Game Development Community

Bolt Emitter

by Raimonds Zigurs · in Technical Issues · 07/20/2008 (12:56 pm) · 4 replies

Hi. I am level designer, i don't own engine yet as i am only creating CSG, model props and textures, but my team-mate does. And we can't figure out best way to implement an electricity wall to restrict player movement.
I couldn't find any proper information on how to make particle beams in Torque neither something similiar (excluding laser beam). The whole trick is none of us are c++ programmers and we dont want to go into changing source code. I really hope this is possible to make in script-only.
As an ex-Red faction mapper, i really loved the beam i could make with that engine, and i still have slightiest hope that its possible with Torque too. Please look at the example here:
redfaction.volitionwatch.com/editor/editor2.jpg
(i hope i am not breaking any rules by showing this link, if so, please excuse me)

I know, that this information would be helpful to most of torque fanatics here.

So. for example i have 2 electricPoles. Each of them has a point where this Particle beam starts and where it should end. As i've noticed the Particles in Torque works like this:

[emitter] ---> [particle][particle][particle]

beam we need should look like this:

[source] --->[billboard]o[billboard]o[billboard]--->[destination]
where o is joint point between two billboards and should be generating random values for billboard rotation, making the feel of real electricity "bends"

sounds like physics isnt it?

Thanks in advance!

#1
07/21/2008 (10:42 am)
Ok, woke up today in a hungover and got this flash in my head.. so i've got better idea to make it even easier.

Can particles themselves be emitters?

if so, i could just spawn 1 particle which will work as an emitter to spawn next one with randomly generated axis to face,, and so on till i get nicely bent beam, set with immediate lifetimeMs and velocity set to 0.

can someone please let me know if its possible?
#2
07/21/2008 (11:36 am)
This Gem has an electric effect in it. I haven't tried it myself, but the animation they show on the resource page looks like it could be what you are describing.
#3
07/21/2008 (10:45 pm)
Wow, thanks again Nathan, you're really irreplaceable member here! That really is exactly what i am looking for with source and destination programmed for a beam.
#4
07/24/2008 (9:06 am)
Let me know if I can help you at all with the that effect. It was pretty easy to do. It looks like it'd work perfect because you can just put a collision on the plane you're using to achieve the effect on.

I'm glad we could help out...sort of second hand-ish. =)