Hi guys,
Im currently just experimenting with a type of evaporating effect for character models. At this current point its coded to go through the models vertex's, place a particle at that location then scale the vertex inwards until all vertex's have been modified whilst the particle has an anti gravity effect and floats away.

The reason for scaling the vertex inwards was to get as close to making the vertex look like it is dissapearing as possible because i have not come across any type of vertex removing commands. I have also thourght about placing a pure black (rgb 0, 0, 0) pixel or bmap over the vertex's posistion (overlay flag checked ofcourse) on the model but im guessing it would look like chunks have been taken out of the model for the rest of it to just vanish suddenly when its gone through each vertex.

Im trying to make this look as realistic as possible and im also going to try and look into seing if i can take snapshots of the points of the models skin where the vertex is to be modified so it actually looks like the models skin evaporating and not flashy / one colour particles.

i was wondering if anyone has any tips to pull something like this off. Not asking for people to code it for me just things like "you should try using this command it will <enter remedy to the overall effect here>".

Would it be better too create / add shaders?. although again im guessing if not implemented correctly the shader will only effect within the model and not outside where the particles / whatnot would be floating.

Below is an example of what i have so far using one of doom3's models until i develope the skills to mold one myself.



As you can probly see scaling the vertex has an awful effect.

i do appologise if this is posted in the incorrect part of the forums.

I believe this is the right area to post this type of issue.
[EDIT: Forgot where I was, Probably would belong better in the "Lite-C Programming", but Ive
seen cross-process programming like this (litec cross shader) survive before,
The moderator will move it if he feels it necessary]

But, more importantly, WAY COOL so far. Very well done. Only missing smoothmess as youve said,
and maybe the flakes coming off? Can you make them the color of the vertex/pixel they flaked off from.
I'd love to get my hands on that code even as it stands now. Is it c-lite or a plugin?

Suggestions: cant help with the vertex coding myself, I havent got there yet.
But, is it the vertex scaling that make the polys suddenly vanish as they 'flake' off?
If so, I would suggest you look into some method of fading the vertex color to match the
color of your flakes, WHILST changing the vertex's ALPHA if its possible to change vertex alpha.
That way, the colors will fade together, as well as fading to invisible.

Another possible option to look into, shaders. Never programmed or used them myself, so Im unclear
on their limitations and/or complexity. But what if...
Is it possible to have a shader that snaps a copy of the visibile models texture or vertexes JUST ONCE,
then over time turns each used pixel/vertex (or 5% of all used pixels etc) and turns it into a particle,
then turning that pixel/vertex off in the snapshot(so it knows when its completed).

If youve already thought of this, and are just looking for help discovering the mechanism to use,
I apologise for wasting your time.

Good luck all the same.

Thanks for the reply EvilSOB,

Since posting this yesturday afternoon i decided to look into doing something with the models skin instead of scaling the vertex (scaling the vertex was always just a temporary solution so you could get a basic glimpse of the effect).

What im thinkin of doing is finding the location of the vertex on the models skin, copying the colour from that posistion then changing it to pure black for overlaying. then apply the copied colour and write it to a particle. if copying single pixels from the skin looks abit "choppy" then i will copy a whole bunch within say a 5 - 10 pixel range from the vertex position then writing them to a single or a bunch of particles to make sure i cover a greater area due to vertex positions only being one pixel in size.

One problem i know thats going to happen is that if a model has alot of vertices the particles will take up entity spaces (if a model has between 1k and 2k vertices...owch) until they are removed after doing their thing which is why i have kept the shader idea in my mind...but saying that i can change the var from checking ever vertex to every two vertices to halve that

The code as it stands (as seen in the video) is quite simple really, programmed in c-script which could be translated very easily (which i will most likly do myself). This code will go through any model you apply it to and for testing purposes i just called the function when pressing B.

Ill have a bash at this skin idea and post the code for anyone and their family's to use / experiment with. if you want the character to just burst into a bunch of particles that form his/her body all you have to do is change one line of code to off, and back on for the effect as seen in the vid.

no need to apologise buddy, didnt waste my time at all very helpful ideas

Below is an example of bursting a character into particles, looks rather unproffesional in my eyes as it is currently but something ill be working on as above