Comet Swarm - Cast Spell () and Projectiles / Merge BAM frames together

[kungfuhobbit]

The aim is to have 3 or more comets fall together in a swarm.
I dont think this is possible with 2 extra Play 3d effect (vvc) because they wont start in the sky and fall. I think this behaviour is done hardcoded in comet.pro (extended flag 13) which controls the falling spcomtrv.bam

At least three possible ways:

1. merging bam frames together to less than 256x256. The changing centre of even one comet cycle makes this difficult.

2. Ive been advised to consider Secondary Projectiles. Which existing spells use them?

3. A dummy AOE spell to "Cast Spell (Mage/Cleric/etc.)" with 3 new unique comet spells (with their own projectiles and bams offset from centre left and right).
But the "Cast Spell () applies only to characters hit by the original AOE.
The comets then track the movement of the target, which looks bad.

When there is no character targeted, the Cast Spell () 's do not just target the original ground location.
How can I make this happen please?

PS. And DLTCEP Casting Features tab doesnt seem to work for Pre-Target

--

Please could anyone advise? Thanks

[Sam.]

2 hours ago, kungfuhobbit said:

1. merging bam frames together to less than 256x256. The changing centre of even one comet cycle makes this difficult.

Unify the frames using either PS BAM or bamresize.  This will pad all the frames to be the same size and at the same offset.

Edit:  Also FWIW, the 255x255 (and I am fairly confident it is 255 not 256) frame size limit does not apply to the EEs.

Edit 2:  How to use the tools

cd /d "D:\Program Files\Infinity Engine Modding Tools\bamres Analysis\bamresize Extract\bamresize"

python.exe bamresize.py -p 100 -u 1 -t 0 -e png "C:\Users\Sam\Desktop\Comet\SPCOMTRV.bam"

"D:\Program Files\GitHub Projects\PS-BAM\PS BAM_x64.exe" --ExportFrames "PNG" --ExportFramesAsSequences 1 --OrderOfOperations PE --Save "BAM" --Unify 1 --LogFile "C:\Users\Sam\Desktop\Comet\Log.txt" --OutPath "C:\Users\Sam\Desktop\Comet" "C:\Users\Sam\Desktop\Comet\SPCOMTRV.bam"

Pause

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Sam.

[kungfuhobbit]

9 hours ago, Sam. said:

Unify the frames using either PS BAM or bamresize.  This will pad all the frames to be the same size and at the same offset.

Thankyou

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qB9p_HuCwwN-ZSWIbG8OheK7T05ttWP2/view?usp=sharing

Edited August 24, 2020 by kungfuhobbit

[kungfuhobbit]

Next I intend to make 6 explosions; the five extra VVCs wont play on the ground so I will export, layer and merge a new BAM

[temnix]

A tip: for better style you should go back to the comet BAM and edit it to make some comets a little smaller, others a little larger, tone down color on one, shift the hue a little on another, and start them off at different frames in the cycle (since it loops). It is much more beautiful and convincing when the comets aren't clones. But there is no need to redraw one gigantic BAM frame by frame. You can just use pseudo spells with custom projectiles. In your starting spell put Cast spell on point A, casting the subspell that will hit the center, with one version of a comet BAM and doing the damage. But also include Cast spell at point B, C, D, all of them empty but using projectiles with different versions of the BAM, adjusted and skewed off center. This is easy, just select all of the frames in Near Infinity's tool and put -- or ++ in the center coordinates to move the center up, down, to the sides. Experiment with this, and you will have a convincing display when all these are launched soon enough. If you want to get fancy, you can even make a bunch of these pseudo spells and use probabilities in the shell spell, like this: subspell A1 at 100-50, subspell A2 at 49-0, employing projectiles with different off-keel BAMs. This way no two castings will be alike.

Edited August 26, 2020 by temnix

[kungfuhobbit]

@temnix Thankyou, great ideas

In the OP I have tried the primary/secondary spell idea but I had problems.

"In your starting spell put Cast spell on point A"
How exactly?
Spell form = Normal or Projectile?
Number and type = 4 Area?
Which projectile?

I tried with fireball as the primary spell but the secondary Cast Spell () applies only to creatures hit by the original AOE. The secondary comets then track the movement of the target creatures up/down/left/right, which looks bad.
When there is no creature hit by the primary projectile, the secondary Cast Spell ()s does not target the original ground location.

Thanks for your help

[temnix]

Don't use secondary projectiles. That's not what I'm suggesting. Those hit after the first one hits (and you can actually set up an infinite stream of projectiles on the same spot, if you like, by making the secondary projectile fire another seconary projectile - itself, only make sure Enable Saving is enabled on the main flags. But this is just an aside.) No, simply use ordinary projectiles inside spells that don't otherwise do anything. You need the projectiles only for the pageant of their BAMs. So you begin with your starting spell, the shell spell, and this one will be, I assume, an Any point within range. No projectiles here, and the effects will include Cast spell at point, Self, as usual, pointing to subspell A. Another effect like this will lead to subspell B, another to C and so on. The subspell A will be the one that applies the damage, and its projectile will be one of your edited comet BAMs. The other subspells will be empty, unless you want to stuff the turkey with some Play Sound there, Self-targeted, bangs and booms. You can use probabilities there as well, e.g. Play Sound, file 1, 100-50 and Play Sound, file 2, 49-0. Make these sound files a little different - change pitch, speed or put a small pause in the beginning of one but not the other. When this cocktail goes off randomly, it will be naturalistic and unpredictable.

But that's just if you want to go full monty with your effects. All the subspells really need is some kind of area of effect projectile. Your subspell A needs one, anyway, to do the damage, the rest don't matter. Take INAREA.PRO as a template and edit it, you can rename it later. So Area of effect, keep size at 256, why not, Explosion effect - Custom, Explosion animation - enter one of your comet variants here. The complication is, though, that this field, Explosion animation, does not accept blending. Even though the menu lets you pick VVC files, they aren't used. So the center blast never looks very good. (Try the Explosion effect - Fireball and hit Pause just when the blast begins, you'll see what I mean.) The comet BAM, if you look at it closely, is trimmed carefully so that it has almost no dark pixels. It is nearly all fire and smoke, so it comes across okay even without blending. But probably better with. Anyhow, the simple way here is just make a bunch of these projectiles with center comets and launch the dud spells from inside the shell spell. Tada, everyone happy.

What I would do, though, is first have a look at the comet as it would play in the form of a visual effect. It might look better with the blending which VVC makes possible. So, try this from somewhere: Play Visual Effect (215) - > target Self - > at target point - > VVC with blending on - > your comet. Try switching on 3D blending next, that usually makes the picture brighter. You can use the VVC to create a lighting halo for the comets, too: turn on Special lighting, then below enter Light Spot width and height, not exceeding 100, and some brightness, like 50 to begin with. With blending enabld the light spot will be much more stark than without, so even if you decide against blending the comet you can add a nice halo for where it's going to land. It's going to look something like this:

Lighting begins brown and dim, but the higher the brightness value, the harsher and closer to white the halo becomes. Here I had to settle for white spots with yellow balls, because the missile BAM had lots of black pixels, there was just no way to use it unblended. Otherwise I would keep blending off and increase brightness to something very high, and it would still be a subtle yellowish aura, which is what, I think, would look better below your fiery comets as well.

How do you use this? Well, instead of bothering with many projectiles which draw this fairly ugly no-frills BAM in the center (and it overlaps everything...) you can create one real projectile without any graphics for the damage and use several VVC files for your custom comets. Here we move into pure illusion territory, of course. The comets will be a complete pretense, but it may look better and give you more control. Anyway, tell me if you want that, and I'll explain how.

[kungfuhobbit]

Thanks but Comet cant use VVC as it starts too high - it must be invoked as a projectile (extended flag 13, per OP).

I was suggesting the same method that you are - secondary spells with CastSpell(), not secondary projectiles (#3 not #2 in the OP)

"Cast spell at point, Self" - Are you sure the secondaries wont just fall on the caster?

I will test later. And thanks for the lighting ideas for me to play around with.

I am still not sure what form should the primary dummy spell be?
Spell form = Normal or Projectile?
Number and type = 4-Area?
Which projectile?

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by kungfuhobbit

[temnix]

Oh, wait a minute. The comet... It uses a Comet-type projectile, doesn't it? So it isn't an Explosion animation in AOE properties, it is the missile animation for the Projectile properties. Well, that makes it easier in a way. You can set-unset a couple of flags there to control the look, almost like in a VVC. Then all you need to do is offset the center of your variant comet BAMs, and the comets will seem to plonk in different spots. Use Fireball as a template for these Cast at point spells.

By the way. If you tick "Falling path" in combination with "Comet," you can make the comets come from the left. I would make this happen half of the time. Make two groups of spells, one with right hand projectiles and one with left hand, and cast them at 50-50 probabilities. Good luck.

[kungfuhobbit]

OlvynChuru has already done it !

Edited August 27, 2020 by kungfuhobbit

[temnix]

Some of those effects look cool. But I thought you were making your own spell?

[kungfuhobbit]

[updated link above to the meteor swarm screenshot] To recap, I faced a challenge in forming the primary dummy spell. I believe OlvynChuru resolves this by creating an invisible creature and scripts. I will play around with it

Edited August 27, 2020 by kungfuhobbit

[temnix]

Do you mean his scattered meteor bombardment? That's probably just a spread animation for the area projectile. We are talking about different possibilities here: a shell spell with included subspells that throw projectiles with off-center central explosions - actually, now that I remember how the comet works, with off-center Projectile BAM graphics which make the comets appear to land in different places; or several separate falling meteors, each actually doing its own damage - this would probably require invisible minions; or VVCs playing off-center comet BAMs for a single real hit; or one hit again but with the spread animation including several different cycles. I'm going to stop here, but if that last is what you want, it will take an AOE projectile with a Custom explosion effect, "Start scattered" enabled on the AOE page and "Start random cycle" on the main page. The Spread animation BAM will be a combined BAM, with several cycles within. The top of these cycles is always played first, even with the random option, so it needs to be made to go away quickly and clear the way for the rest. Import a blank BAM into the file, create a 1-frame cycle with it, make it the first cycle in the sequence. The cycles below will be the different imported off-centered, edited and so on versions of the comet, each version being one cycle. When the projectile hits, scattered comets will seem to rain. You can intersperse them with more blank cycles, longer this time, to spread out the visible explosions.