ISDF VEHICLE TEAMCOLOR ADDON FOR BZ2 (//www.bzuniverse.com/~zeroangel/misc_files/teamcolorupdate.zip)
By Zero Angel [zeroangel@bzuniverse.com]
DESCRIPTION:
This update makes the skins look a lot sharper, brighter and more colorful overall during multiplayer games.
Standard BZ2 team coloring simply changes the color of the unit to a monochrome version of one color (ie: shades of red).
This update will change that by using the 'glow skins' feature of BZ2 to mask all parts of the skin, except for the orange areas which will be recolored to match team colors (ie: red,blue)
INSTALLATION:
Unzip directly into your addon folder.
To uninstall, delete ivGlowskins from your addon folder.
ISSUES/KNOWN BUGS:
1) Will _not_ cause bad assets under stock BZ2 or any MOD.
2) Will cause vehicles to be more visible in dark environments,
this helps to allow night maps to be usable for all gfx settings.
As 'high' lighting settings penalize users, this should help to
offset the problem.
3) May cause a slight FPS hit due to the extra textures that are to be drawn. Do not use if your videocard has less than 16MB RAM.
Tried it out. Looked ineresting. Not sure why but my afterburners on my sabre started acting weird after installing it. They wouldn't show up clearly unless I was firing my at stabber. They would get dimmer until I fired the stabber. It appears to be related to the skin because my clean 1.3 directory has no such behavior. The engines also flicker while firing stationary.
Thanks for the excellent find Commando. I'll look into that tonight, hopefully it doesnt cause any major problems.
I doubt it will. It is a minor graphic annomaly. I have no idea what caused it, but it looks interesting that the engines appear to compensate for the at stabber rounds. Only negative aspect is that the after burner flames become hard to see unless you fire the at stabber.
I brought this up ages ago for FE rev.c, but lizard at the time told me it required odf editing.
not right now, but soon, i shall use the same technique you have deomonstrated and create a super pack for all ships, inculding hadeans, which will take advantage of this feature.
did you get it to work for buildings?
When I tried to use glow skins for buildings, the glow skins would flicker on and off, very annoying glitch. And it does require ODF editing under 1.3, but its automatic under 1.3.
QuoteAnd it does require ODF editing under 1.3, but its automatic under 1.3.
I'm confused. Do you mean editing is required in 1.2 and it is automatic in 1.3?
Yes
If you have some done for the buildings, send them to either me or GSH and the flickering may get looked at. I can't guarantee anything, unfortunately. I sent GSH your tunnel fix, but I'm not sure if he ever got it. I'll try sending it to him again, unless you have made some updates since you sent it to me.
Yeah, the hi-side tunnel entrance I sent with the pack breaks existing maps that use it (DM tunnels), cuz I had to change the classlable to get the AI to use the tunnel properly. Therefore the hi-side tunnel entrance should have its ODF name changed slightly, such as pbtunn03a.
Hmmm, does the flickering only happen in MP ZA? I don't recall the ones I made flickering, but I only really tested in the editor and IA.
on the Alpha channle, will 50% grey show up 50% of the team.colour ?
Yeah, think of it has being a 50% opaque layer in photoshop.
Quote from: Zero AngelYeah, the hi-side tunnel entrance I sent with the pack breaks existing maps that use it (DM tunnels), cuz I had to change the classlable to get the AI to use the tunnel properly. Therefore the hi-side tunnel entrance should have its ODF name changed slightly, such as pbtunn03a.
Any place where I can get the Fixed large tunnel? I sure could use it on one of my maps.........
Hey ZA, smash up job you did with those glow textures. WOW! It really livens up those old units in mp, my eyes couldn't believe it when I was 1.3 strating this weekend. To bad you didn't do anything for the scions though.
If zero doesn't mind, i shall do a pack for the ISDF and Scions if you like. I always thought the yellow bits of the scion determined what team they were heh. But to really do the job properly we need to have those buildings done.
Perhaps it might be an idea to make default coloured tanks (i.e. with no colour at all) Pale grey. And then change the dlls for all the single player maps so that you had 'team orange'. With the alpha channles done properly you could get some very good looking tanks up and running. You could also take more advantage of the alpha channles ability to not jsut be jet black/white but grey as well.
If that course was taken (and it might be easier to impliment if jpegs are used for everything) then I would be able to do a really good job. Possiably even totally removing the 'layer on top' affect/look of the current tanks.
Same thing with scion, the default mode would be come pale grey for the 'coloured' bits. And the default colour for the other team would be yellow. Giving the same apperence, but much more flexabilty for skin makers, not to mention better looks...
What do you lot say?
I personally think the dlls should be replaced for the mpi and single player anyway. With the stuff TV and Fishbone have been pumping out latly, one could really take advantage of some new tricks.
Sure, feel free to use my skins in your skin pack and release it if you like.
BZ2 wouldve done better to use 32-bit textures as the normal textures where transparency gives way to a team colored underlay.
JPEGs dont support transparancy and introduces artifacts into images/textures (they can become noticable at close range).
only if you keep the quality low i think.
Anyhow, my point wasnt a 'theory' of what 'could be'. The suggestion i made is full feasble right now.
My question is weather or not we should go straight ahead and do it. It would require a bit of effort mind.