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Black Glow flickers white and black
http://45.55.195.193/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19377		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Awesomeness [ Fri Jul 30, 2010 6:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Black Glow flickers white and black
I'e been trying to make an animated black glow (though this happens with any black glow I create) and no matter what I do, the black glow randomly flickers between being black and white in appearance. Is this a common problem with an easy fix? If not, I'll attach the rte.

PS: At the final release I will give credits where they are due to the inventors of various awesome stuff I'm using like black glows. I'm not going to list it all now.
Author:  MrC121989 [ Sat Jul 31, 2010 11:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glow flickers white and black
Can you even create Black Glow in Cortex Command ? I thought black is used as transparent(invisible) texture on glows.
Author:  Duh102 [ Sat Jul 31, 2010 2:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glow flickers white and black
Yes, it involves using negative glow strength greater than 1.
EDIT: pwnt by azukki
Author:  411570N3 [ Sat Jul 31, 2010 2:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glow flickers white and black
If you do not know about black glows, then you are not one that should be posting in this thread to help regarding them. Use search if you wish to learn more, however. (Or use this link.)
Anyway, nobody else has really extensively applied black glows as of yet, so I think it is entirely possible you are the first to experience this problem. You might want to post the .rte here and pm Azukki to see if the person who would logically be the expert can help.
Author:  Azukki [ Sat Jul 31, 2010 9:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glow flickers white and black
No, it doesn't involve negative strength, it uses strength greater than one. (And less than 2)
If I remember correctly, strength between 1 and 2 makes an individual glow fade from black to hue inversion. At slightly more than 1 strength, pure white in the image becomes black. As you increase it from there, the darkening fades, but the hues are inverted. White at 2 strength has its hue inverted, but not significantly darkened.

With a single glow, you can't fade from black (slightly > 1) to transparent, (0) you have to fade from black to the hue inversion effect. (1 to 2)
But if you put that on top of another hue inversion effect, the hue is doubly inverted, and you get a nice black to transparent color ramp.


The problem you are having, OP, is priority. I never really mentioned it, but it's a significant shortcoming to the method that I lazily ignored.
If the black to hue inversion effect is drawn first, and then the hue inversion is drawn on top of that, you end up inverting the black, and making it white.
I don't know how you would go about consistently controlling the the priority. Maybe try replacing the gradient glow every frame, while keeping the same plain inversion?


I'm editing the black glows posts now. I'm amazed and embarrassed by how poorly and incoherently I was explaining it.
Author:  Awesomeness [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 10:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glow flickers white and black
In response to PMs, this was going to be for the Overpowered Contest, but I decided against it early on. It's going to be a black hole bomb, but right now I'm just trying to get animated black glows to work. As people experienced with black glows know, you can't make it fade out gradually just by changing strength, because it will just invert and look weird and white. I'm making animated black glows so that this is possible. Right now what it should do is gain strength gradually until full strength, and then it will reset, over and over. It does this sort of, except at many angles the glow will be white rather than black or flicker white and black. I will attach the mod, since I do not plan to enter it in any contests anymore.

PS: This hasn't been changed since the OP. It's how it was back when I planned to enter the Overpowered Contest, before I realized I didn't have the skills to possibly finish in time due to having to learn to use black glows, as well as lack of decent skill.

EDIT: I almost forgot; Azukki, that's exactly what I suspected was the problem. The way I'm making the animation, the big white block stays in place while the black glow changes. What, should I re-make the white block each time? I don't see any correlation between anything and the priority of the glows I'm using other than location, which I can't find a pattern in. Though I do see a perfect black glow when I'm to the right of the glow bomb... Perhaps distance to the center of the camera affects priority of glows.

Attachments:
File comment: The mod.
GravBomb.rte.zip [225.17 KiB]
Downloaded 122 times
Author:  Geti [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 10:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glow flickers white and black
As I haven't read about black glows in much depth (I was otherwise occupied at the time of discovery) this could be irrelevant, but if it's a matter of priority can't you just flip colours so you have a black block staying in place and the white glow changing? Should be simple enough with a batch value invert..
Author:  Droney [ Sat Aug 14, 2010 11:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glow flickers white and black
personally i dont know anything about glows but why not try dark blue with a mix of dark purple? just a suggestion
Author:  411570N3 [ Sun Aug 15, 2010 8:02 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Black Glow flickers white and black
Droney wrote:
i dont know anything about glows
Then this may not be the topic for you.
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