Project Aftershock

[Japith]

Well this was pretty fucking epic:

GV6TNfq76zs&hd=1


I have a idea!

Perhaps, suddenly a massive line of light appears! the sheilds quickly stroub on then off then a hole spawns, debres and plasma fire breach out from the undercarage!, for breif amount of time its as if this behemith of a ship is simply to assertive.
For a breif moment the ship arrogently laughs at the projectile, still whoving its glassing laser and elegantly fixed in the distant sky. In not more then 3 seconds subsequently a massive dreadfully loud shutter fills your speakers followed by a second loud screaching and grouwling, the ship dauntingly starts to travel out of its original position, the stern of the ship slowly turns on a curcular trajectory slowly desending, still seamingly no damage! mearly a red multin hole left on the under belly of the ship.
The cruiser falls beneith the clouds and in that breif second its as if the ship is dead, BUT wait the ship SLAMS! to the ground even with it appearing to fall slowly the impact has the power to effect nearly everything, the trees, rocks, ground! The glassing laser still active, blaseing, glassing everything, a smoldering red mist highlights this, and in following seconds the ship gauntingly leaves a last grouwl and a eruption of plasma liquid and fire a mass upward in a massive cloud breifly maxing over the mountiens and disipating.

IN TIME LINE:
Start: Line of light 0.3 second
Sheilds strobe once 0.3 second
Hole spawns + Debres-Fire 0.4 second
----------------------------------------- 3 second pause
Shutter (tearing air) 2.0 second
Screaching-Grouwling 1.5 second
----------------------------------------- 3 second pause
Cruiser moving seqience 30 second
-----------------------------------------
Impact 5 second
Impact Force/shockwave 3 second
Laser Blast effect 3 second
Laser/ship explotion 10 second

TOTAL TIME LENTH ALL: 1 minute

by the way this is a smac firing


please acknowledge warlord

[Dwood]

Ship needs to be like 2x higher at least...

[Cortexian]

And the beam needs to be almost as thick as the emitter.

[Rainbow Dash]

Ship needs to be like 2x higher at least...

How about in orbit, since this is an orbital glassing and all. Oh hahah nevermind it's warlord, he doesn't listen to feedback lol!

[Warsaw]

Could just be a surgical glassing, a la Halo 3. Personally, I like the thin beam. It makes it look more like a weapon and less like a chintzy particle effect.

[Cortexian]

An ineffective weapon maybe, the beam should be as thick as possible or it would take FOREVER to glass something...

[Amit]

Well, it would look pretty weird for a CCS-Class Battlecruiser to have a really thick beam. The smaller CCS-Class Battlecruisers are probably mainly used for small glassing operations such as those in Halo 3:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/5835/830pxhalo3e3trailer2007.jpg

A thicker beam for glassing large regions would probably come from a Covenant Assault Carriers. The Covenant Super Carriers, on the other hand, would probably have a beam as thick as a country due to their large size. Observe a Super Carrier (large) in comparison to the size of an Assault carrier (small):

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100926180736/halo/images/thumb/8/8a/Assault_vs_Super_n_comp.jpg/830px-Assault_vs_Super_n_comp.jpg

A beam like that would be perfect for glassing a planet, such as Reach.

[Warsaw]

An ineffective weapon maybe, the beam should be as thick as possible or it would take FOREVER to glass something...

This is a tactical glassing, not a global glassing. If it were a global one, the ships wouldn't even be that close to the ground. I retain that Nylund's description of a global glassing is correct, but when they need to destroy smaller areas, they get in close and use beams. If you are trying to be precise, you don't want a huge beam.

[Cortexian]

Covenant, precise? LOL!

[Dwood]

Covenant, precise? LOL!

Yeah I don't think the covenant ever really cared about precision when it comes to glassing.

[Warsaw]

They did when they had to leave the equatorial region on Reach intact. They did when they had to destroy half of Africa. And then, let's not forget that they used the particle beams on the ships to dig, too.

[Cortexian]

Those aren't exactly precise strikes. Leaving the general equatorial region intact seems fairly easy, even with giant ships/beams. Same with Africa.

[TeeKup]

Several of the books and the short story in Evolutions describe many ship masters carving ornate Covenant symbols into the planets they're burning.

As I recall the one from Evolutions burned the Covenant symbol meaning "Faith."

The can be precise when they need to be, they just don't deem humanity worthy of the effort half the time.

[Warsaw]

And let's not forget them trying to roast the Chief in Halo 2 on Delta Halo...

Speaking of which, I just powered through the Halo 2 campaign on Heroic; that was the most fun I have ever had playing Halo 2's campaign. I don't know what I did different; I think it was me not giving a fuck about which guns I had. That said, my TV sucks ass because it's so dark and I can't adjust it, which made a few sections difficult and frustrating.

[=sw=warlord]

The covenant have been shown to use particle beams to glass planets, burn ships in orbital fights and excavate monuments and installations.
They're referred to as "when the Covenant destroys a planet, They typically move in their large warships closer and blanket the world with a series of crisscrossing orbits to ensure every last millimeter of the surface is covered with plasma bombardments"

They are very meticulous in ensuring planets are entirely glassed and not just portions.
That's something the AI council made a mistake on as shown in Reach.

[Warsaw]

Lower level orbits is what I inferred when Nylund said that, not being a thousand metres off the ground. So, a tactical strike is what we see in Reach when the Super Carrier is uncloaked and when those two CCS class cruisers demolish New Alexandria.

[Con]

IMO the beam itself is fine. It could move a bit slower, but what needs the most work is the lightning effects. They appear far too often and in strange ways. Flashes that silhouette the cloud are nice but they can't be so sporadic, and I think the lightning sprites are too small and thick. They need to be more like what you see IRL.

[Warsaw]

The lightning sprites also repeat themselves too often. It's the same shape in the same spot every time.

[Japith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_8KSaoIN2E

That is a super carrier, now using the coast line and Mombasa super towers you can get the size of the ship, fucking massive things. Now envision a Cruiser's size compaired to the Carrier, place the cruiser in the lower city, there not massive godly craft, there spaceships if u were to put a Cruiser in orbit it would appear small like a star, even if it were to fire its laser in orbit the laser would be tiny.

[Warsaw]

But that's just the thing; they aren't supposed to be firing beams while in orbit. They fire massive bolts or "torpedoes," if you will.

[=sw=warlord]

But that's just the thing; they aren't supposed to be firing beams while in orbit. They fire massive bolts or "torpedoes," if you will.

What would be more effective to ensure the ground is more saturated to the point of being turned into mud?
Sprinkles of water or a full stream from the hose?

[Warsaw]

Beam != full steam from a hose. Steam is not coherent and it spreads out quite a bit with distance. The torpoedoes likewise don't just impact one spot, they spread out like a wildfire...only a helluva lot faster.

Your cruiser isn't in orbit. It's at a very low altitude. I don't even know why we are talking about this.

[Luzaphant]

Cobby, Warlord. I would love to see this finished, Halo CE HD will not be on PC. and I hope not but prolly Halo 4.
Please continue on Aftershock project. I hope I can play it one day, It has a real Halo feeling, stupid Halo producing company Get there money from the consumers and 70% of its consumers are children-teens. and with that there culture. so I hope u can continue this project for a real halo game

[=sw=warlord]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qLJYHSawoI
Still rough, only opened up the editor today, but I'm assuming this is the kind of thing people were asking for when making the plasma in short bursts?
Maybe make it last longer whilst making it "sway" along the ground?

[Donut]

warlord i dont know how far away that cruiser is, but remember, light travels much faster than sound. it would enhance the effect if you heard the firing sound a little bit after you see the beam fire

[=sw=warlord]

warlord i dont know how far away that cruiser is, but remember, light travels much faster than sound. it would enhance the effect if you heard the firing sound a little bit after you see the beam fire

At the moment, the model nor the plasma itself is scaled correctly, the sound effect happens on cue with the actual stream itself, so unless I add some sort of delay to the sound there really isn't that much I can do, I've been trying to get the build up charge effect in sync with the actual firing and even that is causing problems.

[DarkHalo003]

Not bad Warlord, but the beam could go for a little longer. Much better than initially though! Keep up the good work!

[=sw=warlord]

Not bad Warlord, but the beam could go for a little longer. Much better than initially though! Keep up the good work!

I'm looking at completely resigning the beam, the length will be extended but hopefully I can achieve something to the extent of the first beam.
On a different note, working on plasma explosions, there's one bitmap i've yet to find so i can edit though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Rz_H3LmCmlo#t=4s


E:

Todays update video is up, new cliffs, refined terrain, vegetation, skies, old passageways closed new ones opened.
Overall much more polished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKLwTtRV_cQ

[DarkHalo003]

The whiter base (the Valhalla replicate) needs a better "bump map" (or whatever the modernly technological term is) on that floor. Otherwise, looking nice.

[Teltaur]

Actually, I think the specular being too strong is what's making that texture look unideal. To be honest, if I had to say anything, I think all the speculars are a bit too strong at the moment, though it nearly isn't as obvious as on the base's floor. The more I toned them down when I worked with them in UDK (and then a little tampering with your existing materials in Cryengine 2), the better they looked overall. You could see more of the diffuse itself, with the specular detail being much more subtle, much like the original materials from the Halo games.

[=sw=warlord]

I agree, the specular is a little too strong currently, also something to note is I've noticed a change in how the specular is perceived when I edit the time of day, for instance the higher I set the HDR, the brighter certain things seem to become, once I've got the level laid down and got the actuall major portions finished, I'll take another look at the shaders.
I've just got some new RAM in the post/mail today so I shouldn't have so many problems with low FPS where as before I was running on only 2GB's, I've now got 4 to play with.