Request, make shields part of ships with it's own mesh using the new model system.

[shadmar]

The current shielding is not up to date with our current ship advancement. They could be part of the ship in SGModel at use shaders with effects (I think)
Modders could also create their own shields this way.

[shadmar]

Sorry for the request spam, just emptying my head.

[robn]

Yeah, I like this one, I've wanted to do it for a while.

[robn]

Related/duplicate: #970

[outridersol]

This would be awesome.

I've mocked up the sort of look you can get using model geometry and textures.

http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/topic/3386-shields/

[fluffyfreak]

hmm, I've been meaning to do something about it for a while but this could be a good idea.

fluffyfreak#13

I like the look you've got there @LionHearted

[shadmar]

If we get it shaded we can have all sorts of visual effects on it , waves when hit, electricity animation, etc..

[fluffyfreak]

Ok, I won't get to this quickly, like probably by end of February (I'm pretty busy right now) so if you two want to agree or at least discuss what you'd like adding to the ".model" format, propose any texture info you'd want, shaders etc then I can pretty much throw something together much quicker.

@LionHearted could you supply a "shield" mesh like you've made for those screenshots? The Lanner has been converted to SGModel format now. It would save me from hacking on together.

@shadmar could you take a look at the hit effect in the shader here (http://luomu.github.com/pioneer/shippainter/) and suggest anything you'd like for one applied too a mesh. If you can supply a shader that'd be great but don't worry if not I'll just have port that one to give a base to build on.

How does that sound to people?

[outridersol]

Great, I'll put together a couple of shield mesh styles and you can take your pick of which suits Pioneer best (e.g. angular, round, contoured etc)

[fluffyfreak]

Cheers that'd be really helpful :)

[outridersol]

Right, here's a couple of meshes with textures attached for illustrative purposes, the shield meshes are in the folders, but either one can be dropped into the data folder to replace the current lanner.

https://mega.co.nz/#!N4tmjIaS!fVK-bC-KkHCp-NOCpUnt-SoL3JUeHSKkm24hcJ_Nzhc

[Brianetta]

That web site just told me that Firefox 19 is outdated.

[fluffyfreak]

Excellent, I'll try to check it out tonight :)
Thanks!

[outridersol]

"That web site just told me that Firefox 19 is outdated."

Ah yes, completely forgot, it's the new site from the megaupload chap, apparently he's decided that anything except chrome is outdated. I imagine it's just his typical bluster.

[fluffyfreak]

Ok @LionHearted they're great, just what I need to work with.
I've added them to a branch (https://github.com/fluffyfreak/pioneer/tree/MeshShields) where I'll work on it over the next month but don't expect anything much before then :)

Thanks for making them it'll really help.

[fluffyfreak]

This now has a pull request #2139 but I think it's going to take some cleanup before it gets merged.

[fluffyfreak]

@shadmar
To continue from the Pull Request discussion:

Yes I can on the shader part, however the infrastructure needed for passing uniforms,
is probably the challenge here?
I guess specialParameter1 is out of the question :)

I can get the parameters into the shader without too much difficulty, it's what parameters you would like to have that is the question I need to answer? :)

I was going to suggest having the position, direction (normalised) and a normalised time from 0.0 to 1.0 passed through for each hit on the shield but if you know what you'd like instead then tell me because I haven't even thought about how I'm going to get those values yet.

The shields currently have their own parameters which are set at render time, I don't know if it'll stay that way after the review is complete because there are some oddities about it but getting the data their shouldn't be a problem.

[shadmar]

I can get the parameters into the shader without too much difficulty, it's what parameters you would like to have that is the question I need to answer? :)

Shieldstrength you have already covered :-), second one I'd have is time (so we scroll UV). for 200ms on each hit to the shield.

I was going to suggest having the position, direction (normalised) and a normalised time from 0.0 to 1.0 passed through for each hit on the shield but if you know what you'd like instead then tell me because I haven't even thought about how I'm going to get those values yet.

This is for a directional shield effect? Not sure either how that best be solved, maybe a pointlight could light up for 200ms on the position of impact offset by abit in the direction of impact (to lit the shield material)

[Luomu]

This is implemented in game now.