Shadow pixels on aircraft (planes)

[AchromicWhite]

Hey, I was just doing a little graphical editing earlier, trying to use the shadow tool in a similar way to how it's used to create a rotor effect for helis. But when I'd finished and loaded my SHP into the mix file to test, I found that the shadow pixels didn't show on the SHP ingame. It is the edited SHP, as I edited other things on it, and to top it off, the actual shadow of the plane (a copy of the pixels shape, but just pasted below, shading the ground the  aircraft  flies over creating it's shadow) DOES contain the extra pixels of shadow I added to it. Is there any way I can make it just read the shadow pixels as normal?

 

  -Liam

[Allen262]

I've read this a few times but can't make a lick of since of it.....

[AchromicWhite]

Imagine opening up the Yak SHP, adding some shadow pixels, saving it and adding it to the game. The shadows don't show. However, they DO show in the shadow of the yak while it's flying around, but still not on the main SHP.

  -Liam

[AchromicWhite]

Maybe this will help you to grasp what I'm saying.

The bright green 'shadow' pixels do NOT show in game.

Any way to change this?

[Allen262]

I think the shadow color is hardcoded to be drawn on the ground. This maybe a strage idea but try using color index 1 (Purple) or the colors used for the shroud (color indexs 15, 14 and 13)

[Nyerguds]

Huh... so you're saying colour #4 is not drawn on the airplanes? That's annoying...

 

It's probably because their shadow is generated on the ground, then, yea... I guess the game seems that as an excuse to NOT draw it on the plane itself

 

I think the shadow color is hardcoded to be drawn on the ground. This maybe a strage idea but try using color index 1 (Purple) or the colors used for the shroud (color indexs 15, 14 and 13)

Having looked into the filtering mechanisms in C&C1, I doubt that'll work; the game has no reason whatsoever to apply the filters of OTHER effects to the units.

 

In fact, it surprises me that the game doesn't just draw the index #4 pixels as green ingame, like it does with the phase tank cloaking bug.

[Allen262]

Nyerguds as most of the time you where right. It didn't work but worth a try.

[AchromicWhite]

Agreed, Nyer. It is quite strange that simply doesn't do it AT ALL, and not just bug out in some other way. I still find it extra strange that it still adds it as a shadow on the ground (it's like the one place I might NOT want it, lol).

Yeah, obviously it's to do with the fact that it already draws the WHOLE plane as a shadow on the ground below it... but still strange that it doesn't just paint in all the pixels, as I'd expect it to.

Thanks for the added help Allen, even if it didn't work. Just need someone to keep hacking the crap out of the game to get these little things to work.

 

It's particularly annoying because the helis use it on their rotors, and I'd guess that even shadows drawn on the heli SHP do NOT show shadow either. But only on the added extra rotor animation that's added on top of it.

  -Liam

[Nyerguds]

Heli rotors have always been a special case.

 

But, yeah... get some of these RA hackers to look into that and fix it, hehe. I know CCHyper knew about the filter classes in RA which handle the equivalent of the C&C1 .mrf files, so they should have that stuff mapped.

 

As for it drawing it onto the shadow, that doesn't really surprise me. As far as I can see, index #4 on the air units likely uses a filter like the shadow, only one without an actual effect, which results in simple transparency. But for the shadow, it likely just takes all pixels that aren't colour #0. Westwood code, yay!

[AchromicWhite]

Huh, maybe I'll give CChyper a buzz, see if he wants to hack it a little. With some luck it'll be easy to change.

 

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Why would it bother to separate what pixels are what, for the whole shadow?

  -Liam