Post news Report RSS New Impact Effects

Time to present a video of some new particle effects which are going to replace the old default Source bullet impact ones. And this is just the beginning of customizing the mod.

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I spent some time trying to replace the boring Source effects you get upon bullet impact with something more bearable. Some messing around in the particle editor, a couple of minutes of coding and there we go:


This is, of course, not the final version.

As one might notice I also recoded the default SMG into more M16-ish mode with default single-round mode, and a secondary three-round-burst fire. This marks the beginning of recoding all the default weapons now that the traps mechanics have been (thankfully) fully tweaked. Also, time to overhaul all the effects and add some more eye-candy. ;)

I've had this idea of semi-open alpha/beta testing (in beta's case that'd be in a couple of months time at best), although truth be told that'd require many resources to, first, get servers up depending on the popularity and, secondly, to get people in. However, in the coming month(s) I'll see what are the prospects and whether there is any point in performing such alpha testing, or should I just wait till all the content is in-place. So, expect news on that.

Thank you for your comments and, as always, eagerly awaiting any feedback and/or criticism. :)

Post comment Comments
Sionfel
Sionfel

The concrete one needs changing it looks like it's unaffected by gravity.

The rest are quite good.

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Revendel Author
Revendel

Fixed, made it fall to the ground and it does look a lot better.

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cornfetish
cornfetish

the concrete one is also a little slow...

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Revendel Author
Revendel

Should be fine now after some tweaking, will try to get some final vid up. :)

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MrCake
MrCake

hmm and the tile wall, I don't think you can fix that with the particles but wouldn't there be some tiles falling off? (or pieces of tiles); But I guess that's not possible with source engine..; :)

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Revendel Author
Revendel

As much as I'd love to it's not that easy to be done in a mod. Of course there are some workarounds and ways to "fake this", but that'd be too much work just for that effect both on coding and, probably, mapping side.

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MrMattWebb
MrMattWebb

good stuff :D

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Revendel Author
Revendel

Thanks, hopefully you'll like it better after the effects have been fully tweaked. ;)

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ThatTrunkMonkey
ThatTrunkMonkey

They still all seem just a bit too slow, like they're floating.

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Revendel Author
Revendel

They fall out MUCH faster now and gravity is much stronger. As I've said, will get a vid up when everything's fully tweaked. That should be... like this weekend. :P

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ausbushman
ausbushman

The glass, wood and ceramic tile looks too slow in response to the bullet. The concrete one looks like it responds quickly enough, but the dust looks too small and dense.

These walls are meant to look like they're being hit by a high impact bullet, not like they're having a smoke, right? :)

Keep up the good work.

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Revendel Author
Revendel

Sped it up, and yeah, the dust looked as if somebody had built smoke-walls. ;) I've also made the spread radius much bigger and tuned down the size of it, from what I've seen it looks alright.

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Jesternz08
Jesternz08

Looking good, though the first one does look a little smokey.

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Revendel Author
Revendel

Tuned it down, the effect is much more subtle now.

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ghostings
ghostings

In real life if bullets are knocking out pieces of glass, the whole glass pane would have long shattered, it would be better if no glass shards fell out.

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Revendel Author
Revendel

Well, true, but the panel here is an undestroyable brush more for testing than for showcasing realism. Although now when I think of it I might make it so that only breakable glass is emitting the particles, while bullet-proof or invincible one uses just the decals.

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Croco15
Croco15

Nice.

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Revendel Author
Revendel

Thank you. :)

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Twitwi
Twitwi

looking good, but maybe you should speed it up.

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Revendel Author
Revendel

Thanks, I've done that already so it all comes down to finishing some last changes and uploading a new vid to show all the final effects.

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SneakySoft
SneakySoft

Maybe it's possible to make the particle effect aim the other side for glass and wood, because everything that is made out of glass and wood is thin. When you shoot through it, it will blow out on the other side.

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Revendel Author
Revendel

It is of course possible (and quite easy to do actually), the only problem is that it might lead to a false impression that the bullet has penetrated the object, while there is no bullet penetration (yet? ;) ). Will see about that, you also rarely see the other side of the surface, unless you're being shot at of course. I could combine both though.

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Kamikazi[Uk]
Kamikazi[Uk]

Intresting idea great work.

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mr.renegade
mr.renegade

i dont know exactly how particle editing goes, but as far as i know, you get a little file that you dump in a particle folder in your games folder. what im trying to ask is, will these particle effects work in other source games if taken from your mod and put in the other game's particle folder?

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Revendel Author
Revendel

Nope, that'd require some code changes, at least to make them appear on impact. If a mod/game, however, implements already the new particle system for bullet impacts it'd be just a matter of finding the proper particle name to overwrite using the buit-in editor. Generally it's all about whether there is in-code support for that. ;)

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Cowsmoo4
Cowsmoo4

Are you making sure to make the effects really cheap on the system? I would hate to play this and get 12-20 fps whenever I shoot at a wall.

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Revendel Author
Revendel

It's really cheap, as far as I remember all of the effects are between 10-25 particles, the particles aren't that big so it's not really expensive. Haven't really tested it, but I didn't notice any significant FPS loses when screwing around with a fast-shooting automatic sentry gun firing all over the place. ;)

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