Supcom-style air wreckage

Discussion in 'Mod Discussions' started by cody8598, June 15, 2016.

  1. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    Uhm so hey, I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to particle and fx modding in PA and I want to make a fx mod so air wreckage looks more like in supcom (plane wreckage, burning debris and impact explosion of the plane)
    So there's a mod out there which adds back airplane wreckage.
    I already managed to make some smoking/burning debris parts flying away when a plane is shot.
    And I also wanna add that the wreckage of the plane is burning and rotating a bit while crashing and then exploding and burning on the ground, I also wanna make the debris parts burn when they hit the ground.
    So now my question is:
    -is it possible to link a particle effect to plane wreckage
    -make the plane wreckage have random rotation
    -have the wreckage burning when it's lying in the ground.
    Thanks in advance AND sorry for the crappy english I'm tired and german. ^^
  2. lokiCML

    lokiCML Post Master General

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  3. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    Yeah I've already seen this one I used it for the fx I already done, but thanks anyways ^^
    lokiCML likes this.
  4. Alpha2546

    Alpha2546 Post Master General

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    Have been thinking about this idea a lot. Unfortunately its a lot of time to implement correctly (need to edit all the air planes files etc). I don't know how well you know the FX system but to answer your question pretty much straight forward.

    -is it possible to link a particle effect to plane wreckage
    Yes it is possible to hook effects to wreckage. I recommend into looking up the code for the Zeus. There is probably some stuff hooked to the wreckage in the animtree of it. Tweaking that kind of stuff is hard though.

    -make the plane wreckage have random rotation

    Yes its definately possible but again you'd need to alter animations to do it properly basically add death animations when the planes dies and hook those up in the animtree. Same goes for the effect

    -have the wreckage burning when it's lying in the ground

    Yes

    Now that is the right way to do it but takes some effort to get it right. The quick and dirty way is just adding a smoke to the death explosion and hook it to a bone of the unit. Which means that the particle starts at that bone. Then you can time when the plane hits the ground and add a smokey effect to show the impact of the crash.

    I recommend installing Cplosion and see how that works. Its has smokey wreckages for ground units. A good start is to hook a smoke effect to the bone of an airplane. Create a WIP thread and I'll try to guide you through it. You can tag me in it if you need feedback.
  5. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    Thanks for the reply! I'm already using Cplosion :3. But you said you'd have to edit all the plane files but I think there are just two files one for t1 air units and one for t2 air units so if I got it right it shouldn't be that much work, pretty much what is left to do is the that the plane is burning whilst crashing to the ground and add a explosion/fire to the wreckage on the ground, I'll probably start working at it on the weekend.
  6. Alpha2546

    Alpha2546 Post Master General

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    Yes you'd have to edit the files because you want the effect to get hooked to the bone. If you don't then the FX won't spawn from that bone thus stuff shows up mid air (where the explosion happens)
  7. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    Ah okay thanks tho :D I'l probably start with the t1 anti air and bomber. ^^ (but I'm pretty lazy so it'll take years) Oh yeah also another question, is there someting like the particle viewer in valve games?
    Last edited: June 16, 2016
  8. Alpha2546

    Alpha2546 Post Master General

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    If you edit the original files then the game will autoupdate those files thus pa itself is your viewer. I've streamed recently some FX modding. You can check it back on twitch (for now).
    https://www.twitch.tv/alpha2546/v/70937830?t=51m36s
  9. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    Oh I see what you mean, cool thanks, maybe you could do a tutorial on stream sometimes :D so now I only need to know how to hook fx to bones of models then I'm ready to go. ^^
    EDIT:
    That's what I got until now (those smoking/burning parts flying around):
    20160617170552_1.jpg
    Last edited: June 17, 2016
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  10. Mirolog

    Mirolog Well-Known Member

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    You can do this stuff without animtrees. It's possible to use 3d model (wreckage) as a particle.
    Here is a Helios dropping from the orbit without any messing with animtrees:
    Alpha2546 likes this.
  11. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    Oh hey ^^ yeah that's what I did, if you look closely at the pic above, you can see that the debris parts are small 3d models.
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  12. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    So there's still one problem: I don't really know how to link a particle effect to a bone
  13. Alpha2546

    Alpha2546 Post Master General

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  14. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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  15. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    Sorry if I'm annoying but what is wrong here? I looked at the thread you send about the titan wreckage smoke and tried to apply it onto the bomber.json

    Bomber.json
    Code:
       "events":{
          "build_complete":{
             "audio_cue":"/SE/Build_Complete/air"
          },
          "fired":{
             "audio_cue":"/SE/Weapons/air/bomber_fire"
          },
          "died":{
             "audio_cue":"/SE/Death/Air",
             "effect_spec":"/pa/effects/specs/titan_smoke_01.pfx bone_root",
             "effect_scale":0.75
          }
       },
    Obviously something is wrong, because it looks just like before, help would be appreciated, man this is hard.
    Last edited: June 19, 2016
  16. Alpha2546

    Alpha2546 Post Master General

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    Could you paste or upload the complete Json? I'll take a look at it.
    cody8598 likes this.
  17. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    Code:
    {
       "base_spec":"/pa/units/air/base_flyer/base_flyer.json",
       "display_name":"!LOC:Bumblebee",
       "description":"!LOC:Carpet Bomber- High damage over a wide area. Fragile and slow. Attacks land, sea and undersea targets.",
       "max_health":100,
       "build_metal_cost":280,
       "unit_types":[
          "UNITTYPE_Bomber",
          "UNITTYPE_Mobile",
          "UNITTYPE_Offense",
          "UNITTYPE_Air",
          "UNITTYPE_Basic",
          "UNITTYPE_FactoryBuild"
       ],
       "guard_radius":120,
       "guard_layer":"WL_AnySurface",
       "navigation":{
          "type":"air",
          "acceleration":75,
          "brake":20,
          "move_speed":75,
          "turn_speed":110,
          "dodge_radius":0,
          "dodge_multiplier":0.0,
          "aggressive_distance":50.0,
          "aggressive_height":100.0,
          "wobble_factor":0.05,
          "wobble_speed":0.1
       },
       "physics":{
          "radius":6,
          "gravity_scalar":1,
          "push_sideways":false,
          "allow_pushing":false,
          "air_friction":1.0
       },
       "recon":{
          "observer":{
             "items":[
                {
                   "layer":"surface_and_air",
                   "channel":"sight",
                   "shape":"capsule",
                   "radius":200
                },
                {
                   "layer":"underwater",
                   "channel":"sight",
                   "shape":"capsule",
                   "radius":200
                }
             ]
          }
       },
       "maintain_priority_target":false,
       "model":{
          "filename":"/pa/units/air/bomber/bomber.papa",
          "arrows":5
          "animtree":"/pa/anim/anim_trees/bomber.json"
       },
       "tools":[
          {
             "spec_id":"/pa/units/air/bomber/bomber_tool_weapon.json",
             "aim_bone":"bone_root",
             "muzzle_bone":"bone_root"
          }
       ],
       "events":{
          "build_complete":{
             "audio_cue":"/SE/Build_Complete/air"
          },
          "fired":{
             "audio_cue":"/SE/Weapons/air/bomber_fire"
          },
          "died":{
             "audio_cue":"/SE/Death/Air",
             "effect_spec":"/pa/effects/specs/titan_smoke_01.pfx bone_root",
             "effect_scale":0.75
          }
       },
       "fx_offsets":[
          {
             "type":"moving_forward",
             "filename":"/pa/units/air/bomber/bomber_jets.pfx",
             "offset":[
                0,
                2.32,
                1.393
             ]
          }
       ],
       "audio":{
          "loops":{
             "move":{
                "cue":"/SE/Movement/air/air_bomber_loop",
                "flag":"vel_changed",
                "should_start_func":"is_moving_laterally",
                "should_stop_func":"is_not_moving"
             }
          },
          "selection_response":{
             "cue":"/SE/Selection/air/bomber"
          }
       },
       "selection_icon":{
          "diameter":23.0
       },
       "TEMP_texelinfo":10.4258,
       "mesh_bounds":[
          14,
          7.5,
          2.6
       ]
    }
    This is the bomber.json, just ignore the part with the anim tree, just something I tried, but didn't work either, probably going to remove it.
    EDIT:
    I managed to get that thing with the anim tree working, by copying the anim tree from the Air Titan and changing it a bit, but I'll still remove it cause it only emits a puff of smoke, because the emitter is killed right afterwards (I think.)
    Last edited: June 25, 2016
  18. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    BUT Is there also a way to attach particles to reclaimable wreckage?
  19. Mirolog

    Mirolog Well-Known Member

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    If you want attach particle to the wreckage (so particles would disappear when wreckage gets reclaimed or destroyed) - animtrees is the only solution. However there are other ways to do that. Like having particle emitters with long lifetime. If you want these particles NOT where explosion happend - some magic with attaching things to things is required. But it's possible.

    What exactly you want to do?
  20. cody8598

    cody8598 New Member

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    There's a mod out there that adds reclaimable airplane wreckage, and I want to attach fire/smoke to the reclaimable wreckage, and that it explodes after hitting the ground, I know it's possible to add the wreckage as a particle mesh, but this way it's not reclaimable, and preferably I want the plane wreckage to be reclaimable, so it looks like in the supcom games.

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