Arc Effect Shader?

[Stealthzone]

I've been trying to replicate sparks coming from a broken ceiling light fixture falling to the ground.

http://www.stealthzone.net/spark.zip

There are 8 textures there with alpha channels. I've tried to create an animap script but with no luck. I hear the animap scripts are bugged. I'm mapping for a mod called True Combat: Elite. It uses the Wolf:ET version of IDTECH3. I am aware of the gun_spark prop from Wolf:ET, but it doesn't work in the mod.

Basically I'm trying to rely on some kind of script so it can be shared with the community mappers. Does such an effect exist? If not can someone please write a script for the existing textures I've created?

[Eraser]

Try Particle Studio. It is a tool that generates shaders for particle effects. It works in Quake 3 so I expect it to work for Wolf:ET as well.

[Stealthzone]

Yes I've seen this but there aren't many tutorials on how to use it.

[Stealthzone]

Nobody knows anything about this? Shocking!

[DaEngineer]

You didn't ask a specific question, so I guess nobody (myself included) wants to write pages of explanations for functions of this tool you might already have found out about.

Just give it a go, read the first posting in the Particle Studio thread closely, download the examples and read through them. Then play around with the tool. There's by far much more difficult software out there.

It's not that I don't want to help, but I appreciate some own effort before someone asks for vast explanations.

[Stealthzone]

hmmmm I assume your trying to be clever. I will give you your cleverness. However, I believe I was speaking the King's English and was very specific as to my request. No I'm not lazy, I was just wondering if something was already made. Obviously you don't know and could have kept it at that. I do hope you feel better by feeding your narcissistic tendencies and making me look like a lazy fool. Have a nice day.

[Fjoggs]

Why do you assume that? Pretty much everything you need to know is in that first post in the thread that was linked.
Download it and play around.

[DaEngineer]

That hasn't to do anything with narcissism. I'm glad to help people out where I can, that's the reason why I'm writing some kind of a German Quake 3 mapping bible (40 tutorials so far) to explain every tiny thing about Radiant step by step. I DO take the time to explain all these things to people who are not familiar with it.

It's just that when you read threads over and over again (not in this board here, q3w is relatively free of such threads) where people have just opened Valve's Hammer Editor the first time and want other members to explain absolutely everything to them, you get annoyed of it after a certain amout of time.

It's always the same "alright, here I am, teach me every tiny bit, but don't force me to do anything on my own" scheme. A lot of people seem to expect others to do all the work for them without using their own head in the first place.

I didn't want to affront you. "There's by far much more difficult software out there" wasn't meant like "this tool's is so easy dude, you have to be a damn n00b if you don't know what to do with it". It was meant like "It DOES look a bit intimidating, but once you take a couple of minutes and play around with the buttons and sliders, you'll find out very fast how everything works".

[dghost77]

Heres a few examples with a very very rough guide to some of them. (It needs work)
http://homepages.manx.net/urtstats/ps_tut.zip

From the author itself of ParticleStudio, a 4 pages pdf file with example in the zip file. On my side, I just created a shader with a 6 frames animation and it's working great (without using ParticleStudio mind you).

Giving the code of your shader for your animap may also help us help you debug it. I've only seen the .tga file in your zip file and nothing else.

[InsaneKid]

Have a look at this map,
it usin some special effects
>>>
http://lvlworld.com/#c=m1&i=808&d=20%20 ... ew&q=ktsdm

[skinmaster]

I like your approach, i would suggest you watch some wiard101/forum videos on youtube to learn soe tricks of animation effects... I say this because they have giant maps and high res effects laden 3d "films" that play on multiple game circles side by side... the number of tricks and tips you will learn from playing that game is huge.

heres one vid to check out, the latest world they godoped..

so as per your idea...

perhaps doing the effect using more than one component is going to make it for ya...

ie:
1. a sprite which rotates on one axis holding your animation and playing it using some sort of wave function on the play speed...
2. a wedge /_\ shaped four vertice patch mesh with a high speed translation of a couple sparks, and a long wait on the repeat with a random variable
3. a couple of individual flare faces running on function train paths on a variable loop timer