What vertical 2d clouds??

Iam not aware of vertical clouds.

Otherwise i only can repeat myself:

"Actually the sprite system can work very much like the other cloud generating codes i saw, where only the closest cloud get generated with many layers, while the other clouds have just one 2d graphic which get always rotated to stand in a good position to the current view point."

Our current clouds are no 3d clouds, they are layers and no matter if there is realy a drawn cloud or not, if you fly through the layer zone, all will get dizzy.

One problem is that the planes get drawn after the layer, as long as the plane is in the layer, so there is no real cloud effect.
By changing the rendering sequence, we get strange light effect on the plane dots, when the plane is in or behind a layer.

3DZ clouds can do exactly the same thing Ralph, that's how they're generated. A random seed value places 50 or more in one single location and the single 3DZ cloud becomes a cloud of 50 3DZ's with the difference that a 3DZ isn't a single square but can have 255 polys in any random configuration, shape or size, with different mappings on each.
By creating more or less complex shapes the 3DZ can be addapted to fit any CPU/GPU, slow machines get a simple model, fast machines can have a more complex one, and they're truely 3D unlike sprites which can only face in one direction, towards the camera. The 3DZ is also subject to lightsourcing, the sprite is not.
I nearly forgot, the 3DZ is something which can occupy modders for years to come as they're a challenge and great fun to play with:






VonBeerhofen

Please remember VB, we don't hack exe's, we can reprogram the exe as we like. So, adding vertical painted clouds, as distance models is perfectly possible.

http://www.markmark.net/clouds/RTCRImages.html

In hacking or programming everything is possible Col. as long as you keep an eye on your FPS and your enemies,
I see Ralph's is down to 34 and my old crappy computer didn't even flinch.

VonBeerhofen

I only see one cloud there, while there are a lot on my end. 12 clouds was at same time when i got 24 fps.
And i cant see any fps measurement on your, side, how you know your PC didnt even flinch??
Between 25 and 35 fps there isnt a big different.

I would like to see how good the fps is with 12 clouds, or maybe 60 realy 3d clouds.

Trust me Ralf,

I can have as many clouds as you can have sprites as I made no changes to the algorythm yet, You should know.
Framerates are determined by movement in the game and my HUD flash speed due to triple buffering (it's like a light going on and off with FPS), I didn't see any difference but obviously the more and the more complex it'll cost. That's what I've been saying all along. It goes for planes or 24 bit textures too, more objects, higher resolution terrain tiles, etc.
It's what your team has allways denied. There's a limmit to all this beauty and it's determined by one's computer and EAW's graphics engine.
I won't lie to you Ralf but EAW's engine doesn't allow for a modern approach, hence all we can do is use what's there but it will never look the way it does in modern games and I can live with that. Ofcourse there are drawbacks and problems to solve, that's just part of the fun. It works for me and it's nice to try something else again. Perhaps even Col. Gibbon is giving this a try and he may find as much pleasure in it as I do.
Hell, every 3DZ modder should try, it's great fun and very impressive when done right. This is just one model, a trial, but there are hundreds if not thousands possible not even mentioning the used drawings. Now that is weather for anyone anywhere. Need sandstorms? Here's your chance.
You can have both options, why don't you use the CTRL C switch to swap from one method to the other, or use one for overcast and the other for light cloudsetting for instance?

VonBeerhofen

2D like this. Sorry, only 256 texture.



Broke up the lower straight line.

Very good! Gibbon!

Yes, I was following this.



Moggy DCM

Interesting,

You may find also there was some reference to rain (that was obviously not implemented) in some of the old code either commented out, or maybe it was in the unused files.
Of course I doubt rain very useable, as anyone can roughly guess the massive complexities that may be involved, but maybe enough code there to start on for example simulated sandstorm or at least a couple extra effects?

Also one thing I forgot to mention at TheGen, that some of the commented out and unusued files may be very useful to look at and at least get some code snippets to reuse for whatever purposes.