Beam effect

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:13 am

Hello, I was wondering if its possible to add a continuous stream effect to the railgun attack (A_RailAttack), something like the proton pack from ghostbusters or a continuous arc of electricity between 2 points

Additional features could include beam movement (a vertical or horizontal wave effect or random angle) and a room lighting effect that will travel down the beam (affecting each sectors lighting value).

I'm not entirely sure how this would be implemented, hitscans or spawning a projectile at the end of the beam (a maxdistance), then having a continuous particle stream between the player and the projectile.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:30 am

Sorry, but this is among the things that are either impossible or extemely hard to add to the Doom engine.

Cutmanmike · Post by **Cutmanmike** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 6:06 am

The closest you'll get is a repeated A_RailAttack like you said.

LilWhiteMouse · Post by **LilWhiteMouse** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:12 am

Would a customizable MageWandMissile be out of the question?

Cutmanmike · Post by **Cutmanmike** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 10:28 am

I though magewandmissile was just a fast projectile which left a large trail?

The NUtcracker · Post by **The NUtcracker** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 10:31 am

It is.

LilWhiteMouse · Post by **LilWhiteMouse** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 10:37 am

Cutmanmike wrote:I though magewandmissile was just a fast projectile which left a large trail?

It is, but the trail is specially coded to be left every few units. You can make the projectile go as fast/slow you want, and the trail will remain a consistant density.

Cutmanmike · Post by **Cutmanmike** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:00 pm

Hmm, I wouldn't mind something like that. It would be a pretty good solution for repeating A_Spawnitem over and over just for a nice trail effect.

StrikerMan780 · Post by **StrikerMan780** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:49 am

Hmm, I was thinking more of the DOOM64 Laser when I though of this, just a solid-color beam. maybe do this by making particles line up extremely close to eachother so that they don't appear separated? Or make a solid stream of a color through some sort of means.

Anakin S. · Post by **Anakin S.** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:20 am

Cutmanmike wrote:Hmm, I wouldn't mind something like that. It would be a pretty good solution for repeating A_Spawnitem over and over just for a nice trail effect.

Even if you repeated A_SpawnItem over and over again, it still wouldn't look right if shooting up or down. Then it would be more of a saircase than a continuous stream. I think a customizable sprite trail is definitely needed.

@LWM: I thought that in vanilla Hexen, if you slow down MageWandMissile, the sprites get closer together and if you speed it up they get farther apart. Guess that's not the same in zdoom.

Cutmanmike · Post by **Cutmanmike** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:37 pm

Anakin S. wrote:@LWM: I thought that in vanilla Hexen, if you slow down MageWandMissile, the sprites get closer together and if you speed it up they get farther apart. Guess that's not the same in zdoom.

I thought that happened too.