Feature Overview
The new updated weather system operates differently in two primary ways; by introducing more customization capabilities on a per-map basis, and by introducing the capability of rendering surface level weather VFX.
The primary means of assigning a weather type to a level (rain, snow, ash) remains unchanged, via Mammoth.
New Per-Map Options
Your map-specific INI files (the same file containing skybox information and a couple of other things), now also contain new parameters for weather related settings, as well as a few additional skybox settings.
All the new settings, including their default values, are seen here in this example:
[SkyTextures] MoonTexture1=FullMoon.dds MoonTexture2=PartMoon.dds EarthTexture1=FullEarth.dds EarthTexture2=PartEarth.dds SunTexture=Sun.dds SunHaloTexture=SunHalo.dds MoonHaloTexture=MoonHalo.dds CloudTexture=CloudLayer.dds StarTexture=Star.dds LightningTexture=LightningBolt.tga LightningSource=LightningSource.dds [WeatherTextures] WeatherTexture=weatherparticles.dds ; Sounds look for presets by name, not audio files. [ThunderSounds] ThunderSound1=Thunder01 ThunderSound2=Thunder02 ThunderSound3=Thunder03 ThunderSound4=Thunder04 ThunderSound5=Thunder05 ThunderSound6=Thunder06 WarBlitzSound=SFX.Ambient_Explosion_01 [WeatherSounds] WindSound=Wind01 RainSound=Rainfall01 [WeatherEffects] ; When a weather particle hits the ground, it will generate a random ; number between 0 and 1000 and if that number is less than ; WeatherEffectChance, it will trigger the "weather effect". ; See surfaceeffects.ini for weather hitter type data. ; Value from 0 to 1000. WeatherEffectChance=750 ; Area size around the camera to render weather in. RainSize=20.0 SnowSize=40.0 AshSize=40.0
New Surface Effects
In order to generate the new client-side localized weather VFX, you need to update your surfaceeffects.ini with additional hitter type entries for each weather type (rain, snow, ash). Once you have listed your weather hitter types, you can then assign VFX to them like you would any other hitter type.
Below is an example for the Rain hitter type:
; Weather Effects
; RAIN
[Light Metal_Rain]
Emitter0=e_rainspla
Emitter1=e_rainsplb
[Heavy Metal_Rain]
Emitter0=e_rainspla
Emitter1=e_rainsplb
You can do the same for the other weather hitter types.
Bonus tip: If your project has an unused weather type (most likely Ash), you can remove the ash texture from weatherparticles.dds and then use that weather to, for example, create wind effects in a sandy map.
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