Animations
Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:36 pm
The XWA Upgrade is a team of people who all use their unique talents to bring it together for your enjoyment.
We can't deny though that without the amazing talents of @blue_max that XWA wouldn't look as amazing as it does in 2021!
This year alone has has made another amazing graphical breakthrough and put into use by the XWAU Team:
ANIMATIONS! This covers many areas but for ease I've summed it up as that.
Animated Light Maps – This feature can be used on Textures from the original OPT to create the look of illuminated areas turning on or off.
This can be either in a sequence or a random pattern. Essentially creating the effect of Blinky Lights!
For example the Azzameen Station has had it’s landing pad converted so that the blue lights light up in the form of the cross.
The Casino has had it’s sign animated so the words gradually illuminate as it progress along the sign.
Animated Textures - Light Maps was step 1. Now we can also have animated textures in the Dynamic Cockpit Opts.
This creates more realism and enhances the feel of flying a real fighter! This means things like simulating cockpit video displays or moving images.
Also introduced is the ability to read Dynamic Cockpit textures from a DAT file, so that you can have many images in one file.
Here's a demonstration WIP version of an X-Wing cockpit from Blue Max. This is NOT the final version. It shows the light maps and animations at work.
Animated Events - Not happy to leave it there Blue Max went even and unlocked maybe the coolest function that XWA was missing!
Now we have the ability to trigger animations based on Events. This allows us to add Cockpit damage textures and animations as well!
If certain parts of your ship are damaged then your cockpit will start showing damaged areas or even electrical sparks inside screens.
We can simulate damage to different subsystems, damage percentages and even have Laser and Warhead lock on animations for those Events.
Here's a demonstration WIP version of an X-Wing cockpit from Blue Max. This is NOT the final version. It shows a good examples of what is possible with damaged textures.
We can't thank @blue_max enough for coming up with these amazing new features for us to use.
We have started to implement these ideas into our Mega Patch: Update 2 with cool results!
These new ideas will be put into more use in various craft or Stations as necessary with more XWAU Update releases.
We can't deny though that without the amazing talents of @blue_max that XWA wouldn't look as amazing as it does in 2021!
This year alone has has made another amazing graphical breakthrough and put into use by the XWAU Team:
ANIMATIONS! This covers many areas but for ease I've summed it up as that.
Animated Light Maps – This feature can be used on Textures from the original OPT to create the look of illuminated areas turning on or off.
This can be either in a sequence or a random pattern. Essentially creating the effect of Blinky Lights!
For example the Azzameen Station has had it’s landing pad converted so that the blue lights light up in the form of the cross.
The Casino has had it’s sign animated so the words gradually illuminate as it progress along the sign.
Animated Textures - Light Maps was step 1. Now we can also have animated textures in the Dynamic Cockpit Opts.
This creates more realism and enhances the feel of flying a real fighter! This means things like simulating cockpit video displays or moving images.
Also introduced is the ability to read Dynamic Cockpit textures from a DAT file, so that you can have many images in one file.
Here's a demonstration WIP version of an X-Wing cockpit from Blue Max. This is NOT the final version. It shows the light maps and animations at work.
Animated Events - Not happy to leave it there Blue Max went even and unlocked maybe the coolest function that XWA was missing!
Now we have the ability to trigger animations based on Events. This allows us to add Cockpit damage textures and animations as well!
If certain parts of your ship are damaged then your cockpit will start showing damaged areas or even electrical sparks inside screens.
We can simulate damage to different subsystems, damage percentages and even have Laser and Warhead lock on animations for those Events.
Here's a demonstration WIP version of an X-Wing cockpit from Blue Max. This is NOT the final version. It shows a good examples of what is possible with damaged textures.
We can't thank @blue_max enough for coming up with these amazing new features for us to use.
We have started to implement these ideas into our Mega Patch: Update 2 with cool results!
These new ideas will be put into more use in various craft or Stations as necessary with more XWAU Update releases.