Create units with OpenFX

[Tzar Sasha]

Thanks, that may be userful sometime to me.

To add a second fireball post-pro that occurs at a different time than another, do I just changing the costume length of the dummy light associated with it?

Well, not just the costume length but all of the keyframes for the dummy light assigned to the second fireball postpro. Keep in mind that all fireball post pro effects start at the beginning of the animation. But will only be visible when the dummy light assigned to them is active. In essence if you want all your fireballs to look like balls of fire, cut an paste several animation sequences together. If you want all your fireballs to look like smoke and haze then place them nearer the end of your animation and use a longer animation length.
This is why the fireball postpro is good for space ship explosions. You can start with a nice fire or plasma explosion and it slowly (depending on length of animation) turn into a smoke/debris cloud (and of course finally nothing)...
But if you want to use the fireball postpro for weapons damage, it can be tedious and a challenge if your wanting firey hits.

Also, you can tell the fireball postpro to be assigned to all dummy lights (if you aren't using any for any other purpose) That would eliminate have to setup a postpro for each dummy light. Unless of course you need to have specific settings for each light....

Surely, I've answered the question and then some. I think I'll stop rambling now....

 

[A Viking Yeti]

... Was that an answer or a fireball tutorial . Thanks for the info, but just to get it straight, to have a fireball explosion start half way through the animation, I'd have to make two, and paste one into the other half way, right?

 

[A Viking Yeti]

Oh, and a second question (if it's not too much trouble), for gun smoke, would you just use a model that has a high transparency, and add some modulation or wave effects to it in the animator? Sorry for all the questions, just curious.

 

[The Great Apple]

... Was that an answer or a fireball tutorial . Thanks for the info, but just to get it straight, to have a fireball explosion start half way through the animation, I'd have to make two, and paste one into the other half way, right?

Nope. If you scroll down in the keyframer - you can't select it any other way (apart from clicking at 0,0,0 and hoping), you can find the postpro's row, then move the start/end point to where you want it.

Oh, and a second question (if it's not too much trouble), for gun smoke, would you just use a model that has a high transparency, and add some modulation or wave effects to it in the animator? Sorry for all the questions, just curious.

You could do it like that, or you could just use a fireball postpro, and change the colours to smokish colours - I think both work.

 

[Tzar Sasha]

... Was that an answer or a fireball tutorial .

Not intentionally. Just wanted to share my experiences with fireball postpros. I use them quite heavily in my borg ships for attack and death.

Thanks for the info, but just to get it straight, to have a fireball explosion start half way through the animation, I'd have to make two, and paste one into the other half way, right?

Well, I don't know anything about telling when to have the postpro start. But I do know that if the light that the postpro is assigned to does not exist until halfway through your animation then your postpro will not be in effect until then. When I was saying cut and paste I meant outside of openfx in a paint program. To see an example check out my Borg Tacticle cube (link in my sig)
In the attack animation. I made one animation with phasers and fireball weapons damage. I made a second animation with a torpedo and fireball weapons damage. Then I commbined the two storyboards (after using sbb). The resulting flc actually contains two possibly three (don't remember anymore) openfx animations.

So to actually answer the question.
To have a fireball postpro start halfway through the animation.
1. Put a dummy attenuated light where you want your fireball. You know the xyz stuff...
2. Tell your dummy light when to be active. I just move all the keyframes to the same frame.
3. Insert a fireball postpro and assign it the newly created dummy light.
4. Adjust any settings to your fireball postpro.

You can play with the fireball postpro colors to try and get what you want. But the later in the animation you go the less combination of colors you get and the more magenta you get showing through. I feel that it may be best to break the animation up into two animations. One with everything prior to the fireball. And one with the fireball on.

 

[A Viking Yeti]

TO The Great Apple: Duh, why didn't I think of that. Thanks, you may have saved me a lot of trouble.

TO Tzar Sasha: I see... Thanks for all the help with fireballs, and when I said the tutorial thing, I wasn't complaining (just to make sure there wasn't any confusion on that).

 

[Dease]

some random fireball tips

for smoke, obviously use the greyscale colours, BUT also make sure the density is reduced to ~4 this makes sure that ALL the smoke effect is caught by the shadow row, and won't mix with other greys in your unit

For explosions, use a high density, if you don't your explosion will look way TOO pink ingame since it is tinted from the magenta on low densities

EXPLOSIONS start small, become full size after 1/3 of all the keyframes. if you want to have the explosion show only when it's full size and after, drag the fireball costume line to where you want it to go, make sure 1/3 of it is BEFORE you actually want it to show, then have the dummy costume only exist on the frames you want it to appear

FLAMES are a constant size, very good for one-frame muzzle flashes, and can look like real flames if you have a high vertical stretch

 

[Neomega]

I got a compalaint and a praise:

Complaint, I made some flying jump infantry, and once again perspective got in the way, this time making them get larger as they jumped. So for run, instead f flying as i had intended, they run.

Praise:

Anybody play with the "terrain from bitmap"? Command? It makes gif images become contour based 3d terrains.

 

[Neomega]

Here are two real quick first time attemtps at a city block.

I used the first tecture to make the terrain, and then I overlaid the texture over the generated terrain.

I think simpler drwings may actually create some great cityscapes easily.

 

[Dease]

I don't see why the units would get bigger if it's jumping up since your cameras are to the sides, and it shouldn't be jumping towards the camera
a viking yeti's jumping unit seemed to work very well.
maybe an exapmle?

 

[Mr. Will]

Has anyone figured out if water effects are possible in OpenFX?

 

[Neomega]

I don't see why the units would get bigger if it's jumping up since your cameras are to the sides, and it shouldn't be jumping towards the camera
a viking yeti's jumping unit seemed to work very well.
maybe an exapmle?

which example was that?

 

[Dease]

which example was that?

maybe just post an example of the perspective problem when jumping

 

[Neomega]

here is a look at the problem:


due to motion, it is okay for a fidget, but I can't use it for run, because it appears to have grown about 50% in size, so it would almost look like a mecha flying around.

 

[Neomega]

And here is the set-up file:

 

[The Great Apple]

I suppose you could fiddle with the size keyframe untill it looked OK. It wouldn't remove the problem, but it probably would reduce it so far as it barely being noticable.

 

[Neomega]

I suppose you could fiddle with the size keyframe untill it looked OK. It wouldn't remove the problem, but it probably would reduce it so far as it barely being noticable.

Aye, that may not be too difficult. reduce it in size 33% over the course of the entire animation. I actually didn't think of that. Next time, I am doen with this unit.

 

[Mr. Will]

Has anyone figured out if water effects are possible in OpenFX?

^ten characters^

 

[The Great Apple]

Has anyone figured out if water effects are possible in OpenFX?

You could try a high transparency object, and maybe use the "wobble" effects on it.

Alternatively you could do manual wobbling with a skeleton, or morphing, though I'm not sure if that would work very well.

 

[muffins]

I got a compalaint and a praise:

Complaint, I made some flying jump infantry, and once again perspective got in the way, this time making them get larger as they jumped. So for run, instead f flying as i had intended, they run.

The cure for that is to have all you cameras way out (and I do mean WAY out ) and to set the zoom to something stupidly high (like 250mm plus)