New Add-on Pack: Bucket o' Spells 1.1

ok, poking around in the files again la la la

(vista is such a pain with its program files protection nonsense, stuffed up my extraction rawr)

now, i'm starting to have a vague understanding of what the files mean, i've been using agetians thread:

http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5717

as a reference.

Ok, please correct me if anything i say from here is totally off.

From what i can gather, the spells seem to reference the texture (a black and white 'alpha' if you will) in protoed column 15 in partsys1.tab.

ok HERE I AM MAKING ASSUMPTIONS - POSSIBLY BAD ONES
the alpha is then emitted as a coloured sprite according to the huge amount of paramaters (which im not going into yet) but the DISPLAY of that sprite is then referenced in protoed columns

62 alpha
63 Red
64 Green
65 Blue

what i could use, is an explanation from someone in the know about why for example the line:
----------------------------------
sp-fireball-proj
----------------------------------
ALPHA: 64,0

RED: 255(1),200(2),255

GREEN: 255(1),128(2),20

BLUE: 255(1),0(2),0
----------------------------------

usually when you represent a colour in RGB mode (ie computer screen default), it is portrayed as RED, GREEN, BLUE

so, white, would usually be 255,255,255, and black would be 0,0,0

This sp-fireball-proj line has both an 'alpha'-type transparency texture, in col15, and an alpha value (which has two values inside that field).

Then the line proceeds to define three values + extra bracketed values in each colour value. As though the Red channel were itself made up of red green and blue.

Is there a further explanation of these fields that might be floating around? :sweatdrop

or am i looking at the complete wrong area for what im trying to understand (very possible!)


(if you want me to start a seperate thread for this, i'm happy to )

 

To be absolutely honest, i don't remember well, i should see it by myself to understand :sweatdrop

I'll try to answer what i can:

Yep.
I dunno if that's the column, but is easy to spot it, since the names of the tgas (the alphas) are quite characteristic.
I suggest to first take a look at the particle folder, and the tgas names, so you can recognize them later in the partsys file.

Yes and yes.

I'm not 100% sure...but if you change the value there, you'll make the tga more visible or transparent.
This is where the trick comes: if you set it to full-visibility (test with 255 or 0, i don't remember now), you can paint the little .tga "texture" of whatever colour you want, thus avoiding messing with the three columns of RGB, since the tga will override the RGB info.

Come to think of, the two values must be one for the maximum visibility, and the other for full-transparency. (basically, the percentage of the alpha)

Yes.
I think because to get red, you'll need to mix yellow, magenta and cyan. So, each column of RGB need the three entries to make the right colour.
It took me a good amount of time to make the icy magic missiles, cos i always had more green or more yellow.
You can take a look at a known spell colour column, to have a rough idea of the values for each colour (or make the colours in photoshop, and write the values)

I dunno, back at that time, i figured a lot of stuff, and got lost in too many stuff, so i dunno if somebody did testing and developed more stuff.


Personally, i would choose another spell. Fireball is quite complicated, since it has a lot of variables. The burning hands spell is quite straight forwarde, as well as magic missile. Enervation and acid splash too.

A suggestion:

You could start by replacing an existant spell, to check how the colours and tgas work.
Then move on to adding a new spell effect.
Be aware, if you do a new spell effect, you'll have to add a whole new spell!
Instead of that, just remember about the Vbrute mesh viewer. You can test all the spell effects there.

 

errr... i dont have vbrute... just got import/export and leksey's model viewer - is that what you mean?

i've seen vbrute mentioned before and wasnt quite sure about it

 

Humm...

i thought i was the only one that didn't have it. Take a look in the "new models" private thread, Maggit posted a link to download.

Be aware, is not complicated to use, but you'll have to test it, and it crashes if something didn't like it, but it's very useful.

 

Hey Vampuppy, i've checked and it's there, on post #11

 

found the post links dead though... could someone repost it when they've got time?

while im fumbling around here - is the file im meant to be editing to change these the partsys1.tab in

TOEEROOTFOLDER\data\rules

?

 

Well i tried a bunch of stuff with burning hands in the partsys1.tab in that folder i mentioned, even tried deleting the file and nothing happened so i guess its the wrong one

edit: nm, found out why that might be, please ignore!

 

Ted, there's an Acid Breath spell in the spell compendium (conjuration, sor/wiz 3) that is very similar to the acid attack of the bombardier beetle

 

well, that hadnt occurred to me - dont things like concentration checks/silence etc throw a spanner in the works if you do them as one spell?

Also, is bucket of spells going to be standard or seperate to KoTB? if not, you might have to do two seperate things anyway :roll:

I was only saying that if you do one spell, you could copy it and be 95% of the way there

I wouldnt know how these things work technically though, and im not trying to give you good news then take it away or anything, honest :evilgrin:

 

I will definitely look into it - though my max setup isnt working with the plugin atm - i need to hunt down my copies of older versions so that it works again

 

Can I use Rudy's Item Mod 0.7 and the Bucket o' Spells simultaneously? I'm amidst a playthrough and want to keep current progress.