A way to disable arrow animations?

[Karyuu]

Heheh, this inspires me to get the effect editor working ASAP I'll ask around if the arrow effect Caarrie posted had any reason for change aside aesthetics - and if not, I will try to get it into the release, as it seems to be better liked.

[Caarrie]

Karyuu it seems that file in the release has been there for many versions and the new effects that came out in the last release were never working before that release for one reason or another.  [i compared the file with the file in .3.015 and they were identical]

[John80sk]

Could you name some of the spells with effects that you feel are overdone? As soon as I get our effect editor working again, I may be able to do tweaks.

The size of the effects do not affect the crashes, however. The crashes happen because the effects are there at all.

Yes, as others have guessed I was speaking of the arrow effects.  I quite like the other effects for the most part.

[bilbous]

I think the darkness spells are somewhat overdone. To explain: the darkness spell is a touch spell and as such affects the target, therefore it should not also affect the caster. It would be sufficient to have a dark cloud cover the target's head or even just its eyes.  As far as that goes, all that is really necessary is  a black smoke stream to shoot into each eye, there need not be any indication of the spells duration but little black discs could be used if such is desired. This might be a technical problem, but this is the wish list.

The summon missile spell (and probably its like, I can't cast yet) is somewhat problematic from a first person perspective because like the darkness spells it completely blinds the caster for most of its duration. This seems to be an unintentional by-product of its graphic display.

The other base spells do not seem as bad in comparison but to sum up my complaint, any spell effect that blinds the caster in first person camera mode is overdone unless it is an intentional by-product of the spell. I cannot think of any case other than a wildly dangerous spell with several effects harmful to the caster where you would want this type of behavior.

[Caarrie]

As I was talking with Talad about this effect on irc he pointed out that one part was missing well i fixed it to add that part back.
Just replace this with the energy_arrow.eff file you have in /data/effects/spells

Code: [Select]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<library>
    <library>/this/art/effects/arrow.spr</library>
    <textures>
        <texture name="explosion">
            <file>/this/art/effects/explosion.dds</file>
        </texture>
        <texture name="windtex">
            <file>/this/art/effects/windtext.dds</file>
        </texture>
    </textures>
    <materials>
        <material name="explosion">
            <texture>explosion</texture>
        </material>
        <material name="windmat">
            <texture>windtex</texture>
        </material>
    </materials>   
    <addon plugin="PSEffects">
        <effect name="energy_arrow">
            <anchor type="basic" name="pos">
                <dir>none</dir>
            </anchor>
            <anchor type="basic" name="pos">
                <dir>none</dir>
                <keyFrame time="0">
                    <action name="position" x="0" y="0" />
                    <action name="totarget" z="0.95" />
                </keyFrame>
            </anchor>
            <anchor type="basic" name="target">
                <dir>none</dir>
                <keyFrame time="0">
                    <action name="position" x="0" y="1.8" />
                    <action name="totarget" z="0.2" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="1000">
                    <action name="position" x="0" y="1.8" />
                    <action name="totarget" z="0.2" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="1300">
                    <action name="position" x="0" y="1.8" />
                    <action name="totarget" z="0.1" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="1450">
                    <action name="position" x="0" y="1.8" />
                    <action name="totarget" z="0.08" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="1700">
                    <action name="position" x="0" y="1.8" />
                    <action name="totarget" z="0.06" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="2000">
                    <action name="position" x="0" y="1.8" />
                    <action name="totarget" z="0.055" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="2300">
                    <action name="position" x="0" y="1.4" />
                    <action name="totarget" z="1" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="3000">
                    <action name="position" x="0" y="1.4" />
                    <action name="totarget" z="1" />
                </keyFrame>               
            </anchor>
            <obj type="sound" name="genericrelease" resource="genrls">
                <attach>pos</attach>
                <birth>0</birth>
                <death>2500</death>
                <mindist>2</mindist>
                <maxdist>35</maxdist>
                <keyFrame time="0">
                    <action name="volume" value="0.6" />
                </keyFrame>
            </obj>
            <obj type="sound" name="generichit2" resource="genhit2">
                <attach>target</attach>
                <birth>2200</birth>
                <death>4500</death>
                <mindist>2</mindist>
                <maxdist>35</maxdist>
                <keyFrame time="0">
                    <action name="volume" value="0.7" />
                </keyFrame>
            </obj>
            <obj type="mesh" name="arrow" fact="arrow">
                <attach>target</attach>
                <death>2600</death>
                <dir>totarget</dir>
                <keyFrame time="0">
                    <action name="spin" z="0" />
                    <action name="scale" value="0.01" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="500">
                    <action name="spin" z="720" />
                    <action name="scale" value="1.6" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="2600">
                    <action name="spin" z="0" />
                    <action name="scale" value="1.6" />
                </keyFrame>
            </obj>
            <obj type="spire" name="arrowwake" material="windmat" segments="10">
                <attach>target</attach>
                <dir>totarget</dir>
                <death>2600</death>
                <keyFrame time="0">
                    <action name="scale" value="0.01" />
                    <action name="height" value="1.0" />
                    <action name="topscale" value="0.01" />
                    <action name="colour" r="0" g="0" b="0" />
                    <action name="spin" x="-90" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="2095">
                    <action name="scale" value="0.01" />
                    <action name="height" value="1.0" />
                    <action name="topscale" value="0.2" />
                    <action name="colour" r="0" g="0" b="0" />
                    <action name="spin" x="-90" />
                    <action name="spin" z="1024" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="2100">
                    <action name="scale" value="0.01" />
                    <action name="height" value="1.0" />
                    <action name="topscale" value="0.2" />
                    <action name="colour" r="170" g="170" b="250" />
                </keyFrame>
                <keyFrame time="2600">
                    <action name="scale" value="3" />
                    <action name="height" value="1.0" />
                    <action name="topscale" value="0.2" />
                    <action name="colour" r="0" g="0" b="0" />
                    <action name="spin" z="0" />
                </keyFrame>
            </obj>
                 </effect>
    </addon>
</library>


[Bartholin]

I beleave that if this works (as i will see when the server returns) this should be stickied somewhere or other. maybe complie all such fixes to the spells into one thread at a later date, and stickie it to the bugs thread. just IMO but ya, i will see if this works like it is pose to.

Question. What would happen if we just deleted the spell eff files? would we crash? or would we still beable to use the spell just not see/ hear the spell?

[zanzibar]

I beleave that if this works (as i will see when the server returns) this should be stickied somewhere or other. maybe complie all such fixes to the spells into one thread at a later date, and stickie it to the bugs thread. just IMO but ya, i will see if this works like it is pose to.

Question. What would happen if we just deleted the spell eff files? would we crash? or would we still beable to use the spell just not see/ hear the spell?

You'd probably get some sort of error like widget nor found or missing file... try it and tell us what happens.

[Bartholin]

I beleave that if this works (as i will see when the server returns) this should be stickied somewhere or other. maybe complie all such fixes to the spells into one thread at a later date, and stickie it to the bugs thread. just IMO but ya, i will see if this works like it is pose to.

Question. What would happen if we just deleted the spell eff files? would we crash? or would we still beable to use the spell just not see/ hear the spell?

You'd probably get some sort of error like widget nor found or missing file... try it and tell us what happens.

kay i crash 12 times due to magic a day, so whats one for the team? . I shale tell you all when the server returns.

[Caarrie]

If this was bugged and would make people crash just trying it I would not have posted it. [this is not a widget that would make you crash anyway if i did it wrong it would just show a different effect when cast]

[Bartholin]

If this was bugged and would make people crash just trying it I would not have posted it. [this is nto a widget that would make you crash anyway if i did it wrong it would just show a different effect when cast]

I used the fix. The flashy particles were taken out, and i can send and receive the spell at the same time, (attacked an alt) So its fixed, also intrestingly if oyu take out the art files, nothing happend, nor if you took out the Eff files. I think the new Eff file should be put into the next update as it fits much better then the current arrow effect when casting. I thank you . Now if oyu could saolve the dark spells problems  . from the spells i either have are seen the following use to much memory and lead to a crash. Darkness, Flame spire, and weakness. I also notice that the dark spells seem to use the same animation. Another thing is that flame burst has nothing sept the cast animation for red way. just to point it out . ANYWAY. this new eff file takes out the particles with as has been guessed leed to a crash. The arrow looks "realer" (lol) and suits its purpose more so then the prev. one. Thanks for the fix, and keep up the work.

[Caarrie]

I am not a coder and I am not an artist so all of what i do is trial and error. I am working on a small patch for the darkness spell but I dont think it is good enough to post publically just yet :S . Unless the other devs have ideas for the spells i dont really want to go after editing a lot of them as I am not a dev and most of what i do I dont think would get in the official client unless I am asked to fix one of the effects.  [i happened to be lucky a few times that my trial and error did fix a few problems in the effects and other gui files]

[Bartholin]

I am not a coder and I am not an artist so all of what i do is trial and error. I am working on a small patch for the darkness spell but I dont think it is good enough to post publically just yet :S . Unless the other devs have ideas for the spells i dont really want to go after editing a lot of them as I am not a dev and most of what i do I dont think would get in the official client unless I am asked to fix one of the effects.  [i happened to be lucky a few times that my trial and error did fix a few problems in the effects and other gui files]

if you need someone to help test your ideas, i would be more the happy to.. unless it erases my account . but feel free to send them to my main of forum mail. I will inform you if they work well, or if they had no apparent affect. I have dont have a wide selction of spells, however, it seems that only some of the spells over use the affects to the point of crashing. I plan on testing the arrow fix w/o vertext buffer as soon as i get around to it.

[LigH]

Having Vertex Buffer on in pssetup is generally supposed to fix this issue. Those that don't know just need to be told.

So you have to be told:

I enabled VBOs. And I still crash when I see arrows.

ELSA Gladiac GeForce2 GTS, 32 MB, ELSA Detonator build 4345.

And as long as no developer is able to send me a developer build of the client, and I am not able to build one on my own (without a C development environment it is not easy to do that), this will never fix.

[ThomPhoenix]

What's stopping you from building one yourself?
I use MSVC 2005 Express Edition, it's free.

[LigH]

Hmm...

- no C experience
- full harddisks
- only 800 MHz