Force Field 2.41 • Shield and impact shader. Mobile Ready!

Hey sorry if its a bit delayed reply but sometimes the forum doesn't send the notification over the email.

To answer your question: use the right click with your mouse instead of throwing spheres at it. It will work

 

Well, why not just settle for a static collider, or separate ways of registering hits? I'm not exactly concerned about forcefield collisions being totally accurate, something "close enough" will do just fine, such as using a capsule collider and passing on the collision data to the skinned mesh forcefield. If someone is dumb enough to use a constantly-deforming collider, that's their fault, really.

 

This might just work, however the impact point coordinate on the capsule (any other non precise) collider will probably have a gap in-between. What I mean is that the gap between the collider surface and the shield's mesh will affect the strength of the effect. Sometimes you won't be seeing the shield splash at all. Even tho there might be a way of projecting the impact point onto the skinned mesh, this will be very similar to raycasting against the plain mesh geometry without using any colliders at all. I don't know of any descent ways of doing such thing, without affecting the performance.

The second problem is that Im not quite sure if this will work with the animated vertices since the impact point gets transferred into the local coordinate space of the mesh. As soon as the skinned mesh animates the vertices might get moved away from their original positions at the time of the impact, which will probably leave the shield effect positioned incorrectly on the mesh or become invisible. This is not a one-frame splash thing, as it gets faded away up until the splash effect disappears. Now you see that it might be required to update the initial coordinate point to match the animated skinned mesh.

Hope you understand why I haven't implemented skinned mesh support yet. In most cases the character could be surrounded with one or several static meshes representing the shield.

Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions. Thanks.

 

Does the effect work on any material (any existing scene etc) or need a special material for all items that will receive the effect ?

Thanks

 

Good question. It has its own material and requires a mesh of any shape with a collider to register hits.

 

Thanks for the clarification. The effect look very cool

 

Is there a way to keep the effect on all the time? Like constantly covering the object 100% without being collided with anything. thanks.

 

Yes. Use can switch to static version of shader and tweak its material to control the effect.

 

Thank you I got it working, now I have 1 more question, in the example folder I only see the static version for mobile, I can't find the static version of desktop.

 

Send me an email with your invoice number at support@forge3d.com and I will upload the updated shader for you.

 

Thanks, I already managed to modify the shader by adding this final += fieldColor * _Static * field_Tex; and now it's working. Appreciate it.

 

Hi! bought the Force Field is amazing! but I can not adjust the affected area on the board, documentation method responds only to the alpha, how to be?

 

Hey! Thank you. What board are you talking about? Can you please provide more details?

 

ok, I can not adjust the area which is covered by textured shader how to make a flash less or more?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5m8vgg8ch8rn13y/Скриншот 2015-09-11 15.50.38.png?dl=0

 

Thanks for the help!!! All is decided! the best!

 

Thank you! Good luck with your project

 

Heya Immeasurable,
What was the solution? S7, I tried using right mouse as you suggested (see my previous post from a few months ago, my project was side lined for a bit) but don't see a significant difference. I'm looking to expand the area the texture covers as immeasurable is. Should hit power be doing that?

 

Nothing changed since then. You might just drop me your Skype id via PM and I will screencast you.

 

Just bought this and it is a GREAT asset! It has really taken the look of my game up a notch.

Is there any way to get a version of the non-mobile shader that also has a "static" sort of feature? I'm trying to render a force field that is always visible, but impacts cause it to glow around the area of impact. So right now I'm having to use two copies of the same mesh -- one with a standard blended shader, and then one with the force field shader. This naturally eats up a bunch of fillrate. So it would be really great to be able to render it all with a single material, but with the quality of the non-mobile version of the shader. Everything else would be the same as usual, it would just draw the "base" texture at some specified opacity, and then intensify it in the area of impact. I tried using the mobile shader with static and it just didn't look the same at all. I didn't get the nice glowing and blooming of the grid lines of my texture that I was getting with my current approach..

 

Thank you!

I have modified the shader to include static non-mobile features for you.

Please send me an email with your invoice number at support@forge3d.com

Thanks.

 

Can you include this shader in the 'official-future-release'?

 

Sure

 

thinking of getting this but need to know does this shader replace the one i already use as this will be no good as i already use a special shader.

 

Hi. Can you be more specific please?

 

i am using a custom ghost shader already on my meshes, does the force field have to replace the shader that i am using or is it used on a seperate mesh on top of the original mesh

 

It uses a separate mesh on top with a shield shader.

 

thank you, just what i was looking for, you will have my purchase

 

Thank you

 

just purchased version 2.3 but is there anyway i can have a copy of the version 2.2 as i am using unity 5.1.2f1 and dont want to move to 5.3 yet as there are still problems with this and mobile

 

Hey, just send me your invoice number at support@forge3d.com and I will upload you the package. Thanks!

 

just sent invoice number

 

not sure if my email inbox can take a big file, can you send me a download link

 

seems to be a problem with the mobile shader, as it says there are only 6 hits instead of 24 on non mobile but it is not restarting the count after 6 hits it is showing the first 6 hits then nothing for the next 18 then another 6 then blank again for 18, it is still looping through 24 steps, should it not reset after 6 then on the 7th hit remove the first and so on, im sure ther should not be 6 then 18 blank over and over again, can you check it please.

 

Make sure you use mobile script with mobile shaders and vice versa. By the way did the examples work?

 

LOL didnt realise there were mobile specific scripts!!! i will give it a check later and report back here, regards

 

working fine, i must not play with unity when i am half asleep lol.... my bad i overlooked that there was a mobile script which sets the contact points to 6, all i did was change the shader to mobile,, what a silly mistake, thank you

 

Hi,

great Asset!

One suggestions though

Would it be possible to change some of the functions of ForceField.cs to be virtual? I actually derive a class from ForceField in order to add health management.

The functions to be virtual should be:
- Start
- Update
- OnCollisionEnter
- OnCollisionStay
- OnCollisionExit

Thanks!

 

Hey there,

No worries mate. I'm glad to know it worked!

Feel free to drop me a word at support@forge3d.com if you need further help.

Cheers,
Alex

 

Hey there!

Thank you very much and sorry for my late reply. For some reason the forum doesnt send notifications in time.

To answer your question: It wasnt designed to be used as a base class, especially in a situation like yours, when you trying to add a health management to a shield effect class mixing everything together.

But its completely fine to change the methods to be virtual, all you have to do is to jump in and change the declaration for those methods you listed.

A little suggestion, If you dont mind. Make sure to separate visual effects from your core game framework to avoid troubles on later stages of the development.

You can reach me via support@forge3d.com if you have more questions. I will make sure you will get your reply in a matter of several hours.

Cheers,
Alex

 

Will this work for 2D games? If I have a 2D spaceship that is basically a sprite with a collider, would this still work?

Also, does the shield only display on impact, or is it possible to display the shield as a smooth color?

 

Will this project ever be optimized enough to support skinned mesh functionality? Made the mistake of not checking here before purchase sadface.

 

Hey StaticWave, thank you for your feedback. The shield effect is already capable working on a skinned mesh, however theres no available option to allow raycasting againts one with the exact coordinate mapping between the collider and the animated mesh so far.

We are looking into adding this feature as soon as we're done with the Sci-Fi Effects revamp. But as for now,you can use a bubble shield with your charactes or something similar avoiding direct shield mesh animation.

Thank you for your understanding and come again soon!

 

Understandable will figure out a way to design around it.

is there a public roadmap available anywhere for your product catalog, curious to see what the time frame on the update will be?

 

Hey StaticWave,

Theoretically theres a way around skinned mesh issue and I cant wait to get my hands dirty working trough it. That said, if we find the appropriate workflow avoiding performance spikes it will be shipped with the next Force Field update.

True, its been quiet for a while but please dont underestimate as we've been working hard this summer knocking two Sci-Fi Effects updates which is something you will definitely fall in love with!

Speaking of roadmap, we roll big and launch the revamped site along with vast amount of work aimed at reorganizing how things work in Forge3D. I cant tell much yet but heres little something:

• Full assets overhaul
• Upgradeable example project including the Force Field demo!
• On site manual and video tutorials

Definitely takes a while to wrap things properly for you and I want to be sure its ready and its a high quality standard before we release. I have also taken a look at what you guys been saying about my existing work and already accounted for all my previous mistakes so there will be no excuse of leaving these matters unattended. With all that said, its done when its done.

I will make sure to let everyone know... Soon! And please remember I am here for you and been here all this time planning ahead. Now its time to raise your heads and count the days as personally I and the Forge3D team had the sleepless nights figuring out the new steering course and so, finally, the rubber hit the road!

 

Awesome thanks for taking some time out to give some more details. I am excited to see whats to come, if only we did not need to sleep ^_^!

Godspeed and great work.

 

Now that we are on Unity 5.4 did Unity make any updates so you can make this work with rigidbodys easily?

It's been a year and a half since I've used this asset. I noticed it looks way different in Unity 5.4 now.

It's possible I changed some shader settings though idk. One plus though is now it shows way more of the shield when being hit but the spot that gets hit doesn't look as cool as it once did.

 

Hi Shadowing,

Thank you for your feedback! We're on it and the next thing is definitely the Force Field update fixing the rigidbody issue and wrapping new visuals along with the well known Force Field Demo exposed!

Seeking to further improve our products and experience, the dedicated 3D artist joins our ranks the following week and there's no time to rest for us as we are focused on the final missing parts before the Force Field Demo can be submitted to the Unity Asset Store.

We're also getting close to launching our new site, which includes the online documentation and the blog. The discourse forum for the community should also come in time with the exclusive details and deeper look into what's going on behind the curtain of the Forge3D Team.

Kind regards,
Alex
The Forge3D Team

 

Force Field next update is on its way!
Head to the first page of the thread and read on.

 

Bump! Test Chamber is lit, and there's a hangar with the ship behind that door. Orbit camera and the lights will switch on as you enter. You're also looking at the upcoming modular pack involving new workflow. Will be updating soon on this one. Hope you enjoy!

 

VERSION 2.4 HAS BEEN SUBMITTED FOR REVIEW
BUY NOW AND SAVE $10! http://u3d.as/45S