Changing the shape of lasers.

[Rayce]

Is it possible to change the shape of lasers? Has anyone ever tried? I'm toying around with the idea of changing them to a pill shape.

[Snake]

It should be, I think you just need to edit the alpha channels to look pill shaped in gimp or photoshop.

[Epifire]

It should be, I think you just need to edit the alpha channels to look pill shaped in gimp or photoshop.

Yeah I'm not sure if it's geometry, a sprite or a combination thereof. If it were a sprite or very large particle effect, that should make it easier just to swap in another material. If it's mapped onto some kind of projectile that could get a little tougher.

Fill me in somebody if I'm wrong?

[Snake]

I'm 98% sure the bolts are just a large rectangular mesh. I remember accidentally removing some effect file and it cause the lasers to be rectangles. So, I think changing the alphas should work. I guess just try it and see.

[RepComm]

You may find the actual geometry in Common.lvl, it is a series of planes all fit together to look spherical in combination with a glow emission (shaders?), and of course the laser texture can change the shape a bit as well.

The reason for the retangle shape as you describe, is because of the billboarding effect that only renders the piece facing the camera as needed. You may see the effect of the different planes switching out if you pause in SPTest, and spectate with freecamera (backspace toggles game-run, i think). Just move your camera around of bolt that has been shot a few times, and you can see the switching billboards effect.

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The difference between geometry effects and particle effects is fussy, as they are mutually inclusive on the matter (a particle/effect in an FX file can utilize *.MSH files in emission, and billboards are built in, like primitives). You could edit the laser bolt fx files to use a different MSH if desired, and directly modify the MSH in common.lvl itself.

For simplicity in switching out the laser bolt model and texture, copy paste the FX file from common to %side%/effects/ folder, and edit the texture and MSH references with notepad.

[Rayce]

Any idea what the geometry is called?

[Ginev]

Once i found in some random  weapon  _ord.odf file something very interesting.We all know that most of the range weapons have classlabel "bolt".I found ord weapon file with classlabel "bullet" and under that line i found also this:   GeometryName       = "msh file name here"  This mean that if you know how to make 3d models you can make your lasers to look like anything you want.So for example i used an ewok prop msh model and when i munge i was shooting ewoks from my gun all over the place.I hope i help you guys.

[Ultimo]

You are kidding, Ginev?! LOL!

Please just make that mod and publish it. Haha!

[Rayce]

Cool! So then, can someone model me a pill-shaped laser?

[Giftheck]

Once i found in some random  weapon  _ord.odf file something very interesting.We all know that most of the range weapons have classlabel "bolt".I found ord weapon file with classlabel "bullet" and under that line i found also this:   GeometryName       = "msh file name here"  This mean that if you know how to make 3d models you can make your lasers to look like anything you want.So for example i used an ewok prop msh model and when i munge i was shooting ewoks from my gun all over the place.I hope i help you guys.

Yes, it's used for rocket launchers.