MGS2 sphere

[CaptainPoopface]

Does anyone understand the function data in the mgs2 such that a sphere could be created? The tag is generally used to create oblong flame shapes, but I just want a nice round shape, about the size of the assault bomb. I really like the luminosity and color gradients possible with the tag.

[XZodia]

Looks like a bunch of functions to me...

I'm fairly sure the anti-grav mgs2 is round...I think I used it mine my anti-grav warthog.

[CaptainPoopface]

It does look round from the pictures. I think that mod is still on my Xbox, so I'll check when I get a chance. Did you get it from a campaign map, or did you create it? Are the functions for changing the shape or brightness based on the input velocity? Could i change those based on time, i.e., time after creation? Is it possible to change the colors of each "ring"? I've messed with the tag very little.

[XZodia]

I didn't change the tag, I just linked it from the ghost I think.

I don't know the details of the functions, but I will take a look at the guerilla tags to see what I can come up with.

Edit:
This little extract amused me...

"LIGHT VOLUME"
"Light volumes are rendered as a sequence of glowy sprites, just like in Metal Gear Solid 2. Each instance of the light volume is rendered separately; this allows, for example, a narrow bright white volume to be overlaid on top of a fuzzy wide colored volume, or anything else you want!"

And here's some other explainations that might help...

"Volume Reflexive"
"If no bitmap is selected, the default glow bitmap will be used. Sprite count controls how many sprites are used to render this volume. Using more sprites will result in a smoother and brighter effect, at a slight performance penalty. Don't touch the flags unless you know what you're doing (they should be off by default).

Be careful with the 'fuzzy' flag! It should be used on very wide light volumes to make them blend smoothly into solid geometry rather than "cutting" into the zbuffer. Using this feature will make light volumes several times slower when they fill a large portion of the screen."

"Radius Function"
"This function controls the radius in WORLD UNITS of each sprite along the projected forward axis. Using a smaller min value and a larger max value results in a light volume that looks like a cone."

"Brightness Function"
"This function controls the overall brightness (in [0,1]) of each sprite along the projected forward axis. Note that since the sprites are additive, they will be brighter in areas where they overlap more even if this function is constant, so it may be useful to use the brightness function to compensate for this."

"Color Function"
"This function controls the color of each sprite along the projected forward axis. Color is multiplied by brightness to produce the final color that will be applied to the sprite."

"Facing Function"
"The input to this function is the facing angle between the light volume and the camera. Zero represents facing towards (parallel) or away from the camera and 1.0 represents facing perpendicular to the camera.

The output of this function is fed into the range-input of the functions above."

"Aspect Ratio Reflexive"
"These function control the screenspace aspect ratio of each sprite relative to the projected forward axis. Note that there is no range-input to these functions, because it would not make sense to stretch sprites when the light volume is facing directly towards or away from the camera (which way would we stretch them?)"

"Along-Axis Scale"
"Values higher than 1 along the axis will cause sprites to elongate and overlap more regardless of the orientation of the light volume, whereas values lower than 1 will cause sprite separation."

"Away From Axis Scale"
"Values higher than 1 away from the axis will cause the light volume to appear thicker."

"Parallel Scale"
"When the light volume is viewed directly towards (parallel) or away from the camera, the scale factors above are interpolated towards this constant value. The threshold angle controls when the light volume is considered to be 100% parallel for these computations. The exponent controls how quickly the transition from using the perpendicular scale factors to using the parallel scale factor happens, e.g.:

* exponent=0.0 -> perpendicular scale factors will always be used unless below threshold angle
* exponent=0.1 -> transition quickly as viewing angle becomes perpendicular
* exponent=1.0 -> transition smoothly between perpendicular and parallel
* exponent=9.0 -> transition quickly as viewing angle becomes parallel"

"Postprocess Control"
"ADVANCED STUFF!! Don't change these values!!"

[XZodia]

Presents!

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2342

Though it doesn't actually solve your problem atm, I'll try to sort that out for you tomorrow.

[CaptainPoopface]

Hot sauce. Out of curiosity, where do those comments come from? The depth of knowledge seems like it could only have come from inside Bungie. Are these documentation notes from the tools design team to the graphics team?
I've never understood how we know so much about the structure and innards of maps. Great information to have though. I always wondered what mgs2 stood for. Now jpt is still a mystery...

[XZodia]

The comments from from Guerilla, Bungie's tag editor, which was released with Halo 2 Vista.