Glass Orb Anyone?

posted on February 8th, 2010, 3:35 pm

I was wondering how to make a completely transparent glass orb in Armada. Or maybe where to get one. The reason I wouldn't use an empty sod is because I want it to bend the image behind it. And the main purpose of this is that it'd be a "lens" for a weapon similar to the Bio-pulse from stock (except more balanced). The "lens" would actually be used for some race I'm planning in a mod. Though I would need the glass orb effect to pull it off.

posted on February 8th, 2010, 5:19 pm

you could roughly do something similar with a grey texture in additive blending.. or perhaps some alpha blending if you need it dirty..
But i fear there is no good way for reflection or refraction in the current engine, so it will never look like real glass

posted on February 8th, 2010, 5:38 pm

oh.... could it be possible for FO maybe?

posted on February 8th, 2010, 5:42 pm

Maybe you could play around with the omega particle and see if that pulls off a similar effect to the one you want.  Could it be added easily?

posted on February 8th, 2010, 6:13 pm

Intriguing. Gamer, you just gave me a moment of inspiration for this glass orb request. See, this to me sounds like a request for visual lensing of objects behind the orb without necessarily seeing the orb itself. If that's the case then if it could be implemented (either through FO miracles or by a workaround), then you could make a map object and call it a Black Hole

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Black_hole_lensing_web.gif

Think about it. The old way of rendering Black Holes in A2 was quite frankly naff. For one, it was umm... blue.

Anyway, they cannot be seen directly by scientists at the moment but can be detected by viewing the lensing effect that is created from the immense gravitational effect. I could make some pretty interesting maps if I could put in some hazards like that. It might even be a little scary navigating through space while having to keep a sharp eye out for stray black holes.

You might even apply the lensing to Wormholes. It could be all but invisible unless a ship passes near it to allow you to see the lensing. If you took it off the Bitmap and could suppress it from the Minimap then it'd make it a true discovery to find a hidden wormhole. Then when it opens, it could do the whole DS9 thing on you and open right up in front of you.

What do you think?

posted on February 8th, 2010, 6:27 pm

Yeah, that was another Idea I had in mind. The problem is I would need a model that would actually pull it off. And I am unsure how to make it supported by Armada. Though it would be quite nice to pull off something as neat as that.

posted on February 8th, 2010, 9:30 pm

Intriguing. Gamer, you just gave me a moment of inspiration for this glass orb request. See, this to me sounds like a request for visual lensing of objects behind the orb without necessarily seeing the orb itself. If that's the case then if it could be implemented (either through FO miracles or by a workaround), then you could make a map object and call it a Black Hole

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Black_hole_lensing_web.gif

Think about it. The old way of rendering Black Holes in A2 was quite frankly naff. For one, it was umm... blue.

Anyway, they cannot be seen directly by scientists at the moment but can be detected by viewing the lensing effect that is created from the immense gravitational effect. I could make some pretty interesting maps if I could put in some hazards like that. It might even be a little scary navigating through space while having to keep a sharp eye out for stray black holes.

You might even apply the lensing to Wormholes. It could be all but invisible unless a ship passes near it to allow you to see the lensing. If you took it off the Bitmap and could suppress it from the Minimap then it'd make it a true discovery to find a hidden wormhole. Then when it opens, it could do the whole DS9 thing on you and open right up in front of you.

What do you think?

That would be quite a very nice way of going about it