tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251037325276548303.post1789016464413729459..comments2023-05-29T04:53:51.335-07:00Comments on Fred Hooper FX Blog: Basic FX Materials in UnrealFred Hooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099334698826981399noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251037325276548303.post-6188648296888742652011-10-14T23:21:02.603-07:002011-10-14T23:21:02.603-07:00Hey Tims!
I like this idea of setting up a group b...Hey Tims!<br />I like this idea of setting up a group blog and posting fx to it. I think we should call it hoozits and whatsits! I'll shoot you a mail and we'll do it!Fred Hooperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18031121834503558058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251037325276548303.post-63378838467365530132011-09-06T16:31:50.180-07:002011-09-06T16:31:50.180-07:00Yes more people need to discuss this stuff. The be...Yes more people need to discuss this stuff. The best results come from groups hashing this stuff out. <br /><br />Wii dev. Oh my. I talked with a company that was <br />workign on a WII project and they had their trickery together! I was super impressed on how they used old school ideas with new(ish) tech. Loads of smoke and mirrors there. <br /><br />Heh if they ask for different shades, then you could change the emitter in world with a color parm... although you'd then have to hard attach it to the (erm) member and change it out when and if they needed a color swap... <br /><br />No they really don't talk about this in interviews heh! Unless its a feature hah!<br /><br />Have a good one! <br /><br />FredFred Hooperhttp://fhoopfx.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251037325276548303.post-44069672837877450452011-09-06T15:38:18.146-07:002011-09-06T15:38:18.146-07:00Ace! This is brilliant. There is nowhere near enou...Ace! This is brilliant. There is nowhere near enough people willing to discuss these things :D<br />I'm trying to get into UDK for personal projects and so on. Even though the general techniques are the same there is so much stuff I need to get my head around.<br /><br />It sounds like it would be a good idea to make a big sprite material with all the goodies added behind switch nodes. Then I make my specific (Pee...) materials when I need them. Gawd I'm loving this feature in UDK. In the in house tools I'm used to all the sprites get a super optimized shader with no special effects on it. If I want something like uv distortion I have to emit quads. If I do that, there will be furious tech artists screaming at me for eating all their batch count. :S<br /><br />I misunderstood what the nearfade did it seems. I wasn't thinking much of the visual clipping through the camera. I am used to having so many visual glitches that it didn't even cross my mind. 95% of the time I'm not even allowed to use soft particles since most of what I've done recently has had the extra limitation that it has to run on the Wii as well.<br />I expected it to cull the particles, but of course, that would be done with lodstates.<br /><br />The stream was made with flight aligned sprites. It is only ever seen in first person mode. I was hoping there was some extra attribute you could use, like in matinee there is a material variable track or something. I guess, as long as they don't ask for different shades I'm fine :D<br /><br />They never seem to mention these kind of effects in the interviews do they? :D I had to do some vomiting for a cutscene once, only to have the camera changed a week before gold so it didn't show up in the end anyway.<br /><br />Thanks for replying!Andreashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03331762442278892557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251037325276548303.post-67108891060035162112011-09-06T15:12:32.295-07:002011-09-06T15:12:32.295-07:00All right. It looks like blogger is having issues ...All right. It looks like blogger is having issues with me posting comments to my own site... WTH! When I use my google account it puts me in an endless loop... anyway I hope it gets fixed soon... this is kind of a hack... <br /><br />Ok Andreas to answer your questions. I will answer all of them with a large caveat. This is what I've heard... <br /><br />First question: First off, when you have a network turned off by a switch node, does that get rid of the overhead of having the network at all? Yes, on compile. The second half of your question with switch nodes depends. I've seen some pretty insane switch happy materials and there is a cost of using them, but its (as I've heard) minor unless they're overused. I use them only for functions I know I will want and switch between or use all the time. If you have a specialty material then keep it separate... if that makes any sense. <br /><br />Second Question: Secondly, how do you calculate the cost between different permutations and when to use them? Not to sound like a broken record... (wow that comment dates me) but it depends, Cost calculation you can see on the Instance of the material in the upper left corner of the display. So if you toggle between the 2 different kinds the material cost changes by 2 instructions per kind. These are pretty light weight, so unless your scene is insane or you have a load of overdraw to manage then you should be ok to use them. <br /><br />For the near camera fade, this is only a visual fix, the sprites are still being calculated even though they're not seen, so they're not being culled. For the flare example, it would depend on if you could ever walk up to it and if the visual clipping will look odd. So if the visual clipping on the camera is freaking horrible then use it, but if the sprites move through the camera fast enough to not be noticable then don't use it. If that makes any sense. Yes having the extra nodes would make the flare expensive all the time, and walking through it would not make it cheaper, if anything your threads would be hit by the overdraw since it has to draw through the sprite (possibly the whole camera would be filled with smoke) and into the scene. So yes the material would be cheaper by 2 instructions per sprite if you didn't use the camera fade. If you're using a lot of sprites to make the fx work then it would be exceptionally expensive. Oh no, I'm rambling! A lot of it depends on the kind of game you're making and what you're trying to achieve. <br /><br />Final one: That is a good question... about urine. Im still laughing, I had a similar issue with vomit... anyway. Again it depends. I would ask how often people are peeing, and how you're getting the stream to work. With Sprites, If you're using the red channel to control the refraction then you're stuck with the mat/texture limitations. I would also ask how close the player is getting to the stream. Can you get away with having less refraction to gain the color? If you wanted to get some color range back, I've seen a method of taking a strip of color and using it against the lifetime of the sprite. IT would be another texture call though, and there was some trickery to make it work. (There may have been some in house tech at work) If you could use a mesh, you could set the refraction to change along the UVS of the stream, as well as the alpha and call it in an event. (in the animation of the man/woman/creature urinating) and put a vertex deformer on the the materialto give it some drift. The fall off would be an issue though... Other than that, the only other thing I can think of is having it animated... but that's costly and not really worth it. <br /><br />mmm yup, I hope that answered your questions. <br /><br />FredFred Hooperhttp://fhoopfx.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251037325276548303.post-28804024026140239162011-09-06T14:35:42.427-07:002011-09-06T14:35:42.427-07:00Been having problems posting to my own comments. t...Been having problems posting to my own comments. this is a testFred Hooperhttp://fhoopfx.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251037325276548303.post-41743523059360373572011-09-06T14:05:14.505-07:002011-09-06T14:05:14.505-07:00Sweet post! I have a couple of questions though.
F...Sweet post! I have a couple of questions though.<br />First off, when you have a network turned off by a switch node, does that get rid of the overhead of having the network at all? What I mean is, is it better to have one shader with all the functionality you could want set up with switch nodes, or have a bunch of different permutations with only the nodes needed for that specific effect?<br /><br />Secondly, how do you calculate the cost between different permutations and when to use them? For example the near screen fade, if you are making a smoke grenade I guess it would be brilliant to have since you will always walk through it and need to be careful with your overdraw. But if you for example have a flare lying around. You can walk through it, but most of the time you won't. Having those extra nodes will make the flare more expensive all the time, but it would make it cheaper once you decide o walk through it. How do you decide on which option to go with?<br /><br />Last one! :P<br />Do you have any suggestions for controlling your uv distortion (or any distortion) from the particle system. So far my method has been to plug distortion strength into the red colour channel. (I was asked to do a stream of urine, so I had the refraction start out strong and fade along the stream). This means I lost the possibility to alter the colour from the particlesystem so I had to do it in either the material or the texture. Are there better ways of doing it?<br /><br />Keep posting awesome stuff!Andreashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03331762442278892557noreply@blogger.com