Check this out to get inspired on how to improve combat effects

[Fazmaster]

Yeah, I think XR has such nice effects that it's the only standard X4 needs to meet regarding effects in the short term. Anyone that hasn't played it in awhile should try it or watch some capship combat videos. It's spectacular.

Absolutely agree. Capship explosions and subelement fire exhausts and smoke look top-notch in X:R.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 5A528989D/

just wonder how difficult it would be to make some of the (outer) smoke cloud change or has it`s frame of reference set to the world instead of the ship it's coming from , i.e. that this smoke doesn't turn with the ship?

As every ship does different manourves it would give endless variations to the animation and drastically improve the visual impact of the scene.

Anyone?


{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}

[adeine]

I'd rather X4 wasn't this cartoony or over the top. The smoke lighting is neat, but you can tell they really fell in love with their effect and made what is essentially a fog machine simulator (kind of immersion breaking for anything set in space). Dial it down a notch or twenty

I like some of the sound design though, the hollow/tinny impacts on your hull and internal vibrations are more akin to what you'd expect.

Im pretty sure prolonged space battles would actually look something like that. Matter and smoke from decompressions, released coolant etc would probably cover the area of a prolongued battle in 'mist'. Being able to 'see' how long a battles been raging, with crippled capital ships still fighting for their lives? Would be epic (Rebirth kinda does it already).

Not really. Persistent and defined smoke trails as in the original video are not a thing without an atmosphere. The thing with explosions and streams of gas in space is that without any friction, they continue along and disperse at their original velocity. If you've ever watched a rocket launch crossing into space when backlit by the sun (basically the extreme case where you're releasing a vast amount of brightly illuminated gas) you'll see it just forms a spherical halo/bubble that continues to expand. Neat video here, where you can see the exhaust crossing over from atmosphere into space.

This is also why the speed of 'sound' is incredibly high in space. If something explodes ways off, debris and particles on a collision course with you will cover the entire distance at whatever speed they were ejected originally, and it's their impact on your hull that would produce any audible noise.

[Max Bain]

I'd rather X4 wasn't this cartoony or over the top. The smoke lighting is neat, but you can tell they really fell in love with their effect and made what is essentially a fog machine simulator (kind of immersion breaking for anything set in space). Dial it down a notch or twenty

I like some of the sound design though, the hollow/tinny impacts on your hull and internal vibrations are more akin to what you'd expect.

Im pretty sure prolonged space battles would actually look something like that. Matter and smoke from decompressions, released coolant etc would probably cover the area of a prolongued battle in 'mist'. Being able to 'see' how long a battles been raging, with crippled capital ships still fighting for their lives? Would be epic (Rebirth kinda does it already).

Not really. Persistent and defined smoke trails as in the original video are not a thing without an atmosphere. The thing with explosions and streams of gas in space is that without any friction, they continue along and disperse at their original velocity. If you've ever watched a rocket launch crossing into space when backlit by the sun (basically the extreme case where you're releasing a vast amount of brightly illuminated gas) you'll see it just forms a spherical halo/bubble that continues to expand. Neat video here, where you can see the exhaust crossing over from atmosphere into space.

This is also why the speed of 'sound' is incredibly high in space. If something explodes ways off, debris and particles on a collision course with you will cover the entire distance at whatever speed they were ejected originally, and it's their impact on your hull that would produce any audible noise.

Are you talking about realism in a sci fi game like X4? Hell its about cool space battles and yes, I want smoke and a lot of missile trails in my space game .
I also think that with the proper technology it would be posssible to have big long trails. Just think about comets. They are losing particles like ice on their way and this could be the case with missiles as well (with the right engine and sure it wouldnt be ice particles).

[csaba]

Ego should hire the guys if the game fails. Just saw a review the other day and servers in Europe are dead. They did incredible work for a 5 man team and honestly their art style is very similar to X4.

It's only alpha of course but their early access ain't selling well enough to keep servers running. Really sad. I just hope it doesn't go into development hell for years.

Better yet get into a tech exchange with them. Help develop their game help X4 get something out of it, they aren't a direct competitor after all. They look like a bunch you should keep contact with.

[adeine]

Are you talking about realism in a sci fi game like X4? Hell its about cool space battles and yes, I want smoke and a lot of missile trails in my space game .
I also think that with the proper technology it would be posssible to have big long trails. Just think about comets. They are losing particles like ice on their way and this could be the case with missiles as well (with the right engine and sure it wouldnt be ice particles).

It's always a mix of realism and what is 'cool', I fully realise that. Suspension of disbelief and all that

I do think the game/video in the OP is way over the top though.

[Max Bain]

Are you talking about realism in a sci fi game like X4? Hell its about cool space battles and yes, I want smoke and a lot of missile trails in my space game .
I also think that with the proper technology it would be posssible to have big long trails. Just think about comets. They are losing particles like ice on their way and this could be the case with missiles as well (with the right engine and sure it wouldnt be ice particles).

It's always a mix of realism and what is 'cool', I fully realise that. Suspension of disbelief and all that

I do think the game/video in the OP is way over the top though.

I think you have to play it yourself. It feels so awesome and intense its really cool - believe me.
But the smoke in the video I linked has above average smoke and trails. Normally you have less of it.

[Artean]

Maybe i used the wrong wording for this, english is not my primary language, sorry. Its for me as an artist currently impossible to achieve this shown result.
I guess that with some work on the programming side of thing, we could move the particles to the gpu to have them be handled there.
This is currently not the case and therefore we can not have large amount of particles on screen.
We are aware of it for a longer time, its always a matter of available dev time.

So, in theory, could a move of particle handling to the GPU potentially mean both higher fps and nicer looking effects? If so, I would push this up the priority list... but, on the other hand, I have no clue at all how many precious programming hours that would take.

[tomchk]

I desperately hope that’s correct and that this is part of the reason for 3.0’s delay! I would also agree and add that this should be highest priority if they can make the effects wow people like X:R. Think of the videos that will produce and all the new buyers it will bring!

[mr.WHO]

Id love to have such massive effects in game, but sadly this is currently technically impossible for us to to.
We are currently very limited in the amount of particles we can show on screen and we also do not have particles being affected by lightsources.
These are two things which make this video look so much better.

I think particles are not the main problem here. The main problems (that VRO mod dealt with) are following:
1) Lacking sound design - while most fighter weapons are OK, capital and turret weapon sounds are bad, for example:
- plasma turret sound - very boring and weak sound of "pew...pew...pew...pew".
- destroyer main weapon sound - again simble, boring and weak sound of "pew pew pew"
- beam turrets give no sound (which is strange, becasue Khaak beams have sounds) - give at least Large beam turrets some imposing sound.
- it would be good if corvette/frigate wapons would have unique, more powerful sound (currently they have copy/paste sound of fighter weapons)

2) lacking FX design:
- Mainly the fact that most bullet FX are very small and not very visible from distance, unless you're at point blank (all of small turret suffer from this).
- destroyer weapon bullet FX doesn't looks very powerful.
- plasma turret bullet FX doesn't look very powerful (see X-Rebirth plasma, even the small blue one was nicer than X4 plasma).

3) Some questionable stat design:
- plasma turrets - biggers range doesn't go well with the slowest buller and big rate of fire (for the love of god stop shooting, you miss 99% of the shots).
- Pulse Laser and Bolt Repeater are too similar to eachother.
- OK, we have have main destroyer weapon mount, but it would be great if we had any more option to choose for that mount (like torpedo launcher or railgun)

[Max Bain]

Id love to have such massive effects in game, but sadly this is currently technically impossible for us to to.
We are currently very limited in the amount of particles we can show on screen and we also do not have particles being affected by lightsources.
These are two things which make this video look so much better.

I think particles are not the main problem here. The main problems (that VRO mod dealt with) are following:
1) Lacking sound design - while most fighter weapons are OK, capital and turret weapon sounds are bad, for example:
- plasma turret sound - very boring and weak sound of "pew...pew...pew...pew".
- destroyer main weapon sound - again simble, boring and weak sound of "pew pew pew"
- beam turrets give no sound (which is strange, becasue Khaak beams have sounds) - give at least Large beam turrets some imposing sound.
- it would be good if corvette/frigate wapons would have unique, more powerful sound (currently they have copy/paste sound of fighter weapons)

2) lacking FX design:
- Mainly the fact that most bullet FX are very small and not very visible from distance, unless you're at point blank (all of small turret suffer from this).
- destroyer weapon bullet FX doesn't looks very powerful.
- plasma turret bullet FX doesn't look very powerful (see X-Rebirth plasma, even the small blue one was nicer than X4 plasma).

3) Some questionable stat design:
- plasma turrets - biggers range doesn't go well with the slowest buller and big rate of fire (for the love of god stop shooting, you miss 99% of the shots).
- Pulse Laser and Bolt Repeater are too similar to eachother.
- OK, we have have main destroyer weapon mount, but it would be great if we had any more option to choose for that mount (like torpedo launcher or railgun)

Agreed. I think sound is as worse as the effects are. For example you fly near to a star gate and you see a huge plasma wave effect going into the star gate but you dont hear any sound except when you enter the gate. You should hear a loud sound when you come closer to the gate. At least thats what I would expect when you show such a big visual effect in game. I also made a bug report about beam weapons dont make a sound. And I also agree that many weapons sound really underwhelming. Engine sounds are another bad example.

Sound is nearly as important as graphics and you need much less menpower to create good immersive sounds. Picking the right volume and radius for sounds is most of the time enough to improve it.

[Buzz2005]

yes, very disappointed with sound in general

[tomchk]

X:R's sounds were fantastic. Shouldn't it be even easier (especially for the developers) to port those over than graphical effects (although I've read some of these are included in X4 assets)? Hopefully we get some sound upgrades in 3.0. I recall reading about at least some changes there...

[The3rdWings]

Im more into realism, so the only sound i want to hear are the back-knocks of the firing pins on bullets firing.
In reality you cant hear anything except that, well except all the beeping inside the ship.

Every time i hear explosions in X4 and beam-shots it really ruins it for me
how the hell can you hear other ships or anything at all? not to mention energy weapons, rofl

sound need gas in order to work, no gas = no sound
also sound can move through solids

[Buzz2005]

yes , dont care about realism I want to put on the headphones and be totally immersed like in XR

[Slashman]

Im more into realism, so the only sound i want to hear are the back-knocks of the firing pins on bullets firing.
In reality you cant hear anything except that, well except all the beeping inside the ship.

Every time i hear explosions in X4 and beam-shots it really ruins it for me
how the hell can you hear other ships or anything at all? not to mention energy weapons, rofl

sound need gas in order to work, no gas = no sound
also sound can move through solids

Maybe because it would be a really good idea for a ship to imitate those sounds for the sake of combat awareness. I always thought of sounds in space to be the work of onboard computers simulating explosions and fire from enemy ships so that you can get an idea of what is happening around you without resorting to visual queues only.

[tomchk]

Maybe because it would be a really good idea for a ship to imitate those sounds for the sake of combat awareness. I always thought of sounds in space to be the work of onboard computers simulating explosions and fire from enemy ships so that you can get an idea of what is happening around you without resorting to visual queues only.

Great point. I also tend to "pretend" that all these space games take place in huge nebulae, which would also explain the "top speed" nonsense most of them have.
Realism can be great, but first let's make the games as awe-inspiring as possible, then tweak or provide options for hardcore realists. I think you can already turn off effects sounds, for example...

[adeine]

Every time i hear explosions in X4 and beam-shots it really ruins it for me
how the hell can you hear other ships or anything at all? not to mention energy weapons, rofl

You would actually expect to hear explosions as the shockwave of expanding gas/material strikes your ship at whatever speed it was ejected at.

That said, yeah, they wouldn't sound like explosions in atmosphere.

[The3rdWings]

Every time i hear explosions in X4 and beam-shots it really ruins it for me
how the hell can you hear other ships or anything at all? not to mention energy weapons, rofl

You would actually expect to hear explosions as the shockwave of expanding gas/material strikes your ship at whatever speed it was ejected at.

That said, yeah, they wouldn't sound like explosions in atmosphere.

There is no sound in a shokwave, google "distant explosion shokwave sound"...
You feel the shokwave long before you can hear it, because sound travels very slowly through gas, especially gas that was torn apart by the explosion itself, turning it into an extremely low density gas, and it practically removes the sound effect.

In space, when something explodes, the only thing you will notice is a massive hit in the hull of the ship and a massive G force, there will be no explosion sound. You may hear the hull cracking though if the hit was strong enough

[tomchk]

The reddit AMA has confirmed quite a bit is coming for effects. Probably not at the level of XR yet (by 3.0), but at least they said we will have some shockwaves and more effects than in the 3.0/DLC video from a while ago. Good news!