Optical Camouflage

Problem with cloaking a ship is not the cosmetic part, that is easy.

(Really small mesh for one)

Hard part is how to remove the icons. Becouse every ship has an icon that hovers over it in the game, which is easy to see.

I've thought about that part. Just don't specify icons in a ship's file. Well, that's half the battle at least.

Anyways, could you perhaps inform me if what I want to do (as stated in the OP) is possible, and if so, how I would accomplish it?

Also, tips on making shieldmeshes for the SC meshes? That is part of a project of my own.

i don't have much experience with this part of modding but I'm not sure exactly how reflective this cloak can be made, it sounds like you want a mirror effect which leads me to think you'll need a semi-transparent metallic color (color to perhaps distinguish between the different races)

well, I don't want it to be distinguished between different races.

Have you ever seen the Predator movies, or the AVP movies? Something similar to the Predator aliens' cloaking systems or something like, hmm, what's another good example; can't think of another good example ATM.

But anyway, I want the shieldmesh to have a texture that I will hook up to it. A passive ability will then have to components to it. It will force the shieldmesh to constantly render, and it will also apply the 'CannotBeDamaged' bool modifier.

A FUNCTIONAL cloak is ridiculously easy, a COSMETIC one presents new challenges (at least to me), and a PROPER cloak will require icon removals. The icon removals is the hardest part to work properly.

i figured you want it to be completely invisible (at least to the enemy/AI) but it would be wise to have it so YOU can see it when its cloaked otherwise you might loose ships . 

on second thought, maybe for balancing reasons you may want to give it a slight blur effect to that other ppl can see it (probably for bigger ships, but the scout completely invisible), but thats just a thought

I don't think this will work.

As a "mirror" effect, and a "See Through" effect are COMPLETLY differnt.

I have a feeling that a mirror effect will just make a shiny ship.

Howver, if ANYONE knows how to make a mirror effect, if would PROBABLY be Fileosoft, not active on these forums, but if you find the 7DS forums, he is quite active there.

I like your definitions though, they should help future progress, Functionaly, Cosmetic, and Proper.

thanks. I thought the FUNCTIONAL part would be the best to describe just using an ability with a bool modifier.

I'll probably post in the 7DS forums and ask if anyone there knows how to do it. If I get know info on it, or if File doesn't post, I can just PM him.

That is pretty much the way to go.

  Do you want it on all the time? It would be cool to have an ability that when activated "cloaks" your ship. The cannot be damaged part, well... i myself would prefer able to be damaged, just not have the enemy ai respond to it, even if invisible.

The invisible part sounds like it could be accomplished using something similar to the way the starbase switches meshes, lets say in this case going from a normal ship mesh to one that is very very tiny. I did the tiny part in one of my mods, using newbeorg's resize tool, which is very very handy.    But switching meshes on the fly is more close to what a "cloak" is like in the movies. 

Anyway, just my two cents, hope the project goes well,

take care,

and Keep Modding!!

-Teal

if u could make everything invisible or unable to be damaged, there is no challenge, then no point to the game. Duh

unless u just plain-out suck, and cant survive without it. is that why u posted this?

If you want to make a highly reflective, but relatively non-shiny texture, then you will have to up the reflection color (blue) in the data texture to the max, while keeping the diffuse color in the color texture completely black. This will give you a sort of "dark mirror" effect.

However, I have to tell you that the game engine does not actually reflect other objects from the reflective surfaces - things like that are very processor intensive and are usually only used for water and such. What the Sins engine does, is reflect the environment sphere which is also used to provide ambient illumination for the ships. So what you will get is pretty much the same if you used a light-grey color and total reflectivity - a sort of metallic mirror effect, only darker.

Cloaking effects, aka the Predator, are achieved by applying a special refraction shader, not reflection, so that the object appears as if made from glass. But this sort of shader does not exist in Sins, so unfortunately we can't use that effect (I'd love to use it for explosion shockwaves, shield hit effects and black hole visualisation...)

the 'invisible' part is so it looks cool.

The cannot be damaged part is so it works. Scouts mine-revealing ability target filter would be tweaked to target the types of ships that can be cloaked.

Ergo, a counter. I can survive playing the game without such things. I just think that it would add depth (and a greater need for the already half-useless scouts).

And not everything would be invisible. Only a few, expensive, and logistics-intensive cruisers. I posted this because the modding community has been trying to make PROPER cloaks for ages.