Here to copy and paste the demo:
Play with it, post your MOD :P
The starting code is by Binary_Moon, who took hisself the skratch code from someone else.
All fine and even more than fine with the trail,
I solved also the dynamic environment mapping problem,
now it does it beautifully.
Please give credits if you use the code ;)
Fixed and revisioned the archive :)
Nice tech demo, deserves some mention...
well done!
I take it my GeForce 256 doesn't cut the mustard for the env mapping coz it doesn't work properly on my PC. I liked the trails, though. :)
Looking forward to checking this out when I get home form work. Scanning your code makes me wonder 2 things so far:
1> You mentioned needing a texturealpha command. Wouldn't applying the texture to a brush and using BrushAlpha do essentially what a TextureAlpha command would do or am I missing something (very likely at this point).
2> When you hide your trails, it makes me want to test the speed of zeroing an entity alpha versus hide entity to see if HideEntity might be a performance boost (slight if any I imagine...but I will take any speed where I can).
On a similar note...why are you hiding the trails for the env map? Are the trails not part of the environment? It may create a nice "reflection" of the exhaust if you keep them around (or maybe you tested and it is hideous...lol).
1>
No, brushalpha is like entityalpha, and it fades the whole mesh, while I want a SOLID mesh, and to make it look like metal, I need that the 2nd layer of texture (layer 1) can have more or less blend onto the other layer of texture.
The command should be TextureBlend,FLAG%,AMOUNT#,
to work good and make perfect metal reflections.
Which is a thing blitz3D can't actually do, but that in C++ upon DX7 SDK you can actually do.
2>
Yes, you could put HideEntity, but what about, you make a game, and have also Collisions to deal with ?
You would lost your ship in deepspace because HideEntity STOP the blitz collision system from work on that entity.
The trails goes hidden, because I hide their parent, the exhausts, anyway yes, they could be rendered, but the ship middle part NOT! ;-)
Hide entities with alpha 0 to keep collision in tact.. If you have to, load the ship as an animated model ( so you get hiarchy access ) and then alpha out on the chunks you need.
Zurk,
Ah, well, just taking a stab in the dark. :-)
Guess I didn't look at the code close enough, my impression was that you toggled to alpha 0 and back was with no movement inbetween, so collisions would not be a concern I would think.
To bad about the alpha...I would not have guessed that was what burshalpha did.
;)
I wish textureblend amount! :)
Sabata EntityAlpha ,0 doesnt decrease my polycount! :)