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[Stucki]

i think i asked for this befor some time ago, but i have not found the topic so i try again....

wouldnt it be nice to have the possibility of masking in wme. it would allow many very cool things.
like dustclouds only visibly in lighted region of the screen or some monitor effects .... there are so many situations ....
and it would be very usefull for the projected shadows, too ....

i think you already said something about it, but is it possible to integrate something like this in the engine
i think it would be worth the effort !!!

if i am repeating myself and bothering you with this question, thats really not my intention !!

greets
stucki
 

[Mnemonic]

You'll have to use overlays with alpha channels for this (you know, like a sprite with a semi-transparent "hole", to only mask parts of the underlying image).

[manarius]

hi folks, its me again :-)

how exactly do i use this masking? which methods do i need to use to get the character masked behind the scene?

what i would wish to achieve is, that the characters PARTS which are behind an alphachanneled png disappear,
but only that parts?

all i saw regarding anything like this was the red flashing light in the wintermute demo project. but there the whole actor gets tinted, not only parts of it.

i am sorry to have to ask this, but i got no idea right now and am in an urgent development. if i find out how i can mask, i will write it here.

cheers and thanks again for all that work which you do for us.
manarius

(btw we have much to complex rendered objects to cut them by hand. really. i am talking about trees and stuff. just the thinking of cutting this out by hand makes me look this way:  )

[Stucki]

just reviving a "HUGE" wish of me ... and bothering you again with it ....

would it be possible to have masking realized in wme, or is it impossible.
it just gets to my head everytime i work with the engine on chess-worlds.
now i have these sky-actors and they really do fine. three or more layers of clouds moving smoothly in the back of the scene

it would add so much realism to my scenes if i could add cloud-shadows moving over the landscape and buildings.
the problem is that these cloud shadows are also affecting the sky actors.

the only way i can imagine is a mask that covers the sceneparts i would like to have these shadows visible...

or do you know any other way of realising cloud shadows ..[ this brings me back to texture offset for 3d actors .. ]

sorry if i am getting on your nerves ... just tell me masking is impossible and i will live with it ...

best regards
stucki

[Jyujinkai]

how exactly do i use this masking? which methods do i need to use to get the character masked behind the scene?

Just use a oerlay sprite with a embeded alpha channel. WME shouldn auto pick up the alpha. If you want to use a truecolour gradiant in the alpha make the image a PNG.

or do you know any other way of realising cloud shadows ..[ this brings me back to texture offset for 3d actors ..

Why do you not just have a ogg video overlay on the background plate that plays the animation of the cloud shadows? Then a animated region for actor darkening that matches the shadow layer animation?

[Stucki]

Why do you not just have a ogg video overlay on the background plate that plays the animation of the cloud shadows? Then a animated region for actor darkening that matches the shadow layer animation?

thanks for the suggestion but i do not understand the idea. sorry.
can you explain it a little more please .

i do not want to use a video because i think it would be very large and slow down my scenes i think. And scenes are already very large and cpu heavy ..
i would prefer to have particles for cloud shadows.they could have individual speed and forms and so they would never look the same. a video would repeat after a short while ...

and i think that the video would also affect the sky actors in the back of the scenes, or am i wrong ?

greets
stucki

[Jyujinkai]

mnemonic added alpha overlays to ogg video didn't he?

[Stucki]

yes, but i really do think a 1280 *800 video with alpha mask isnt a proper solution .
how long will this video have to be to have a realistic impression of clouds moving over the landscape. 3 minutes .. and than it will loop forever ...

i think these videos would be far to big and they would kill my scenes framerate.

particles with real masking would be so cool !
   

[Jyujinkai]

your video dosen't to have to be full screen you can position it how you would like. Sure there will be a trade of of realism vs practicality but that is something you need to figure out in the design.

Don't 3D actors cast shadows? Can you try makeing real actor clods that cast full shadows in the scene onto the backgrnd geom?

[Stucki]

interesting idea but i think 3d actors for clouds would not be very practicable i think.

- every 3d actor reduces the framerate significantly
- they all have the same shadow colour and no alpha changes particles could vary in alpha because they are pngs..
- i will have to create a whole shadow geometry instead of using only geometry where the char-shadows should be visible.

i think particles with real masking would be very efficient, easy to create and vary and easy to code as well ..

thanks for your ideas !!
stucki

[Stucki]

@ jan: no comment ?

[Stucki]

??

[Mnemonic]

Well as I told you before in IRC, I don't know how to do super-generic 2D masking. Other than using stencil buffer, which is used for shadows.

[Stucki]

damn ...
thanks again for the answer . i was just hoping ..