Advanced Glow Trails
by StandardFace · in Torque Game Builder · 07/08/2010 (5:03 pm) · 3 replies
Does anyone have ideas on how to make long glowing whispy trails like the ones in games like geometry wars?
This page has many examples of the effects I want to pull off:
http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/08/geometry-wars-clones.html
I basically want to shoot a missile or something and have a smooth glow trail follow it dynamically. This video shows some nice effects. At about 3:00 is some great examples...as well as the "tails" that follow the player:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tph_Y1ppXrM&feature=player_embedded#!
Any help would be appreciated!
-SFS
This page has many examples of the effects I want to pull off:
http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/08/geometry-wars-clones.html
I basically want to shoot a missile or something and have a smooth glow trail follow it dynamically. This video shows some nice effects. At about 3:00 is some great examples...as well as the "tails" that follow the player:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tph_Y1ppXrM&feature=player_embedded#!
Any help would be appreciated!
-SFS
About the author
#2
-SFS
07/12/2010 (6:45 pm)
Thanks Will. I was hoping there was a better way then using an emitter with a high rate...some sort of dynamic rotation/direction/scaling that would make a nice effect. However, I think something like that would be more code then it's worth when using it for a simple effect...-SFS
#3
One bonus with doing something like that is you can reference neighboring segments and modify individual segments with that information, rotating them to specific angles etc.
It might be kind of costly for objects that are being created and destroyed at high rates (projectiles), but you could also go the route of having a pool of segments that it pulls from and recycles.
Another option might be to use a pool of trail objects, and then position an individual trail sceneObject from the pool at the position of your projectile every X ms, then have the positioned trail object recycle itself automatically after some time, so they are never actually getting any mount commands, it might be more lightweight.
07/13/2010 (11:05 am)
in the past I've used mounting as a way to create motion-blur-like trails behind my player depending on speed, by having a function that takes a number for segments and creates the appropriate sceneObjects (if not already createD) then hides/unhides them as needed. The mounting either was done by mounting them all to the Player at different strengths, or to each other.One bonus with doing something like that is you can reference neighboring segments and modify individual segments with that information, rotating them to specific angles etc.
It might be kind of costly for objects that are being created and destroyed at high rates (projectiles), but you could also go the route of having a pool of segments that it pulls from and recycles.
Another option might be to use a pool of trail objects, and then position an individual trail sceneObject from the pool at the position of your projectile every X ms, then have the positioned trail object recycle itself automatically after some time, so they are never actually getting any mount commands, it might be more lightweight.
Torque 3D Owner Benny Peake