Particle effect possibilities, billboards and laser beams.

[clay_more 10]

Hello,

id like to create a visible laser beam particle effect in arma 3.

im trying currently to find out what the particle system in arma 3 is capable of. ive seen som really neat particle effects and have been wondering if the system supports beams which extend from muzzle to wherever the beam is hit (if hit detection can determine the beams distance).

does it use a billboard?

are trails supported ? it would be very useful for means of game optimization if i could use trails for rockets instead of the oldschool method of using single smoke particles spawning in a high density behind a missile for example.

id be glad if someone could point me to where i can find out about this.

[x3kj 1247]

what do you mean by trails? a sprite combination (multiple planes with an alpha texture)?

Rockets have a particles that stay (but because of beeing smoke the particles dont have to be very dense), and a "trail" which is basically the same as a guns muzzleflash.

The problem for laserbeam would be, i guess, that the whole trail will be displayed immediately. So you cant make it very long. The longer it is the faster the muzzle velocity would have to be.

To find out, extract the configs from the files, or have a look at them in the config viewer (which can be

in the mission editor). Look at their classes and their content.

I've also thought about this issue, but havent really started testing something. Projectile Simulation is problematic and more or less useless because you either have bullet drop, or almost infinite range. The timetolive is, as far as i'm informed only usable as integer-> only full seconds. 1 Second is alot for a beam. Plus it will end appruptly, there will be no damage falloff, which is bad. 2501m no damage, 2500m 100% damage.

Not sure if missiles are that much better however...

If you find something, i'd like to hear about it as well.

[clay_more 10]

thanks for the reply fennek, as trail i mean something akin to what you see in udk... lemme find something

the first one is the kind of particle effect im searching for, things like that beam here which determines his size of his own, from muzzle to impact point (im sure arma supporst hitscan, every engine supports it.).

http://i.imgur.com/9eWeQ.jpg

the second one is a trail effect:

http://benoitj.com/onewebmedia/3DFX/FX_SwordTrail.jpg

notice its actually a beamlike particle broke up in sections to produce a curvature.

can you clarify on the beam ? it is no problem i the whole beam is showm from muzzle to impact, as thats what im aiming for.

as for the rocket trail, i want to use something like ive shown on the pics, but thats not a necessity. it would be merely better for optimization, unless i misunderstood how particles work.

[x3kj 1247]

i dont think you can access the hitscan thing.

You have to use the systems present (missile, bullet or shell simulation)

only way is to try and play around with the particle system if you can get what you are after

[Macser 776]

I don't know anything about A3,or if it differs much in terms of scripting from

previous titles.But if translation animations are possible,could a beam effect be

achieved by stretching out a double plane along the trajectory of a bullet?

Tied to a fired event?

The plane would start out flat enough to be invisible.Then upon firing the outermost

points would be translated along the bullet path.

Or possibly a stream of particles drawn from muzzle to impact.

I'm not a great scripter.So I couldn't tell anyone how to achieve that.

[clay_more 10]

mac, what you described in your illustration would be a good way to make trails (even if non deformable), those would be perfect for bolt weapons or anything using a trail of some sort. i think that is the perfect solution. sadly as you explained, the place does not act like a proper billboard, so it might end up looking a bit primitive especially since its a plane, at soem point you might notice it vanishes if loked from te wrong direction.

another problem would be, that the bullet would need very high velocities to achieve a flat enough trajectory, and im not sure how accurate the behaviour is when penetrating materials. you would also end up with an infinite range, which would not be accurate considering that the lights intensity diminishes with distance.

but still. that solution is still better than nothing.

does anyone know if accessing hitscan is somehow possible ?

[Macser 776]

I don't think a beam would be very visible viewed from certain angles anyway.

So I wouldn't see that as a problem.

As far as an infinite distance is concerned.If it was tied to the bullet

,in a similar way that setpos works to place an object,it would end

where there's an impact.How,or if,that can be achieved in script form

I'm not sure.

[clay_more 10]

impact is one thing, however, if you shoot into the sky where there no actual colision, you will end up with that infinite distance... it would be more appropriate if the beam would lose power as in damage, and eventually vanish at some point, whcih would be set as maximum range for it independent whether something was hit or not.

you will end up with the same problem with things like plasma projectiles which should dissipate after a certain travel time, or weapons which have a limited amount of propellant and rapidly fall to ground once there is no thrust, or melta weapons which are reliant on distance-damage mechanics.

[Macser 776]

Unless things have changed radically,projectiles have a limited lifetime.

They don't continue into infinity.

And as for short range weapons.Like say a flamethrower.I don't think

The ballistics will cater for that.

[clay_more 10]

if that is the case then only the billboard problem needs to be solved, and voila, perfectly fina laser weapons. the lifetime can be set i believe ? fennek claims lifetime is determined in whole numbers, seconds, which would be problematic for something that travels at the speed of light.

ive also seen flamethrowers done in arma, albeit it didnt look that good.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Clay_More

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Flamethrowers would probably be somewhat more easy to make now with the effectFly = parameter in cfgammo

Making decent looking laser beams is probably more of a challenge though. A simple one using drawLine3D between a weapon muzzle memory point and the cursortarget is probably fairly simple, but it's just a plain solid line - not that nice to look at.

[clay_more 10]

is there such a function witht he possibility to assign a texture to it ?

[x3kj 1247]

you cant add a texture to a 1dimensional object...

The only chance i see for a solid straight beam effect is to try and use the particle system to place smaller sections of a "trail" (as you call it) behind each other in the correct spacing and orientation.

[x3kj 1247]

I made a feature request here for a non-kinetic, generic ammo class that could aid in creating all sorts of awesome weapons

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=20173