XWA Upgrade

So well hi everyone first.
It's my first post here but I have been a long time lurking around on the forums.

Thanks to the great team of XWAU there are so many beautiful crafts and now also a nice starfield with gorgeous backdrops. However it always looked a little bit strange to me to have these beautiful things and those really outdated effects.

So I tried to work a little bit on it as it just seemed noone else was working on it. (Maybe there is something like that and I just didn't realise it )
It actually took quite some time to achieve my goal of enhancing these effects but finally I have at least some that are decent enough for me and so I thought I could share them.
I made a short video and tried to show everything I made. It is not well made but it's enough to see the differences I hope.

You can find it on: https://youtu.be/LccdDXfdha0
UPDATE 1: https://youtu.be/3tK-846VtY8
UPDATE 2: https://youtu.be/O67DtT8rlUc
UPDATE 3: https://youtu.be/52LMtBDP0XE

If you feel like 5 minutes is too much watching the half is enough because each featured effect has been shown till then.

I didn't work yet on the explosions so far (at least not much) so this is the only main effect that is still missing. This is probably my next objective.

Would be nice if you can give me some feedback and if you like it you can download it from: https://goo.gl/S64oWb (not recommended for now)
Stay rather with the version provided by the installer of XWAU or DSUCP.

(please let it be the right forum )

Wow these look pretty good, love the Ion effect on the starships. Nicely done with the Hyperspace effect

Could I possibly ask permission to include these with the next version of DSUCP please

Credit will be given of course

Oh by the way I'll move this to Editing

Looks spectacular! I'm digging the ion effects and can't wait to see what you get done with the explosions

Ah... editing was my second choice

Sure I would be honored if it gets included.
As long as I get credited it's perfectly fine.

Btw do you think it's possible to change the resolution for some of the effects like it was done for the backdrops?
Since it is both .dat files.

Good effects!

Kiarand wrote:Btw do you think it's possible to change the resolution for some of the effects like it was done for the backdrops?
Since it is both .dat files.

Yes, I think it's possible by replacing the scaling values.

You can try that: I think it apply only to a few effects, not to all.

With all due respect I don't think he means the scaling, what I think Kiarand is talking about is, say you have an image in the dat file that is originally 128x128 pixels, I think he would like to increase the size of the image to either 256x256 or 512x512 or even 1024x1024 pixels

Like Bman did with the backdrop images, I might be wrong though he might want to increase the resolution from 256 colors to 32thousand at the moment I'm sure the dat file converts the images back to 256 colors, though I might be wrong ??!!??

Kiarand have you tried to increase the size of the images?

Are you using Jeremy's Xwa Dat Editor you can download an updated version from Here Look for XwaDatEditor-1.0.5, it's very easy to use and should allow for larger images.

You can increase the size of the images (it requires the texture size patch).
The problem is that the images will appear bigger. So you need to scale them down if you want to preserve their visual size. That's what I did for DTMSB.

Ah Ok thanks for clarifying that

Going to Sticky this Post

I already use the dat editor which is a great tool.

I have tried the offsets but I think the only effect that was altered are these particles when a craft explodes. I say I think because they are already pretty small and it's hard to say if they became smaller
However it is possible that this offset controls the particles.dat whose only effect I see used in-game is this one.

Hey there!
I'm finally making some progress on these explosions as well as on some other small things.
There are still some things to be adjusted though. When this is done I will upload a new version.
There are some sparks now when you hit an unshielded vessel. Downside of this that these little debris parts which are flying around everywhere have to be set off because otherwise you would have many sparks flying around in space
Too bad XWA uses the same file for both.

The Explosions on that Dreadnought look pretty damned great

Pretty indeed!

Looking great Kiarand! Yes the .dat file explosion effects was another upgrade project on my to do list, I'm so glad you are spearheading this.
I was looking at some S.W. Battlefront videos on YouTube and studying how graphic artists did the explosion and sparks effects... red/orange background glow behind the white/yellow core. They do a superb job with that game engine making it look realistic.

Keep up great work. If you or someone else has time, the internal Cockpit spark effects would be another project for the picking.
The movement is ok, but current textures look more like a water fountain spraying inside.

I have also been trying to get some inspiration of the new Battlefront game but each time I tried to realize something like there it looked a bit strange. Don't know if I am just too bad or it is because it is in 2D.
For example when I tried to make the glow more red-ish (like in SWBF) the colour seemed wrong whereas outside of the game it just looked great.

I think those sparks could be just fine when a bit glow is added. Do you know where the textures are stored?

Looking really good! Are you also updating the laser bolts, since the outer glow lacks the transparency effect and look jagged, you notice it behind a bright background.

Kiarand wrote:I have also been trying to get some inspiration of the new Battlefront game but each time I tried to realize something like there it looked a bit strange. Don't know if I am just too bad or it is because it is in 2D.
For example when I tried to make the glow more red-ish (like in SWBF) the colour seemed wrong whereas outside of the game it just looked great.

I think those sparks could be just fine when a bit glow is added. Do you know where the textures are stored?

Yeah, I've experienced that too. The colors look better outside of the game vs. how it's displayed in-game. Even when imported as 8-bit color indexed pallette. Also, make sure you are importing your images from .png files, not .bmp if you want a smoother transparency. Setting the color to alpha channel (pure black, or white in some cases), in your background is the key to making things look smooth and transparent.

I looked through the files on the fly. My best guess for internal cockpit sparks comes from the last set of images inside the Sparks.dat file or inside the particles.dat file.

Nevara, yes that has already been done for the most part, but it hasn't been released yet. Includes new additional colored lasers.

Voilà
You'll be able to choose between red and blue sparks.

Great work! Just curious, what mission is that from? It looks really well done.

I guess you mean the mission of the first video, right?

It is a custom mission I made some time ago. It is based on the rebel's first mission of Empire at war. In fact I started to make the effects for this campaign of mine.

Nice. Those sparks look whole lot better than default ones. Can you experiment to see if you could make them brighter--the center core of the spark ... much like a camera's flash ? And shape, I guess they have to be slender, not sure. I usually test with the Hue, Contrast, Saturation, Brightness, and so forth.

Love the new hyperspace effect Kiarand, showed some guys at work your vid on youtube they were impressed. As I was also

Sincerely, Rogue518

I'll see what I can do about them, as soon as I have time which I probably won't have anytime soon.

That is also the reason why I have uploaded a new version. Most of the things are still far from perfect but I need to focus on exams for the next few weeks so I thought I just publish what I have by now. The link in the first post was updated so you can get it from there. To see some new things in action: https://youtu.be/3tK-846VtY8

I didn't cover everything in the video as there are also some other rather small changes like a bit glow here and there.

And a BIG THANK YOU for all your kind words

Kiarand...... the updated Hyperspace effect is 'on point!' for me!!! The explosions, the sparks ... this is so cool!!

Sincerely, Rogue518

Oooooo NEW Stuff, I really like the explosions

Well done

Is there anything else your working on?

Just wondering as I'm close 'ish' to releasing DSUCPv2.4

Since you ask so kindly I went over a few things once more. The hyperspace animation is now as flawless as it can be I suppose. The transition is now much better. You can only barely notice when the loop restarts. (it kind of looks strange in the first moment because that loop never had a good transition, even not the original one )
Also reduced some pictures's scale where the blank space wasn't needed to hopefully be more efficient performance-wise. Also added a bit more glow to the sparks inside the cockpit. Also tried to make them a bit bigger like suggested but XWA's engine just stretches the texture no matter what so it will always end up in these slender particles.

Apart from that I also reworked the death star laser (actually not the laser itself but these lasers which focus in the middle) however it is stored in the same place like the death star which is part of DTM's super backdrops so I don't just want to put it for download without his permission.

But as you actually have his backdrops included in DSUCP I could link you the latest content via PM or something if you wish so.