RC/repeater ''power rings''

[UniqPhoeniX]

It works right from the inside but not when you are "inside the edge" or between the surfaces of 2 sizes of spheres. However that area is quite small and will be even smaller if the lines are made thinner. There are a few other problems too, will see if I can get around those.
Tho does any1 by any chance know how *exactly* the alpha layer in the buffer (GL_DST_ALPHA) is modified by shaders with and without textures?

[gimhael]

Well, if you have an alpha channel in the framebuffer (the engine requests only R, G & B channels explicitly, so that is not guaranteed !), then it works just as specified by the blend func, i.e. it works just like the color channels only on the alpha channel you have SRC_COLOR == SRC_ALPHA and DST_COLOR == DST_ALPHA. If you got no alpha channel it will always be 1.0.

You can see the detailed specification here, but you better have a MathML enabled browser.

If you have no texture bound, it is practically the same as if you had bound a texture that is constant white (RGBA=1,1,1,1).

[Nux]

However, this one requires 6 spheres and has some limitations, I'm still working on it.

Looks very nice. Keep up the good work!

[UniqPhoeniX]

1. Is there a way to put 2 different shaders on different sides of a model? (currently using 2 models with 2 shaders, 1 of which has cull back)
2. Is there some easy way to draw a shader over the whole screen and
3. I'm guessing that (or simply having a square in front of the screen covered with that shader) would be far more efficient than drawing it on top of several high poly models but only over some parts of the screen?

ATM there are 4 shaders to draw the front part of a sphere and 4 more for back, per color. 2 of the 4 can simply cover the whole screen once instead of being drawn on every sphere. Probably will have to use the 1st of 4 only once for all colors. So if there are 3 red spheres and 1 blue sphere, that would take:
1 shader covering the screen,
12 (2 shaders * 2 sides * 3 spheres) for the red spheres,
1 more covering the screen,
4 for the blue sphere and
1 covering the screen again.

[gimhael]

1. Is there a way to put 2 different shaders on different sides of a model? (currently using 2 models with 2 shaders, 1 of which has cull back)

No, this isn't even possible in OpenGL unless you use shader programs. The OpenGL stencil buffer allows these kind of operations so there was no need to add them to the color buffer, but unfortunately the Quake engine does not expose the stencil buffer to user defined shaders.

2. Is there some easy way to draw a shader over the whole screen and

Draw a sprite in front of the camera. Just make sure it is large enough and not too close to the camera or it will be clipped by the near plane.

3. I'm guessing that (or simply having a square in front of the screen covered with that shader) would be far more efficient than drawing it on top of several high poly models but only over some parts of the screen?

That depends. Rerendering the model will definitely use more CPU, but on the GPU you're usually pixel limited, so the big sprite may be an overall loss. (Modern GPU have to launch vertex shader threads for every vertex passed and fragment shader threads for every pixel resp. fragment generated by the rasterizer. Usually there are so many more fragments than vertices that the vertex shaders don't matter much unless they are very complex.)

[Lakitu7]

Hey y'all, I just wanted to say that this is a neat idea with a lot of potential and I hope you're (collectively) still working on it.

[ULTRA Random ViruS]

uhh with the UBP server overload thingy, maybe there should be a function: middle click to enable instead of just cl_whatever... Also cl_domebrightness?!?

[/dev/humancontroller]

S00N(TM)...

[/dev/humancontroller]

S00N(TM)...

[/dev/humancontroller]

i hereby crown myself as king of niveus

[Plague Bringer]

Very nice. This is a fantastic yet simple way to make building that much more straight forward. This will attract new players, for sure.

[jm82792]

i hereby crown myself as king of niveus

Your awesome!
That makes trappers so easy.
Might almost be a cheat in some ways, especially if you went os of ar to do it for turret rnage, hive range and such.
Now we need a couple binds and check boxes and we are set.

[Nux]

Might almost be a cheat in some ways, especially if you went os of ar to do it for turret rnage

He did turret range if you look. I don't see this as cheating, it allows players to be skillful with base layout.

Looking good. How much does all this cost (in processing)?

[Plague Bringer]

Might almost be a cheat in some ways, especially if you went os of ar to do it for turret rnage

He did turret range if you look. I don't see this as cheating, it allows players to be skillful with base layout.

Looking good. How much does all this cost (in processing)?

I think jm82792 is under the impression that this is now, or more importantly, will be visible to all players, rather than builders on their respective team. If not, I'm really not quite sure how this could be seen as cheating. It's simply making concrete what many builders learn as intuition.

[jm82792]

Not that but it could make buildings so effective that it could make camping more possible,
cheating is the wrong word to disciple it.
If this is implemented it should greatly enhance the tactical advantage of building and WILL help newbies build bases that won't die instantly.

[Plague Bringer]

Not that but it could make buildings so effective that it could make camping more possible,
cheating is the wrong word to disciple it.
If this is implemented it should greatly enhance the tactical advantage of building and WILL help newbies build bases that won't die instantly.

I think that anything that makes the learning curve for the builder less harsh is good. I don't think that this will effect the quality of bases built by competent builders too much, as they've already got in their head estimates of ranges and such; For the most part, a foot to the left or the right won't make or break the game. I think it'll lessen the difference of effectiveness between bases that were built by new/experienced players (if it's not overwhelming) and that (imo) is a very good thing.

[jm82792]

So is the feature almost bug free and complete?
It really should be implemented into GPP.

[F50]

Check it out on the Brindus Mod Rotation server (I've been saying that a lot). Its bug free, and I don't see anything that I would change.

EDIT: I guess I should say that the alien power spheres can get a tad annoying under certain situations, but they really do help anyways.

[CorSair]

Win.

Say what you say, I think this should make base (bit) more effective.

[Plague Bringer]

Is it possible to merge power spheres? Rather than showing the overlap, not drawing it?

[vcxzet]

but intersections have more power. right?
so it is important to see them

[ziplocpeople]

but intersections have more power. right?
so it is important to see them

No, they don't. In fact if you build a repeater too close to the RC-power area you won't be able to build turrets and whatnot in the overlap zone assuming that there's not enough BP left in the RC area. (at least, I'm pretty sure this is the case, they may have fixed/changed this.)

[c4]

I think he's really talking about turrets and the like.

[Plague Bringer]

I think he's really talking about turrets and the like.

No, I'm talking about power spheres. I mentioned this because I can imagine the alien base getting rather cluttered, what with every spawn providing creep.

ziploc, don't worry about vcxzet. He knows as much as you or I, and is just trolling... Always.

[c4]

Check it out on the Brindus Mod Rotation server (I've been saying that a lot). Its bug free, and I don't see anything that I would change.

EDIT: I guess I should say that the alien power spheres can get a tad annoying under certain situations, but they really do help anyways.

I went there.  Didn't find the spheres.

[Qrntz]

but intersections have more power. right?
so it is important to see them

Sure.

[Meisseli]

Only visible thing for builders should be creep/power spheres. Perhaps you should be able to view buildable (attack) ranges before building, but were they constantly on, it would really start to get more annoying and confusing than helpful.

[David]

IMO the power range should be up all the time for builders, and attack ranges when they have an attack buildings blueprint up.

EDIT:  Maybe have a cvar controlled?  Then we can have binds to toggle it etc.

[vcxzet]

cool

[Nux]

Just tried out the current brindus mod power spheres and wanted to highlight this. The sphere doesn't quite represent the range properly (for turrets at least).