Here we go at last! I have decided to release a portion of the visual content which will be included in the Last Stand mod as a separate mini-mod, ready to be merged at your convenience with whatever is your current content of choice.
The background of and reason for this mod is simple - I am not satisfied with explosions in either vanilla game or improved versions of several graphic mods out there. The concept of this feature is that a battle should tell a story - when hundreds of ships are pounding at each other with weapons of incredible power, I wanted to see that power reflected directly on the ships themselves. I wanted to see pieces breaking off, sparks flying into space, thick smoke and fire billowing out, atmosphere escaping from cracks and finally, a glorious detonation befitting something which has fought hard, and lost.
However, words can be cheap - I have a preview video of what I meant by "carnage in space", one of the early names I had for this mod, before it got merged into the Last Stand. It's called "Face of War" and this is how the combat will look like in the Last Stand mod. Ok, I'll shut up now and hope you enjoy it!
Preview video (standard quality) download here: Mediafire(30Mb)
Streaming video (YouTube):
Also, here is a new preview video showcasing the new ver 1.0 effects: Mediafire (29Mb)
And on Youtube:
MOD DOWNLOAD: Volumetric Damage & Explosions Effects ver1.2 (Mediafire, 14.04Mb)
COMPATIBLE WITH SoaSE 1.18/Entrenchment 1.41
Entrenchment FIX
This fixes a bug where racial explosions wouldn't show up in the Entrenchment version. Keep in mind that due to the nature of the necessary changes, the currently available Dynamic Battle System version is no longer compatible with this mod. A new version of the DBS will be uploaded in its respective thread.
Download: Volumetric Damage & Explosions Effects ver 1.2 - Entrenchment fix
Version 1.2 change log
-added new explosion effects for all three factions. Now Vasari ships explode in a different fashion than Advent or TEC. Vasari explosions are green tinted while Advent are more to the purplish side.-added new explosion sound effects for all main ship explosions. The effects are more numerous now and have a greater variation/complexity-removed bodies from spilling when a ship is critically struck. Bodies still float around for a short while after a ship is destroyed-optimized ship explosions for heavy duty battles. You should notice a lot less of a FPS drop when lots of ships blow up in a short amount of time
KNOWN BUGS/ISSUES:
None.
This version is meant to be merged at will, so merge away, just credit me. The preview video includes improved particle effects by Bailknight. To merge this mini-mod with others, install those mods FIRST, then overwrite the files with the ones from this mod. Note that if you have any special explosions listed in your .explosiondata file, they will be overwritten. Also note that if your ships .entity files invoke any explosions of non-standard names, you will get a minidump, so take that into consideration when merging.
A final note - I am very much interested in hearing how this performs on your machine, so you are welcome to comment upon that and don't forget to include your system specs! I also playtested this for a few hours and so it should be free of error, but if you do notice something missing or odd, do tell.
This much from me for now, hope you'll like the new stuff!
Confirmed. It times out for me too, even after numerous attempts at differing times.
Edit: It's working again today, however.
I'm running Entrenchment 1.41, and I'm fairly sure I installed it correctly, because the game did change particle effects. But two glaring issues instantly hit me. Firstly, whenever a structure or ship was damaged, instead of the smoke or fire or debris, it put out these white boxes. Whenever a ship would explode, a huge white box covers the whole explosion. Its still rendering the debris, fire, and smoke, and the explosions, but its all covered by these little cartoony boxes. Secondly, when I tested it out I was playing Advent, and in the course of the game I brought out a starbase. Well, as soon as I zoomed in enough for the starbase symbol-picture to replace with the actual starbase textures, the game slowed down *dramatically*. Beyond playability, and it was only at that planet, and any others with starbases. I know it isnt't my computer, cause that planet just had a starbase and some defenses, while at another planet I had 53 light frigates versus an entire Vasari fleet with 6-7 capital ships and a billion missiles flying, and it didn't slow down at all. Also, as soon as I disabled the mod, I could zoom in and out on the starbases at will, without any slow down. Please help, I loved the effects I could actually see, but I don't know what I did wrong. (I also never got a mini-dump, and the game never froze or shut down.)
Edit: I apologize, the starbase slowdown is unrelated to the mod. I did more testing and it appears to be the game not the mod. However, the more important texture issues are still there.
It runs perfectly for me and, i don't know if it is the dev optimization improvments or yours, ManShooter but the game runs definitively better. Thanks for this great work.
USAF713, sounds like missing textures. Double-check you have the Textures folder correctly extracted to your mod subfolder, I tested the mod prior to release and had no such issue. However, I have discovered a packing error in the currently available Entrenchment release which doesn't show the new race specific explosions, there will be a new version uploaded today so grab that and then see if it fixes your problem. If not, let me know.
Thanks RS-fx.
You were right, I didn't get every texture. Thanks a bunch, fixed both problems. Beautiful effects, great job. Love the missiles and new planet bombing look, but I have a recommendation for your Last Stand mod and another version of this, if it's coming, that you make the beam weapons more impressive. I was dissapointed when my level 10 Radiance owned everything with the plasma and laser guns, but its beams were all...."meh, not scary...". Great job otherwise though.
Well, weapon effects were actually made by BailKnight, I simply incorporated his work into the Volumetric Mod (and Last Stand) because they work so great together.
Question: Your mod says it adds explosion sounds. Yet, when I look at your mod, it seems to me that it replaces the existing sounds. Which is the correct interpretation?
I ask because I'd like to incorporate your new Volumetric Explosions in my upkeep of Bailknight's Graphic Mod, but I'm hesitant to *replace* the original sounds in a mod that's supposed to be purely graphical. Adding additional sounds while keeping the originals, to me, would be less of a sin.
It replaces the vanilla sounds and adds more for variety. I think they go better with the volumetric explosions, but of course, you be the judge of that.
Great work ManShooter, thank you for the update, your mod has become almost the base to add to any new version that comes out. Very nice! Thanks again,
-Teal
Question for ya, Mansh00ter...I'm detecting differences between Bailknight's Mod and Volumetric Explosions in these particle files:
Buff_RepairPlatformPsiLarge.particleBuff_RepairPlatformPsiSmall.particleBuff_RepairPlatformTechLarge.particleBuff_RepulsionFieldSpawner.particleBuff_ShieldProjectionChanneling.particleCapitalAbility_MissileBurstTravel.particleCapitalBuff_IonDisableLarge.particleCapitalBuff_IonDisableSmall.particleCapitalBuff_RepairDroids_large.particleDamageEffect_Fire1.particleDamageEffect_Fire2.particleDamageEffect_Steam1.particleHyperspaceExit.particlePhaseGate.particleWeapon_PhaseCapitalMissileHeavy_Hit.particleWeapon_PhaseCapitalMissileMedium_Hit.particleWeapon_PhaseSupportMissileMedium_Hit.particleWeapon_PsiCapitalLaserHeavy_Hit.particleWeapon_PsiCapitalPlasmaHeavy_Travel.particleWeapon_PsiSupportLaserLight_Travel.particle
Are these particle effects changes from your most recent release of Volumetric Explosions mod? (Doesn't seem to say anything about it in the release notes, though.) Or are they maybe left over from integrating a previous version of Bailknight's Mod? Or something else? I'm finally getting around to integrating this latest version into BKGMod, and I'm not sure what to do with these files.
Also -- I'm not sure if this is intentional -- Volumetric Explosions does not have all the particle effects that Bailknight's Graphic Mod does. (Not counting the particles that are unchanged from unmodded-Sins.)
EDIT: After looking through the above files more closely, it seems that a majority of them are trivial differences... even down to the fact that some files seem to have been saved in ParticleForge while others were hand-edited (ex: capital letters vs lowercase letters for colors, numbers with too few digits, weird differences in file data where there are no differences in text). And I see that the damage effects are your removal of floating bodies.
I do not use all of Bailknight's effects - mainly weapon effects, so the number of files is different - it is also possible that the current version of Bailknight's is not the one used in the Volumetric mod, simply because I used the latest version at the time - it may have changed since then, I haven't checked.
The damage effects have had the floating bodies removed, yes, now you only see corpses floating around after a ship is destroyed, with the rest of the flotsam.
Man Shooter, I love your mod. I am having trouble getting the race specific explosions to work. I even went into the partical file and made the explosions more obvious. The advent are very purple now, the tech red and vasari green. but when i go in game all i see are the tech explosions for every race. Am I doing something wrong?
Which version are you using? I'm afraid that with all the different versions I'm juggling it may be that the Entrenchment version doesn't actually reference the necessary files - I am not sure, but it may have happened when I was fixing the bugs last time. If that's true, and I'll check it tonight, I'll reupload the fixed release so you can enjoy the new explosions.
yeah, it's your newest version. It says for entrenchment 1.041.
Maybe there is a way for me to go through the files to see which explosions are being selected for which ships?
ManShOOter,
Hey SkyMan1134 is right. There is no ship entity files in the download to reference the race specific explosions.
Yeah, its a big ass mistake on my part. Damn. Embarassing after I touted the new explosions for the latest version. Ok, I'll fix it asap, expect a new download sometime later today.
Strange no one else seemed to notice. I guess the effects are so well done that they didn't think or care that they weren't different colors...
New version uploaded, link is in the OP.
If you're using the currently available Dynamic Battle System, you will have to download a new version I'll upload soon, because the two mods are no longer compatible. You shouldn't get a minidump if you load them both, but depending which one overwrites which, you will eaither have dynamic movement and no racial explosions or vice versa.
If you spot any further bugs or issues, let me know!
I thought those new explosion colors were rather subtle. Lo and behold, they weren't actually there.
Thanks for the fix ManSh00ter!
Here're some screenshots showing off the different-colored race explosions. Feel free to use them in the main post or anything.
Hi. I've owned and played SoASE + Entrenchment for a while now and deeply enjoyed the Volumetric effects mod, but I recently purchased a new laptop and when I installed the game on it, I can't play the game with this mod enabled because the ships, structures and planets are not rendered. I can see engine trails and the "traffic" around the planet but anything which has a 3D model is invisible.
Please help.
Here's my system specs:
Acer Aspire 5739G
Intel Moble Core 2 Duo T6600 @ 2.20GHz
4GB of DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M (1GB)
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
What am I doing wrong?
Try deleting these 5 files in the Pipeline effects folder.
Hey awesome! Ok so why are those files causing troubles for me, but clearly not for everybody since if they did they would not be in the mod in the first place right?
What's different about my setup than everybody else?
never sure, have the same issue with Distant Stars (we incorporate this into that mod), sometimes some have to delete them, others have to lower their settings, etc. Personally I don't have many issues with it.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
