Hey guys!

Another question to let me know more limitations, but is having vehicle shields possible?

I'm talking SP only here. I've had a play around and it just seems to make the test vehicle invincible. The shield shader doesn't seem to respond properly to the function inputs either (may have set those up incorrectly though. Still, pretty certain those are right...)

So, I was wondering if it had been done before, or are my results just because the engine doesn't really support it?

Thanks!

yeah its possible

Great! Now how do I make it work? xD

from what i can remember vehicles already have shields you just need to change the effects in guerrilla

Hmm. Okay, I had a look but it would seem that vehicles don't have shields for the most part - I'm looking under the model_collision_geometry files for the vehicles, at the 'shields' section.

Now, the shader for shields runs off the functions of recent shield damage and shield vitality, and I have tried to get those to work so that the shaders appear to no success - I can get the shader to turn on constantly with vehicle power, but when I set it up to work like in the Spartan biped, no luck. I just end up with an invincible vehicle no matter what I am doing.

Am I missing something?

From what I remember, you have to add the shield in the collision model, and THEN set up the shader plasma with its functions in the vehicle tag.

What vehicle are you testing?

Maybe that's where I'm going wrong, but I can't see how I'd fix it.

I seem to be able to knock the shields out with the plasma pistol, and it recharges fine, but the shields take no damage otherwise.

Also, another development now; I have managed to make the shields visible, and they disappear when the shields are down, but they remain visible ALL the time, as opposed to only showing when damage is taken.... This might be linked to the inherent invincibility of the shields, perhaps? I imagine that is the root cause of the problem.

I was just trying it out on the Wraith for the sake of testing, but I have other plans for it in the end.

If the vehicle's shields render it invincible, you need to go into the model_collision_geometry tag, go down to the materials section, and set the "shield damage multiplier" for ALL materials to 1; this means that all weapons that do some kind of damage to shielding will do 100% of the damage they're supposed to do to that shield. Also, set the material type to something that can be damaged by most weapons (cyborg energy shield, elite energy shield, etc.).

As for the shields showing when damaged, that would require you set the functions up a certain way. Post a screenshot of what you have.
Edited by drillinstructor on Mar 25, 2011 at 09:34 PM

Drillinstructor, you are a life saver. I thought I had thoroughly checked the collision_geometry file over for anything like that, I missed that completely. Seems to be working as I imagined.

For the functions in the vehicle tag, I am just being lazy using the spartan shield shaders, and.. um.. directly copied the functions from the spartan biped. Messy, I know, and it also means no vehicle sound effects - I don't really know what a lot of this does and I am slowly learning. I know it would only take like 5 mins to set it up properly... but this was more just a curiosity that got out of hand.

I'm not sure what I can show in a screenshot, but I have set, under export to functions, for A to be 'recent shield damage' and B to be 'shield vitality' so as to match the shader controls.

Other than that, I wasn't sure if I needed to change anything else?

(I've kept a backup of the original Wraith tags I am using, so I may revert and set it up properly when I know what's going on!)

EDIT
Yaaay, got the shaders to work as I wanted now, too! Perfectly. Now just to set it up so I can have the vehicle sounds as well as shielding effects. I don't imagine that's too hard? Thanks a lot everybody! :D

Oh wait, no, confused again. I'm not quite sure which of the 'A in' and 'A out' the different parts are referring to. There seem to be many that overlap...?

There seem to be four blocks of 'functions'. The one at the top, which in the shielded bipeds have shield vitality and recent shield damage. Then there is the functions box. THEN there are functions under both Unit and Vehicle. Which ones get used where?
Edited by Diaboy on Mar 25, 2011 at 11:35 PM

With the "attachments" block, you would be dealing with the 'functions' block that's below the "widgets" block, which has... well... functions, that refer to the "export to functions" block directly above the "attachments" block, as well as the functions in both the $$$ UNIT $$$ section and the $$$ VEHICLE $$$ section. It can be confusing.

EDIT: Corrections. Upon inspection, I noticed that the "Functions" block refers to ALL the functions within the .vehicle tag. Your best bet would be to either copy the Wraith's settings or go and integrate your shield settings into the default Wraith.
Edited by drillinstructor on Mar 26, 2011 at 01:26 AM

I think I managed a workaround, as I wanted to keep the vehicle sounds and such. The wraith used 'speed' and 'engine hack' or something near the bottom, but I changed it to more similar settings in the ghost, and set the shield functions up in C and D instead, so no conflicts. Tahdah! It works :)

Now I can continue with what I was doing before, which was completely unrelated to shielded vehicles.. haha, oops.

Thanks again drillinstructor, you were a massive help.