TUT: Creating Rain + Snow + Fog in DarkPlaces

[DaniOcampo1992]

Excelent Seven, just excelent..
Awesome work!

[Cobalt]

Seven:

HaHa! Good, now I know I have done my bidding for the Quake gods.

This "rain sound topic" (brought on the table by Cobalt), gave me a sleepless night... (and weird dreams)
Kind regards,
Seven

I dl the mod, didnt know where to put the rain ent files, copied the E1 ent file to both ID1 and the maps folder, got the rain going. Ya, really nice !
Its amazing how something like that can really get your mind thinking. As I moved around E1M1 I noticed that the sky seems relatively clear compared to the amount of rain falling. It would be some more depth to detail if the type of sky color determined if rain was possible on a map...and actually when you have a dark sky, the areas of the map its shining on ought to be darker with less light. I think DP does do this to some extent? Even more crazier would be if the color of the sky could change during the game 'fading in with sunlight and diminishing rain ' or 'fading out to dark clouds and incoming rain and thunder' , or starting out with some distant thunder, developing into some mild or heavy rain. Other idea I had was 'puddles' that are either preloaded with the map, or form on their own during the map depending on the rainfall time. (I hope you are prepared for another dreamy night)

Some of the Q3/Enemy Territory maps out there have 'snow covered' versions of the stock maps in their server rotations. I believe the rain entities can also be hard coded to the quakeC and called if it applies to a certain map, not 100% sure, but they seem to have the same format as most any other entity on the maps.

[Seven]

Can a mod please delete the second half of Cobalt�s post above ?

My nights are important...

But seriously:
Problem is: Everybody has a different sky texture.
Some use the original moving low res Quake sky.
Some use a High Resolution static skybox.
And the bravest even use a moving High Resolution sky.

Only the rain will look identical under all conditions.
So how shall we proceed ?
I would say: leave it as it is.

My sky looks pretty evil and dark enough for rain.

A much better (in the way of easier) idea would be:
Everytime that the thunder sound is called, your screen should flash a little.
You know, just like when you shoot your shotgun. Only a little more.
But then again, the engine would have to detect if you are outside or inside and ONLY flash when you are outside: Impossible (at least for me).

So the condition we have a.t.m. is likely to be the final condition.
Unless LordHavoc himself feels bored and hammers breathtaking new effects into it.

Kind regards,
Seven

[Cobalt]

HaHa! I know!
You started it , not me !

I was up till like 5AM last night trying to make the rain entities spawn from within QC as opposed to using the ent files....so far cant get it!

Ya, the sky thing is kind of a problem with the already made maps. E1M1 probably has what I would call a 'normal' looking blue sky, at least the one I have is. So if you consider how little rain falls when there is a clear sky, you could say that rainfall on that map would likely be minimal. E1M2 for example, has a much darker sky, so there would be more rain ought to be able to fall with that darker sky than E1M1.

I also experimented with the rain angles, mostly the first coordinate, and hard coded some 90/45 angles into the [8] positions on E1M1, and it looked nice too.

The lightning flash thing may not be as impossible as you think. You might be able to use the model on E1M7 that kills the boss, (or the lightning gun arc models) and merely spawn them connecting together on an angle from the sky from certain origins of the rain entities when the thunder sound happens. You can try adding .effects like: EF_MUZZLEFLASH and EF_BRIGHTLIGHT to the model, then remove the model and the effect very quickly...and in between the code, perform a findradius function looking for a player, use traceline to draw a straightline to him, and if it hits him, merely stuffcmd (self, "bf/n") to that player's console. There is also a function in my mod that actually can return (true) if a certain entity is in the 'FOV' Field of view of another enitity. So technically, you could program the entity to more or less ' scan ' from where its origin is and if its a player in the field of view, they are eligible for the flash effect. What might mess it up is if on a big map with flat wide open space or hilltops, if you saw a strike off in the distance, the sound would have to be arriving to your location some time after the strike's light took place and the bf in the console would have to have a distance limit with the traceline. Most all the stock ID maps probably wont need to worry about this though, as many are underground and have partial sky's showing.

Not that your work is not fine, just like it is......but its very interesting the things you can do....and I did not even say the event like when lightning hits the player.....would be a neat trick for kicking someone eh?

Can a mod please delete the second half of Cobalt�s post above ?

My nights are important...

[LambentHammerBurst]

I would do without the model (most of Quake's skies are VERY cloudy, so in reality you wouldn't really see the bolt itself but rather the light it gives off), I do like the idea of using the EF_BRIGHTLIGHT though, have it also make that quickly get enabled and disabled when the lightning sound happens. This would brighten up the area where the rain spawner is. The range won't be huge, but it'd light the area up a bit.

[DaniOcampo1992]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkXA4BoYhiM]YouTube - Quake Reforged - Darkplaces new environmental effects[/ame]

Here's a video of the new effects, If you are interested to watch..

[Cobalt]

Ya, I noticed too - probably not many players notice this, but the sky is moving in a static vector in relation to the map the same way all the time. So if rain was to fall and reflect what's going on up there, it would need to fall at an angle the opposite the direction of the sky. Of course you could code in some wind sound fx, and make the think change the .dest vector accordingly, give the wind effect a time it lasts like: .air_finished + whatever , and when its over revert back to the default dest-rain angle.

Also, I cant seem to hard code the entity spawns for the rain in QC, and avoid using the ent files. Any traditional quake entity can usually spawn like this...not sure if its just prohibited, or there is something I am missing. The code actually runs, but no rain falls......

I would do without the model (most of Quake's skies are VERY cloudy, so in reality you wouldn't really see the bolt itself but rather the light it gives off), I do like the idea of using the EF_BRIGHTLIGHT though, have it also make that quickly get enabled and disabled when the lightning sound happens. This would brighten up the area where the rain spawner is. The range won't be huge, but it'd light the area up a bit.

[Cobalt]

Good going !

Here's a video of the new effects, If you are interested to watch..

[gdiddy62]

Great video! Thanks!
May I ask several questions please?
What are the specs on your rig and what resolution were you recording with?
What are the values of your fog?
What are the values used for damage and soft-motion in your vid?
Regards,
Jeff

[DaniOcampo1992]

Great video! Thanks!
May I ask several questions please?
What are the specs on your rig and what resolution were you recording with?
What are the values of your fog?
What are the values used for damage and soft-motion in your vid?
Regards,
Jeff

Thanks for the approval!
*Well, this is my pc config:
-Core 2 Duo E8400 3Ghz.
-4Gb RAM.
-nVidia GF 9500 GT 1Gb (don't buy this) DDR2 I think.
I play with a 1024x768 resolution, I need a better card to play with a higher resolution..
*My fog values are the same Seven posted, except for start, e1m6, e1m7 and e1m8, which attempted to make more icy for the snow effects, so their density values changed to .7
*If you are talking about the motion blur, check this thread.. (thanks to everybody who helped me!)

Anyways, here are the .ent files I used to record the video if anybody else likes it..

Dani

[gdiddy62]

Thanks for the ent files Dani!

Is this what you put in your config

From what you are wanting - seems like you need to reduce the:
r_motionblur_vmax is "600" ["600"] maximum influence from velocity
r_motionblur_vmin is "300" ["300"] minimum influence from velocity

or is it a different value you came up with?
Thanks for helping.

[DaniOcampo1992]

No problem friend..
I'm using these values:

r_motionblur_vmax is "200"
r_motionblur_vmin is "75"
r_damageblur "1"

[Seven]

daniocampo1992,

watching your clip, I noticed that something is wrong with your water.
I saw the slime pool in e1m1 (where you pull out the bridge).
The sky is visible in the water and it looks wrong.

Thanks for creating the clip.
Moving pictures are always better than screenshots.

Seven

[DaniOcampo1992]

Are you meaning about the sky reflection?

[Seven]

Hello daniocampo1992,

it looks like you use "DP pretty water".
Your clip quality is not good enough to really say what the issues is, but I think you dont have/use VISed maps in your Quake.
That is most probably the reason why you only see the sky reflection in the water and not the things inside the water.

But again, I am not sure due to the clips quality at fullscreen.
Anyway, if you are happy as it is, everythings fine.
Just wanted to mention it.

Regards,
Seven