T3D's "fizzle" fade
by Richard Ranft · in Artist Corner · 12/28/2012 (7:14 am) · 8 replies
I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic yesterday and noticed that for some of their "cheaper" objects Bioware used a "fizzle" fade that looked almost exactly like the nasty one T3D uses. I'm talking about that checkerboard fade that we all pretty much know and hate - if you don't know what I mean, create a GroundCover object with some plain white material and watch the visible edge where it fades - you'll see it.
I was surprised because they had such nice-looking fades and vanishes on everything else. Their ground cover "grows" and "shrinks" at the edges instead of fading, player vanishes and appearances are apparently animated directly and so forth and it all looks pretty good. But yesterday I caught a corpse fade and it was that fizzle - made me laugh.
Just thought I'd share.
I was surprised because they had such nice-looking fades and vanishes on everything else. Their ground cover "grows" and "shrinks" at the edges instead of fading, player vanishes and appearances are apparently animated directly and so forth and it all looks pretty good. But yesterday I caught a corpse fade and it was that fizzle - made me laugh.
Just thought I'd share.
About the author
I was a soldier, then a computer technician, an electrician, a technical writer, game programmer, and now software test/tools developer. I've been a hobbyist programmer since the age of 13.
#2
Just to note, fading out a transparent texture creates a clean fade.
01/04/2013 (8:16 pm)
Awwww, fizzle ain't that bad ... except on the LOD fade thing for forestObject which is the work of Cthulhu ... but at least that can be disabled.Just to note, fading out a transparent texture creates a clean fade.
#3
01/05/2013 (7:40 am)
And transparent textures do not cast shadows, so either the the fizzle has to be transparent or the transparent cast shadows. 
#4
edit: uh transparrent materials do cast shadows oO it goes off the alpha
01/07/2013 (5:20 am)
but its on the lod, so the material can be controlled at a distance, where youre not likely going to want or need it casting a shadow.edit: uh transparrent materials do cast shadows oO it goes off the alpha
#5
How can it be disabled?
And who the hell is Cthulhu? lol
04/13/2013 (4:53 pm)
"but at least that can be disabled."How can it be disabled?
And who the hell is Cthulhu? lol
#7
Aw man - Ok, go read all of the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft. That's your homework.
And SW:TOR seems to actually animate the vanish in most of their models - so of course that's an option.
04/13/2013 (8:00 pm)
Quote:
And who the hell is Cthulhu?
Aw man - Ok, go read all of the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft. That's your homework.
And SW:TOR seems to actually animate the vanish in most of their models - so of course that's an option.
#8
For a 'noisy' looking fizzle:
In game/shaders/common/torque.hlsl:
04/14/2013 (12:03 am)
@Richard; That make me think... Maybe it's better to only fade a corpse when it is not in the player's LOS; if there are not too many laying around.For a 'noisy' looking fizzle:
In game/shaders/common/torque.hlsl:
void fizzle(float2 vpos, float visibility)
{
float2x2 m = { vpos.x, 0.916, vpos.y, 0.350 };
float2x2 n = { vpos.x, 0.350, vpos.y, 0.916 };
clip( visibility - frac( determinant( m ) ) );
clip( visibility - frac( determinant( n ) ) );
} 
Associate Ron Kapaun
3tdstudios.com
I am looking into this because I hate the fizzle crap too. I will see what we can do to make it better.
Ron