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[HELP] Monster attack effects

Posted: 06 Oct 2010, 01:48
by nmaligec
I am short on time and cannot look into this myself, so I am hoping there are people who already know how to do what I need to do. I would like to get this figured out before end of October, for possible release of the reaper quest.

Is it possible to change the default attack particle for a specific monster when it attacks a player? This is really my goal.

If this is not possible, any suggestions on how exactly to get a specific particle effect to play over a targeted player when a monster hits with its attack?

Re: [HELP] Monster attack effects

Posted: 06 Oct 2010, 03:25
by Kage
nmaligec wrote: Is it possible to change the default attack particle for a specific monster when it attacks a player? This is really my goal.
I don't understand exactly what you are saying. If you are asking if monsters can use a particle effect when they attack. Yes. New clients (unreleased) all for homing "missile" particle attacks
nmaligec wrote: If this is not possible, any suggestions on how exactly to get a specific particle effect to play over a targeted player when a monster hits with its attack?
A particle effect can be done on a player by scripts, magic engine, or by status effects.

Re: [HELP] Monster attack effects

Posted: 07 Oct 2010, 03:24
by nmaligec
What I want to happen:
-monster does damage to its target
-plays its attack animation
-makes a custom particle effect play over the target

The catch is to do it with the standard client, which I assume is v0.0.29.1

Re: [HELP] Monster attack effects

Posted: 07 Oct 2010, 06:08
by Rotonen
The current "many random sparks" is not optimal in any way: experiment with a motion trail of a swing. One particle should do it, really.

Re: [HELP] Monster attack effects

Posted: 07 Oct 2010, 06:40
by Crush
I think what nmaligec wants is something like a monster which shoots a projectile which explodes on the target when it hits it.

I think there is currently no good way to do this.

Maybe we could solve it by adding a "<deatheffect>" childtag to particle emitter definitions. These could be full-fledged particle effect definitions which are created on the last location of a created particle as soon as the particle dies. We should add properties like on-impact="true" on-timeout="false" on-ground="false" on-ceiling="false" to this tag so we can control in which conditions the death effect is triggered.

Re: [HELP] Monster attack effects

Posted: 08 Oct 2010, 01:55
by nmaligec
It is intended for the default mob attack. I was thinking of having a pillar of purple flame bursts from the ground under the player. This would just be a single stationary animated particle.

Since the boss is ranged, right now there is no easy way to tell that it is attacking you (especially if a melee mob is also attacking you too).

On a side note, what is motion trialling? Is it a built in feature, or just a gimp/graphics trick? I keep hearing about motion trailing but haven't seen an explanation of how its done.

PS Later on I will optimize the other particle effects that I already added.

Re: [HELP] Monster attack effects

Posted: 08 Oct 2010, 04:46
by Crush
nmaligec wrote:It is intended for the default mob attack. I was thinking of having a pillar of purple flame bursts from the ground under the player. This would just be a single stationary animated particle.
This is also a pretty interesting idea which isn't possible yet. And while possible with the feature I described above (just make the projectile particle invisible) it would be also a nice-to-have feature to define an on-target particle effect for attacks in monsters.xml.

Thanks for your input, so far.

Re: [HELP] Monster attack effects

Posted: 08 Oct 2010, 05:55
by Crush
Created mantis tickets on Manasource for these features:
http://bugs.manasource.org/view.php?id=247
http://bugs.manasource.org/view.php?id=248

Re: [HELP] Monster attack effects

Posted: 10 Oct 2010, 18:53
by Rotonen
nmaligec wrote:It is intended for the default mob attack. I was thinking of having a pillar of purple flame bursts from the ground under the player. This would just be a single stationary animated particle.

Since the boss is ranged, right now there is no easy way to tell that it is attacking you (especially if a melee mob is also attacking you too).

On a side note, what is motion trialling? Is it a built in feature, or just a gimp/graphics trick? I keep hearing about motion trailing but haven't seen an explanation of how its done.

PS Later on I will optimize the other particle effects that I already added.
I'm really glad to know other people besides me dream of using the particle engine for a static single sprite: marvelous. There is a lot more potential in the particle engine than what we're currently using it for (which is mostly moving around swarms of abstract blobs).

Motion trailing:
Image