". Right click each one and select "Set Blend Mode: Additive".
This will make them add their RBG to whatever they are over instead of just being drawn over it.
It should then look like this.
Spoiler!
SMscreen048.png
You will need to resize them to "fit" in the business end of your ship's engines. Make sure that one is slightly larger than the other in each set. Then make the remaining one in each set slightly smaller than that. The larger one can be any color that you want. The smaller one should be white. It will act as a highlight.
It should look like this when you are done making your adjustments.
Spoiler!
SMscreen049.png
Now, all you have to do is place the "dummy section" underneath the engine that it is parented to. Then you move the "glowballs" underneath the engine until you are satisfied with the look of it. Make sure to adjust only one glowball at a time. If you overlap them and want to change the position of the smaller one, you will be forced to move the larger "glowball" to get to it. (I know, shipmaker is fickle like this).
Here is the completed ship with "dummy sections" buried under their parent sections and "glowballs" in place.
Spoiler!
SMscreen050.png
SMscreen050.png (14.82 KiB) Viewed 13251 times
Good Luck Newbies
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Majicnanas »

I just use DDC_Flares. Is their any way to make those doodads?
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Anna
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Anna »

Just add them as doodads to the smsprites.ini
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Zalausai »

Anna wrote:Just add them as doodads to the smsprites.ini
I can't do that on mine. When the number of doodads gets too high, it fails to load them. It still loads the file but, the extra doodads just aren't there. I could be doing something wrong, but it happens after 60 or so doodads for me.
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Miram
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Miram »

Heres the idea for you next tutorial zalausai .
How to do target lasers.
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Necrontyr1998 »

That doesn't need a tutorial. Its just a red, high accuracy scatter beam with 1 duration time, 1 reload time and does no damage. :P
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Zalausai »

Like a sniper rifle "red dot" laser? That's really easy to do, just needs a little math though. I'll add it to the weapon setup for Majicnanas' request when I present the demonstration ship. If the effects get a fair review, I'll add it to the list of weapons for the "special weapon effects" tutorial. I still need a few more for it anyway.

At the Necroninja, I planned on linking it to another weapon. The reload time and duration will have to be set up differently to look properly.
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Jay2Jay »

Query, why the dummy sections?
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Anna
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Anna »

So the glows will be below the thruster sections, and appear to be coming out of the thruster sections, instead of just sitting on top of them.
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Jay2Jay »

I have never done that, yet my ship's glows turned out fine.
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Anna »

Probably because you used them as sections instead of doodads. Doodads sit on top of the sections they're parented to. If you put them on a thruster, they will appear on top of the thruster, period.
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Re: Glowballs: A Mini Tutorial

Post by Jay2Jay »

Oh. Well then should I import them as doodads?
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