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Black Glows, Possible and Improved
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Author:  Azukki [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 12:14 am ]
Post subject:  Black Glows, Possible and Improved
[Shortly after Godly Descend/Coming of God's release in the third Mod Contest]
Mind wrote:
Azukki wrote:
Duh102 wrote:
All the cool kids are using negative glows now.
Black glows are totally where it's at.
Image
Not action-y epic in this application, or lack thereof, but achievement-y epic, in my book.
Always wanted them... Would you care to explain how you got them?
Sure.
Duh102 wrote:
White glow with -1 strength?
Not negative values, impossibly high values!


First, I saw a transition from clear to black in numgun's screencap of two Godly Descents in the epic moments thread. From that I knew from that it had to be possible to recreate this black to transparent color ramp, and make black glows.

So first I went about seeing how glow strength worked.
I made a glow that was just a white block, that slowly increased in strength.
At 0, it was transparent, as you would expect from a conventional glow.
It worked its way up to 1, brightening, and becoming an opaque white block. Again, this is regular of glows.
After 1 is were it got interesting. There was a brief 'border' which was just plain glitchy, and then...
The block became black.
As it kept increasing in strength, the black faded away, but everything under it had an inverted hue.
At 2, there was no more trace of the darkening effect, and now the block's hue was inverted without any white/black being added.

To reiterate, just after 1 strength, white inverts to black, and hues are inverted. As you approach 2, the hue inversion remains, but the darkening fades away. After two, hue is affected in ways I have yet to understand, similarly to how negative strengths affect hue.

0 to 1 is transparent to white. I want black to white.
But black is slightly more than 1. If I just faded that down to 0 in a gradient in a glow, I'd only have a black center, with a white aura, kinda like the godly descent's glow.
But black does fade away, in strength 1 to 2. But that color ramp applies a hue inversion to everything.
Inversion can have a double negative applied to negate it, though.


I made one glow that was just a white block, and had a strength of 2. This inverted the hue of the block.
And then I put another glow (of the same dimensions) on top of that, also with a strength of 2. This glow is white (255,255,255) on the outside and fades to gray (130,130,130) in the middle.
This gave the white parts the full strength of the glow, 2. (another color inversion, on top of the previous, bam, double negative, transparent) The gray parts were slightly more than half the brightness of white, so their total strength was slightly more than 1 in the center, (creating black) and as the gray faded to white on the image, it would make a color ramp with a total strength fading up to 2. (another inversion)

The end effect? I inverted the image and added white. And then I inverted it again, canceling out the first inversion, leaving only an addition of black.

Credits to Godly Descent's author (TLB) for stirring up interest in abnormal glow strengths again.
Credits to numgun for posting screencaps that show interactions between two Godly Descents.
Credits to Data for implementing glows in a way not restricting us to regular values. Seriously, thanks a million for leaving buggy unintended effects accessible. Not just in this regard, but also in general CC .ini variable values.

Attachment:
File comment: Demonstrates a black glow, place 'block' and place 'gradient right' over it. Updated, now much better.
ScreenEffectTesting.rte.rar [114.15 KiB]
Downloaded 288 times
Author:  Geti [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 12:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
holy ♥♥♥♥. awesome, i am so using that.
thanks, azukki.
hey, as laggy as it would be, does this mean we can do fog of war with a totally black glow over the whole map and then white glows on all friendly actors?
Author:  Azukki [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 12:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
Oh, that is a nice idea, I hadn't hadn't thought of applying this to that.
And it wouldn't have to be too laggy, the big black glow could probably be set with Lua to always be at the position of the 'camera', like prison escape's explosion effect.

I don't think you can mask away the black though, so you would have to rely on premade configurations of the FOW, it wouldn't be dynamic.

But you could make it center on your most recently used actor with a fade to darkness around them. In that case you could only see around that actor, and would have to switch to another actor to see the area around them. Which makes sense.
That was entirely possible with regular glows already, but black would make it look better, since black is the lack of light.

Another cool use for this could be stealth; actors, including their HUDs, can hide behind glows.
Author:  Geti [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 12:45 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
i was thinking black, evil mist for zombies at the moment, but the fog of war came to mind due to a cirtain topic. if you can undo it, awesome. i cant tinker at the moment, so hopefully when i can we know the ins and outs of datas postprocessing craziness.
Author:  Azukki [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 1:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
Black evil mist would be an excellent ominous effect indeed, for anyone wanting some horror atmosphere in their mod.

Dark magic uber weapon, death by shadow, vanishes victims, they're never seen again. That would be cool.

Allow me to point out that the black glows even obscure the actors' HUDs. You could engulf their health bar. :P
Author:  Miles_T3hR4t [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 1:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
this is in an absurd amount of detail more than I thought anyone would care to do, I am very impressed, although making a chart that shows what it looks like (perhaps a gif?) would always be helpful. an actual detailed explenation of how glows work beyond 0 to +1 would theoretically revolutionize CC moding. just think... everything goes to crazy colors and slows down, and then WRRRYYYYYY! A dropship lands on someone.

what we need is a table or chart, that shows how RGB and Alpha values change. so far there are 2 things i'd like to point out. you already pointed out black on things changing, well black on terrain also changes, including in background textures inside bunkers.

the other thing I'd like to point out is 255,0,255, AKA Pink transparency.
this color solid, at 1 strength, makes MOID's invisible if it is overlapped. I would assume that if you had 250,0,250 and made it 1 point something (0 = 0, 1 = 255, ? = 5) that it would be transparent. but it is specifically this color. and to further warn you. 255,0,255 when it passes -0.01 it starts doing horrible horrible things. I have not personally tested past +/- 1

so in short 0 0 0 on sprites and 255,0,255 in glows, do strange things.


And I don't mean to be a jerk, but check my tradestar conscripted mod. When I updated it to include my gravity well gun, I changed the glows to negative glow. that was before the 2nd modding contest was even announced. so I think I may have inspired your inspiration. the only reason I point this out is that I do something, everyone 'hates it' and then a week or 2 later everyone re-uses my technique and give someone else credit for it. It happened back in B13 twice, once in b18, and now it seems to be happening now. (accurate lasers in b13, flame thrower in b13 that was almost carbon copied with a new sprite, the ammo from my tau conversion back around b17-18 was carbon copied all variables identical in another mod, etc)
Author:  Grif [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 1:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
Quote:
And I don't mean to be a jerk, but check my tradestar conscripted mod. When I updated it to include my gravity well gun, I changed the glows to negative glow. that was before the 2nd modding contest was even announced. so I think I may have inspired your inspiration. the only reason I point this out is that I do something, everyone 'hates it' and then a week or 2 later everyone re-uses my technique and give someone else credit for it. It happened back in B13 twice, once in b18, and now it seems to be happening now. (accurate lasers in b13, flame thrower in b13 that was almost carbon copied with a new sprite, the ammo from my tau conversion back around b17-18 was carbon copied all variables identical in another mod, etc)


I don't mean to be a jerk but maybe possibly YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON WITH IDEAS

jesus christ

also stop throwing your passive agressive rants into a perfectly valid topic

PS we don't care that you just got back from wherever the ♥♥♥♥

we were happier without you
Author:  Azukki [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
Oh, at the point of my comment in the epic moments thread, I didn't even know your zero point mouthful had any continuation beyond the contest, sorry about that. (hl2's zpefm was aka Gravity Gun for a reason you know)

But still, I think you're claiming credit for something that may not be yours and hardly matters anyway. You can't really definitively tell, especially since we don't know the CoG author. Don't say it if you do, ffs, you did enough of that on the contest with your spgwhatever. :roll:

It's not like you even did it first; people started messing with screwy glow strengths in b18, when we first got glows. I know I made a crappy dropship with anti glow rocket thrust in b18, for example. But its use as known as of then was a neat curiosity of an effect but didn't really implement into anything well. Your effects on your most recent zpwhatever are like those, a kinda neat novelty, but by time you used it was old and tired, the novelty had worn off.

Although you may indeed have been the one to cause the CoG author to get an interest in abnormal glow strengths, you did such by simply continuing what was already old, which I don't see as commendable.



I'll certainly look into 255,0,255 glows, although I'm familiar already with something else that has that effect you described; off-palette 255,0,255 color images. But maybe pink glows do it better somehow.
I'm definitely [and defiantly, nice call, spell check] gonna try causing 'horrible things' as you describe, because it sounds like fun.
Author:  mail2345 [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:17 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
This post has been edited out by the author.
Author:  Azukki [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:28 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
It's like people make a point to ruin the anonymity intent of the contests. :roll:
And you're even derailing a thread to do it.
Edit: Well I guess that's better.

Anyways, black glows, I fixed it up and using strength = 2 is indeed entirely superior, the transparency shade is just white so it's easily done perfectly.
I just need to find the particular shade of gray that will result in a perfect 0,0,0 black.
Update will be as soon as I find that.
Author:  mail2345 [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
Azukki wrote:
Oh, that is a nice idea, I hadn't hadn't thought of applying this to that.
And it wouldn't have to be too laggy, the big black glow could probably be set with Lua to always be at the position of the 'camera', like prison escape's explosion effect.

Actually, there is no way to find where the camera is, you can only set the position.
Author:  Azukki [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:48 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
I could have sworn Prison Escape did just what I described?


Also, miles, a table explaining exact effect from strengths would indeed be handy.

The hue weirdness beyond 2 changes the hue in ways I don't understand, still with brightness inverted, and I've no idea why the border between the color segments is so weird.
The effect below 0 similarly affects the hue in strange ways, but doesn't invert brightness.

Za warudo gray scales and inverts the brightness of the whole background but not characters, after a radial black effect, not quite the same.
Although a radial attack using this would be awesome.
Author:  mail2345 [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows, Possible and Improved
Prison Escape had a glow big enough to cover the screen.
Author:  Miles_T3hR4t [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows
Azukki wrote:
It's like people make a point to ruin the anonymity intent of the contests. :roll:
And you're even derailing a thread to do it.
Edit: Well I guess that's better.

Anyways, black glows, I fixed it up and using strength = 2 is indeed entirely superior, the transparency shade is just white so it's easily done perfectly.
I just need to find the particular shade of gray that will result in a perfect 0,0,0 black.
Update will be as soon as I find that.


well, your trying to get 0,0,0 lets think about this.

glow color = 255,255,255 is white

Glow strength 0 = 0% of 255,255,255, so 000, with 0% opacity
Glow strength 1 is 100% of 255,255,255 at 100% opacity
glow strength 0.5 is 50% of 255,255,255 at 50% opacity (half of 256 is 128 so 127.5, 127.5, 127.5)
glow strength -1 is -100%? of 255,255,255 at 100% opacity (-100% color = inverted)

so -1 strength with FFFFFF is 000000, but 000000 does odd things, so you want 254 (FE)

-1 str with a 254,254,254 glow should result in a 01,01,01 area though I'm not sure, you know alot more about this than me. i'm just making a suggestion.

here's a suggestion
make a solid colored square glow, say 10x10, that fades from 1 to -1 and make a gif of it, do it for white, red, green, and blue. then repeat for 2 to -2. maybe make them all side by side in the gifs to save time... (Pinned something or other? AEmitter that only emits 1 particle? maybe on a keypress?)

the result is test swatches, we can accurately see how glow strength affects colors.
if you do that you'll be able to see, with luck, several ways to get any given color with glows.

Or if your really nit-picky instead of a solid color, make it a gradient that fades to black in one corner and white in another (like the color picker thingies). then we can see what the strength does if its transparent.(Note I refer to transparent the way the edge of a glow is by being part black because black is acting as an alpha channel which is exactly why this acts wonky. that and pallet issues. this is not to contradict that all glows are supposed to be transparent)
Author:  carriontrooper [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:16 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glows, Possible and Improved
Ah cool! Now we can make realistic black smoke. XD

And an idea to test the glow strength with colors is to make a copy of the palette, blow it up twice or quad its size, make it a background bunkermodule, and place a glow emitter on its center. Instant field experiment with anti-matter...
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