Took me a while but I finally managed to make an almost decent plasmagun. I used the Uzi gun specs and added in projectile=fireball to the file which worked surprisingly. Edited the fireball specs to fast moving and accurate which is nice, also no recoil just like DOOM's plasmagun. The only problem is as you can see the giant explosions that look absurd. I tried setting the projectile to "damage hit object" instead of "create explosion" but then that made the fireball deal zero damage.

Here is a video of what I got done so far(John Romero boss fight at the end lolol)

https://youtu.be/Tm2uPePKuzw


If anyone could help me out I would love to make the explosions smaller and have a way to place this weapon on the map instead of only being able to start with it.

I wonder when the explosion shadows bug will be fixed? Its been around for a while now.

Why is it a bug? I would expect a large ball of expanding gas to cast a shadow, maybe not such a sharp one mind and only in bright sunlight. Most games engines get it wrong the other way around, i.e. explosions lighting up everything which they don't do unless they are intended to, like a flash bang for example or a firework. For demolition explosives there is no massive bright flash, just an extremely brief one that can only really be seen well at night and is mostly the detonator going off.

The other thing game engines get wrong is the lack of smoke and debris, if you were on a battle field with mortar shells going off around you and machine guns rattling it only takes a few seconds for the the air to become laden with dust and thick acrid smoke, if you add vehicles into the mix and incendiary weapons you soon can't see a damn thing nor is breathing all that pleasant, in fact a lot of your time is spent crouched down coughing and spluttering rather than leaping about shooting at stuff.

As to the 'plasma' gun, the shell casings sort of ruin the effect somewhat.

Oh and another gripe I have with video games is that RPGs are a one shot deal unless you have a buddy carting around a suitcase full of ammo, you fire your shot then have to put the thing down whilst you reload, assuming of course you have any spares to reload with, even Rambo would have difficulty carting around more than a couple of rounds. Also RPG rounds can only explode if they arm, it takes around 60 feet of flight to arm them, and you can shoot at a pile of rounds till the cows come home and they will never detonate, at most you may trigger the rocket propellant and have them fly off but they still wouldn't detonate.

Once the graphics overhaul is out the way, I think we can have some fun improving the customizability of the weapon and projectile system to allow for more freedom to create your own style of weapon and effects. The explosion shadow will be replaced with a proper volumetric particle effect with an option to cast shadows if you wish, but this should be allowed to be toggled of course.

I did some playing around but yah there was some limitation so i couldnt really do any true customization.

Visible Bullets (but they unfortunately explode)


Fire Arrows


Slingshot Grenades


Uzi Rocket Launcher


I remember spending an entire day trying to get multiple projectile effects to work only to find out then that a lot of the stuff was hardcoded. Can't wait till this changes so i can improve all these:





I plan on doing a tutorial for this. I was able to even create a spell book for the fireball spell. Its all mostly done via FPE.

You must create or copy your mesh of your gun and texture and BMP to the weapons folder. Make sure obviously it has a unique name. Or you could even create a folder within your Weapons folder in your entitybank. That works too.

An example of the FPE file I created for the spell book:


Download Example

The part where it says isweapon = fantasy\STAFF is very important. Thats the field that tells the pick up what weapon to actually give the player. This is for folders within your "guns" folder within your "gamecore" folder. If you wanted your gun to be an UZI, you would use "modern\Uzi". If you have made a custom gun just have it point to your custom gun's folder instead.

To be honest, i'd rather not have visible bullets like you show in your video, it would just feel so unrealistic to me, I spent many years on a 30m range, both learning and earning my marksmen certification, and being a range officer, and I can safely say I have never once in all those years ever seen a bullet while it is in flight unless it was a tracer.

I rarely do anything here for my own benefit but to contribute to the exploration and creative freedom for others to take advantage. I've seen requests for visible bullets and alike on Steam reviews for quite sometime. The options should at the very least be there for all requested elements. Or else you just lose a costumer. So that was originally the reason why i tested it. My next text was to involve a visable arrow shot from a bow. Since currently there isn't a visible projectile and just a raycast of an immediate impact at a very high speed rate. It was to test out weighted 3D projectiles. Unfortunately they will explode by default on their death cycle or impact. These are the sorts of things that frustrate me for my own projects. We desperately need these elements unlocked so we can create anything. For example magical effects I have been waiting to be used for several years now, I still cannot use in GG due to these same limitations.



Because it is light emissions casting a shadow which didn't used to occur in past versions.

Must say I really enjoyed the early tech demo for explosions:

i agree but it would be nice to have the option for if you wanted to slow down time etc, a lot of games use this effect and it wouldn't feel the same without those bullet trails

although it's already possible to have visible bullets with the raycasting command, i already showed it off in third person and amen did it for his first person rockets, so there's a way around it, it's just a bit more work compared to using the default weapon system.

I hope when weapons customization features get worked on.. that its not a forced UI option only. Because i dont mind working with the gunspecs and projectile files as they are now. The only problem is they just dont work when creating a new. For me thats the only thing that needs to be worked on to make the weapons side of things completely open.

Thanks Teabone, I will see what I can do with the info you provided, hopefully you can get that tutorial out soon.

Also I am not concerned about realism whatsoever, I want my game to feel as gamey as possible

I remember seeing that video of explosions a while ago. Looks better than the explosions currently implemented. I wonder why they haven't been put in yet. If stuff like this was implemented (even preliminarily) instead of the less impressive stuff it might silence some of the critics who like to gripe about the visuals. I mean, those explosions and particles look so much better than the current stuff.

Personally I thought the original explosion for the wizard was better for him and a default explosion but Lee changed the Wizards explosion to a more magical feel
Check out Mykes Video from about 0.39 to see the original explosion effect ...Its much more like Teabone's Video

I do not mean to be rude but does anyone have anything helpful to add in regarding the gunspec's for fireball and the custom "plasmagun" script I made out of the uzi?

Here is a early model of what the entity will look like, no textures obviously

this video has the gun in action and as an entity on the map

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raX87-zqNdU&feature=youtu.be

AH, I remember that one! And how much I was looking forward to it!

I agree the wizard needs a magical explosion but the more realistic-themed names need something else. Is the explosion shown in Myke's video available somewhere?