Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:25 am Post subject:
Improved Target Lasers
I thought i would share some of my tips for improving the overall feel of RA2 and YR. This is the first tutorial in what will probably be a series of tutorials. It will show you how to make very effective target lasers for your units.
This tutorial is very very easy but has good results. Firstly you need to find the unit you want to give a target laser too. For the purpose of this tutorial i will be reffering to the [GGI].
Secondly, ensure that your chosen unit does not have the tag TargetLaser= and if it does ensure that the value is no. This tag gives a 'laser' that is essentially just a red line drawn between the unit and its target and looks rubbish.
Next, choose the weapon you want to apply the target laser too, in the case of the GGI i chose the [MissileLauncher] weapon to give the GGI laser guided missiles. Find the chosen weapon in rules.ini and add the following code to the end of its stats:
Change the *'s to the values you desire. For the colours these will be in RGB (Red, Green, Blue) format (a good red colour is 255,10,10). For the laser duration the value determines the time the laser effect is visible for, a good value is 15-20.
This will draw a laser between the unit and the target when the weapon is fired. The good thing is that the normal projectile (in this case the missile) is also still drawn and the damage only happens when that projectile hits. This gives the effect of a small laser aiming at the target before the missile is fired giving the impression of laser guided missiles. This works best for weapons with a viewable projectile. For weapons with invisible projectiles (or projectiles with a speed of 100) it will just look like the unit is firing a laser.
You can also add the tags:
Code:
LaserOuterColor =*,*,*
LaserOuterSpread=*,*,*
And these will add a slight glow to the laser, personally i prefer it without these tags but you may not. The values are done in the same way as the InnerGlow (RGB format).
This effect is great for elite weapons to add a visual identifier that the unit is Elite apart from the chevrons and to mark the weapon apart from regualr versions.
i've been testing this but something is wrong, maybe is because my version of TS but I can't get rid of the red gleam of the lasers, and I can't even put the laser with a black color. If I don't put the tags the only thing that I see is that red gleam without the inner line; if I put those 0,0,0 it happens the same, the inner line is not drawn.
I don't doubt that this tags work the way you are saying, it's just that doesn't work for me (or I'm just a little dumb). QUICK_EDIT
So when you comment out all tags EXCEPT the LaserInnerColour, you still get the red glow? That would suck, it also means that RA2 uses those tags differently.
Hmm btw, didn't you forget to remove the IsBigLaser=yes? QUICK_EDIT
I've been doing my test with the LaserFire2 of the nalasr and a clone I made for a tank so it was only IsLaser.
I've been trying all things with those tags but nothing "interesting" happens. I think that the laser glow is activated allways if IsLaser is set to yes, just my opinion though.
I always thought that the logic of these tags in RA2 were different when I see the Prism tank for the first time (uh, its rules I mean). But I don't mess too much with lasers in TS anyway, after all this is a turorial for the RA2 (a good tutorial btw). QUICK_EDIT
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