Hit effects

[yurch]

This is more an artwork gripe than a gameplay issue, really, but there's a bit of overlap in terms of visualization of hit. I apologize if I come off a bit harsh.

I find the hit effects are somewhat lackluster. By hit effects, I mean the various types of effects a projectile can make when hitting targets. Penetrating hits make that 'splatter' effect, Non penetrating does the explosion + dark smoke. Shots that hit the ground have the non-penetrating effect, but not much else.

The first issue is missed shots, with the default 'explosion' graphic. Granted, I've never seen a 120mm sabot fired into the dirt, but I really think there should be more dust/dirt/other kicked up into the air. And why not? The artillery puts up a brilliant plume of crap into the air (probably not enough, considering the volume of dirt they often displace), often obscuring view for a significant timeframe. Low gravity/low atmo environments might even make the dust take longer to settle down... So why don't we have any dust at all? The (almost circular) puff of black smoke for the explosion also doesn't look quite right, especially for AP ammunition. When under 20mm 'rain', the only visual is small black circles landing in orderly lines near your craft.

Non penetrating hits are a judgment call. Now, I haven't observed tank combat, so I'm obviously not an expert. But, given the metal-on-metal action, I'd expect at least a small bit of sparks, probably fired in normals to the same directions the shell approaches and deflects off to.

Penetrating hits are probably the worst. I actually laughed the first time I saw it. For some reason it looks to me like some sort of aerosol-ketchup was escaping the craft. Right now I can't tell if the hit effect is a sprite system or particles, (edit: it's a sprite) although I'm fairly certain it's an animated sprite. If the pink-red blobby thing must be kept, I think it should be attached to the craft at the hit location for the duration of the animation. (actual particles, if used, should be fired taking vehicle velocity into account) Reasoning for this is two fold; The first is that it looks silly for the effect to still be animating in the same manner long after the vehicle has driven away. It gives the impression of slow-motion extreme-air-resistance sparks, and that ion hits are somehow producing smoke for several seconds that comes out of mid air. The other reason is that it gives us a better idea of where we hit the vehicle.

Right now the pink-red thing doesn't really look like a spark or any other sort of light source. Sparks also shouldn't grow in size (see: HE hits vs AP hits on a building) and are usually more... well, "frisky". There should be an inherent violence in a hit effect.

Now, I don't know your engine or it's limitations, or your final intentions for it. It appears that you do in fact have a sort of particle effect system, however. Please abuse it for the hit effects. I absolutely love particle effects, and it'll be one more thing on top of this already promising game.

edit: I can NOT spell today

[ March 30, 2006, 06:46 PM: Message edited by: yurch ]

[dan/california]

Don't feel bad, I can't spell everyday.

[RIPper_SVK]

i think i also already wrote about this, so i'll sum my ideas up here:

1) HEAT: the 120mm HEAT explosion should be much larger. this one looks like 40mm grenade explosion

2) 120mm sabot hit to a vehicle should produce a significant effect. it should look almost like a bit smaller explosion. in reality it has a bright flash, lots of sparks and the shockwave kicks a lot of dust around the target.

the described effect if for a non deflected hit. i'm not sure at what angle do the sabots bounce of the armor in the game, but in reality it's at around 80 degrees from normal. a deflected hit should produce a much smaller effect.

the current effect of 120mm is right maybe for 20mm.

i think the sabot hit effect should look the same regardless if it penetrates or not (unless the turret explodes instantly . but if the hit penetrates, you should see some effects later, like smoke coming from the penetration hole.

sabot hit to the ground should kick up some dust and dirt, but not too much.

[yurch]

Are there any mod options regarding this sort of thing? (I suppose, other than just changing the sprites) I couldn't find anything but various weapon/vehicle data at a cursory glance.

[ClaytoniousRex]

I actually laughed the first time I saw it.

Certainly not what we were shooting for...

Yes, DropTeam has a robust particle engine. This effect is, indeed, simply an animated sprite at the moment. You're right that putting some effort into particles would yield much better results for this effect (both for sparks and for some smoke, etc.) We're still fixing more important problems at the moment but we should be able to get to this kind of thing before very long.

As for modding it, you would be stuck with replacing the animated sprite with your own at the moment.

[yurch]

Looking at the sprite it in the game directory, it's far better looking (artistically), and it almost appears like it was based on some sort of fireworks display. Something about it in game just destroys it's sense of depth and coloring, though, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Looking forward to particles.

[yurch]

Also, what's there to keep players from 'cheating' by changing the sprites? Seethrough smoke/trees and neon paint schemes jump to mind immediately...

[ClaytoniousRex]

Nothing's there to prevent that at all (on the client-side anyway), because this is also the same mechanism by which players would create their own custom camouflage textures or unit insignia or whatever else they like. Neon paint schemes aren't really *that* helpful to the cheater, see-through trees would actually lie to the cheater as often as help him (depending on what angle he was looking through them from - they're not depth sorted). And no matter what you do, cheaters can always install client-side OpenGL hacks that do things like force wireframe graphics or inject new textures in place of existing ones without the program's knowledge so they can see through things regardless of how the game works.