ZEQ2 Lite

Saturday, August 08, 2015

Shenku wrote :

emirh08 wrote :
Meh all the same I just know ue4 runs most effects/particle systems with a lot of post processing anyway attached to them, so unless you create a nice effect with no post processing on it and tweak it to how'd you like then add it to the scene that would probelly be the best way to go. But the camera shake is needed most definitely, and what you should do is put a little blur in the air to give it a nicer look, just a slight blur to make it look likes its giving of a little hear haze.

I was re-watching the transformation sequence A few days ago, and there was a very slight heat-like haze (almost imperceptible) as he grew closer to the final transformation point.

I can probably do the effect with little trouble, but I'm iffy on how much it would cost in performance...

here's my heat-haze see if it works http://www.filedropper.com/blurheathaz

Sunday, August 09, 2015

Shenku and emirh08 why not work together?

however great job

I built a new PC and I would like to try a demo soon

Sunday, August 09, 2015

qwerty wrote : Shenku and emirh08 why not work together?

however great job

I built a new PC and I would like to try a demo soon

so far I feel I have made the most progress when I work by myself because it forces me to learn more. plus the work I have made I'm proud to say I did myself...and in just 1 week.

Sunday, August 09, 2015

qwerty wrote : Shenku and emirh08 why not work together?

however great job

I built a new PC and I would like to try a demo soon

2 reasons.

First, neither of us have asked the other to help out with eachothers' project, or asked if the other was interested in joining forces. It might be cool if we did some day, as we could probably get more done together than apart, but there's differences of opinion that would need to be rectified first (see second point below)

Second, I think while our two projects are similar (both Dragonball based, both use UE4, exc.), our individual project goals are different. For example, he's adding stuff from GT and April Fools, where as I'm staying strictly Z anime, in all it's uncut fillerfied glory (plus some of the movies). Because of this difference, we really aren't working with the same ideas and concepts, and would have to find a middle ground to work together, which might be easier said than done, because in general, I dislike GT, and always thought April Fools was a terrible idea that spiraled way out of control... Which means that either I would have to accept those things, or he would have to give them up, neither of which seems plausible...

That, and I'm so inconsistent in terms of working on this, it might not speed things up at all, and may actually slow development down as I come back and see he made a bunch of changes, and I have no clue what they are or how they work and have to re-dissect the blueprints every few days/weeks/months.... Or vice versa, he might not have a clue what I changed and have to make heads or tails of it...

Monday, August 10, 2015

Added the first stage of the combat mechanics, that being basic mêlée. At present, you punch roughly as fast as you click the mouse button(with a slight delay to allow the previous punch to land first)...

https://youtu.be/YOyi1ZJy0OI

Also added in a lock-on system, but it's not finished yet and doesn't properly cycle targets...

Monday, August 10, 2015

Another update, no video or screenshot this time, cause I'm lazy...


* AI now punches the player (semi-randomly) when they get into mêlée range, and deals damage to the player.

* Player health now properly scales their current maximum Powerlevel.

* Player can now "die" and respawn (currently set to respawn on mouse click {Which is bound to the mêlée Button Action in the input settings}...)

* Player can now heal themselves over time by charging their Ki to maximum(bumping their health up by one, and in turn updating and bumping their current scaled maximum Powerlevel proportional to their new health percentage). Doesn't work very effectively while getting punched in the face...

* Corrected an issue with target lock-on, the player can now re-lock onto their previous target again. Before, would be unable to lock-on after the first time once the lock-on button was released.





Things to fix:

* Need to correct Super Saiyan 2 Goku's eyes, they're missing for some reason...

* Need to adjust mêlée damage to scale based on attacker's Powerlevel versus the damaged victim's powerlevel so that a more powerful character deals more damage to less powerful ones, and less powerful characters deal less damage to more powerful ones. Raditz should not be able to stand toe to toe with Goku at Super Saiyan 2... Just Saiyan...

* Find and fix a random bug that causes the AI to randomly revert to their "idle" pose when they should be rooted in their death animation.

* Figure out why the sound (still) continues to become randomly distorted and garbled (Sound lag?) for seemingly no reason.

* Need to fix a bug with healing that causes the player to not heal if they take damage while Ki Charging to heal, causing their powerlevel to no longer be charged.




Other News:

I had some "Moose Tracks" ice cream earlier, it was delicious. No, you can't have some.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Added the initial framework for Kaioken, currently it functions as a separate "boosting" technique that can be used at any time, and is separate from the transformation system. I.E. Goku can use Kaioken while in Super Saiyan or above if necessary. Overrides normal boost and locks it into the "on" state for five seconds (Kaioken was never intended to be use for much longer than that anyways).

Need to go back and adjust it so that picking the "level" of Kaioken is more intuitive than having to click it several times (shift+right click currently) to increase the "Kaioken Times X" amount..

Note: Using Kaioken while charging will automatically begin Boost-Charging, and will increase the Boost-Charge's effectiveness proportionally to the level of Kaioken used.

Also added a secondary "Power mêlée" attack, similar to base mêlée, but hits 5 times harder than standard mêlée, but at the cost of burning through your current Powerlevel by a set amount per attack (Currently "10", but plan to increase it to be proportionally about 1-10% in the future to more limit its use).

Things to add:

* Damage buffs from using Kaioken/boosting Ki.

* Slow down the animations for Power mêlée, and increase time delay between attacks to make them slower to compensate for their increased power.

* Add a Knockback effect to Power mêlée.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Well, THAT'S a progress !! I begin to be a bit lost in all of that.

Can't wait to see this with more advanced renders (cel-shading etc..). Will looks/be amazing.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Wh1t34Gl3(SAS) wrote :
Can't wait to see this with more advanced renders (cel-shading etc..). Will looks/be amazing.

I already have Cel-Shading, I'm just not happy with it yet because the outlines don't quite work exactly how I want them to (Some overlapping issues, particularly with the face), so I've been leaving it disabled cause it visually bugs me otherwise... The second image is closer to an optional style I'd like to add that the player can pick from, but I need to get the outlines sorted first...

Oh, and added Light generation to the particles spawned by the aura, so now the aura actually makes the character appear to "glow" a little dynamically, and illuminate their surroundings a little...

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Fixed the issue with Super Saiyan 2 Goku's eyes... Wasn't anything wrong with my setup, I just forgot to reset his head scale properly when I switched back from testing Gohan...

Thursday, August 13, 2015

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Thursday, August 13, 2015

Not sure what you're trying to say with that picture, but no, that's not exactly what I'm going for. I more want a fusion of the two styles, I.e. outlines and cel-shading, with some soft-3D shading to balance it out and give some extra depth. The outlines themselves are just my biggest problem at the moment with that idea...

Of course straight Cel-Shading is the other option that I want available for those who'd want it...


Oh, and technically I was working on this yesterday, but forgot to post it... Trying to work on the Aura Particles some more to make it more closely match its style in the anime, specifically, the "white-fill" that often appears inside the interior of the Super Saiyan and Kaioken auras from a distance. I just need to setup an alternate material that blends out at closer distances to achieve the proper effect since at closer distances it fades out and becomes transparent in most shots. Unfortunately, to get this effect, I had to eliminate the bubble effect because it just wasn't rotating correctly according to the camera to showcase such an effect, and it's also washing out the underlying colors of the character, so I may have to scrap this idea if I can't sort that all out...

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Wh1t34Gl3(SAS) wrote :
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Haha budokai always looked good to me but I don't think he's going for a 12 year old PlayStation 2 game look :,) good work shenku I rekon you should use a smoother celshading effect it's also much similiar to make just Google it, though I sudgest using alternative character models, ZEQ models are a little outdated now.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Not sure what you're trying to say with that picture, but no, that's not exactly what I'm going for.

I know, just pointing a similarity between both. *intense laughter*

As for the smooth shading, is that what you are talking about ?

ZEQ models are a little outdated now.

Open in 3ds Max --> Subdivision --> Merge of lacking in identifiable function details = 2015.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

emirh08 wrote :
Haha budokai always looked good to me but I don't think he's going for a 12 year old PlayStation 2 game look :,) good work shenku I rekon you should use a smoother celshading effect it's also much similiar to make just Google it, though I sudgest using alternative character models, ZEQ models are a little outdated now.

I'll probably replace the models in the future at some point with some more up to date higher detail models, but that's something I'm going to worry about later.

And Wh1te4Gl3(SAS), this is closer to what I'm looking to go towards:



Basically, Cel Shading for most of the harder shadows, but with some soft shading mixed in where appropriate(Such as on Super Saiyan Hair, which originally was softer shaded in appearance than it was later rendered towards the Cell Saga and beyond), and outlines to help frame and separate things better.

One of the problems with pure 3D based Dragonball Z games, is unless they take a standard approach with regards to texture detail, normal maps, baked lighting, exc., the characters come off as flat, and it starts becoming more difficult to pick out details. Like in that first image you posted, you can barely pick out their fingers because they're all blending together.

Side note: Say what you will about the first Budokai game, I loved that one in all it's horrible model glory, because it was one of the few games that actually recognized that the Ultra Super Saiyan form needed to be something you could play as, where as pretty much every other commercial game skips right past it to Super Saiyan 2...

And tinkered some more with the aura, and partially reverted it to its rotating bubble version with the negative X axis disabled, but the plus X axis enabled. It looks okay with pure Cel Shading, but still becomes washed out near Goku's feet, shoulders, and waist(areas where the inner aura overlaps his mesh), so I may need to adjust the aura to be slightly bigger.

Note: The aura still only adjusts according to its owner's camera angle, so I'm not sure yet how to rotate it properly for external actors(I.e. other players, if I ever start working on multiplayer support...).

Also, fixed the materials for all of Namek's map objects to stop looking like shiny plastic, which makes it look a little bit better than it was...

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Shenku wrote :

emirh08 wrote :
Haha budokai always looked good to me but I don't think he's going for a 12 year old PlayStation 2 game look :,) good work shenku I rekon you should use a smoother celshading effect it's also much similiar to make just Google it, though I sudgest using alternative character models, ZEQ models are a little outdated now.

I'll probably replace the models in the future at some point with some more up to date higher detail models, but that's something I'm going to worry about later.

And Wh1te4Gl3(SAS), this is closer to what I'm looking to go towards:



Basically, Cel Shading for most of the harder shadows, but with some soft shading mixed in where appropriate(Such as on Super Saiyan Hair, which originally was softer shaded in appearance than it was later rendered towards the Cell Saga and beyond), and outlines to help frame and separate things better.

One of the problems with pure 3D based Dragonball Z games, is unless they take a standard approach with regards to texture detail, normal maps, baked lighting, exc., the characters come off as flat, and it starts becoming more difficult to pick out details. Like in that first image you posted, you can barely pick out their fingers because they're all blending together.

Side note: Say what you will about the first Budokai game, I loved that one in all it's horrible model glory, because it was one of the few games that actually recognized that the Ultra Super Saiyan form needed to be something you could play as, where as pretty much every other commercial game skips right past it to Super Saiyan 2...

And tinkered some more with the aura, and partially reverted it to its rotating bubble version with the negative X axis disabled, but the plus X axis enabled. It looks okay with pure Cel Shading, but still becomes washed out near Goku's feet, shoulders, and waist(areas where the inner aura overlaps his mesh), so I may need to adjust the aura to be slightly bigger.

Note: The aura still only adjusts according to its owner's camera angle, so I'm not sure yet how to rotate it properly for external actors(I.e. other players, if I ever start working on multiplayer support...).

Also, fixed the materials for all of Namek's map objects to stop looking like shiny plastic, which makes it look a little bit better than it was...

yeah just a simple increase in roughness in the meterial editor should do the trick, I haven't worked on my project in a couple weeks now :/ though when ue4 FULLY supports dx12 I'll make sure to make a Dragon Ball super theme <3

Friday, August 14, 2015

Tried following another Outline example I found on the UE4 forums, seems to work a bit better than the other method I was using (and was a much simpler setup too), but doesn't agree very much with the Cel Shading setup I had before, so I might have to tinker with it some more later...

Looks closer to what I said I wanted for the outlines at least...

Friday, August 14, 2015

Yeah, you are opting for a more realistic render. Makes me remember of Earth Special Forces with a special pack using outlines and celshading. Same rendering as borderland.

As for the outline, it covers too much edges (most importantly on the hairs).

Friday, August 14, 2015

Haha budokai always looked good to me but I don't think he's going for a 12 year old PlayStation 2 game look :,) good work shenku I rekon you should use a smoother celshading effect it's also much similiar to make just Google it, though I sudgest using alternative character models, ZEQ models are a little outdated now.

Quality is subjective. I don't think you know what you mean by "smoother" or even "cel-shading". Yes. The models are so "outdated".

Open in 3ds Max --> Subdivision --> Merge of lacking in identifiable function details = 2015. Razz

Subdivision/Tessellation does not produce quality.

Basically, Cel Shading for most of the harder shadows, but with some soft shading mixed in where appropriate(Such as on Super Saiyan Hair, which originally was softer shaded in appearance than it was later rendered towards the Cell Saga and beyond), and outlines to help frame and separate things better.

Okay. Gentlemen. Nomenclature. "Cel-Shading" is largely a misnomer tossed around at this point that needs to be sorted.

If you are referring to contoured silhouette details, that would simply be the outlines or more appropriately, the "INKING" (since it can apply to more than just silhouette edges).

Shading is the definition of brighter or darker areas -- usually defined by the lighting. In a standard lighting model (lambert), this is a linear/smooth/gradient result from black to white based on intensity. If you look at the black to white intensity as a simple 0 to 1 linear curve, we can achieve a more sudden jump by making the transition "STEPPED". As you'll probably surmise, once you get to 64+ steps, the result often loses its intended aesthetic unless up close.



In standard shading, you'll have either a black to black or black to white unlit/lit color range for the intensity. Specifying a start/end color and an appropriate blend mode will give you fair enough results, but if you want to go a step beyond in terms of exact control, you can use a shading band to define which color is used for the shading. This is just a simple 1D texture lookup (the same ones you'll find in ZEQ2-lite).

One of the problems with pure 3D based Dragonball Z games, is unless they take a standard approach with regards to texture detail, normal maps, baked lighting, exc., the characters come off as flat, and it starts becoming more difficult to pick out details. Like in that first image you posted, you can barely pick out their fingers because they're all blending together.

This is an issue of depth continuity. For solid/mostly flat colors/textures, this can be solved with proper inking and/or dark enough shading with well-defined smoothing groups per part.

Note: The aura still only adjusts according to its owner's camera angle, so I'm not sure yet how to rotate it properly for external actors(I.e. other players, if I ever start working on multiplayer support...).

If you are using billboard particles/cascades, then it should always be view dependent towards the camera. Shouldn't matter if you an aura or another object does. Or did you implement it in some unique manner?

Friday, August 14, 2015

Zeth wrote :

Haha budokai always looked good to me but I don't think he's going for a 12 year old PlayStation 2 game look :,) good work shenku I rekon you should use a smoother celshading effect it's also much similiar to make just Google it, though I sudgest using alternative character models, ZEQ models are a little outdated now.

Quality is subjective. I don't think you know what you mean by "smoother" or even "cel-shading". Yes. The models are so "outdated".

By smooth I mean color blended, shenku knows what I mean he says he has looked at the ue4 cel-shading tutorials

Friday, August 14, 2015

As for the outline, it covers too much edges (most importantly on the hairs).

This really has to do with the inking technique used. There are MULTIPLE techniques that will offer varying features/attributes.

• Vertex Flip & Extrude. (also known as : Fatboy). This technique involves an extra pass per material that uses it. You simply push the vertex position outward based on its normal and then flip said normal. The quality of this technique will vary based on how many vertexes you have. Smoothing groups can play a big part since they are largely just overlapping vertexes with different normals. Thickness can be controlled by extrusion amount. Outlines will vary in thickness based on distance from the camera unless distance checks are put into place.

• Wireframe. This is ZEQ2-lite's current technique. It also involves an additional pre-pass, but simply involves turning on wireframe rendering. Since this uses line rendering internally, the results are not based on vertex density or normals. Thickness and other attributes (beyond color) are more difficult to control. Outlines with remain a consistent thickness regardless of camera distance.

• Image-Space. (also known as edge detection/sobel). This approach involves taking a depth render of an object (or the full render buffer) and doing an edge detection algorithm on it (usually sobel) to determine where an outline needs to be. Since it is a post-process approach, this technique is very costly compared to the above two and will scale in cost based on fill area / resolution. Unlike the above techniques (which only do silhouette outlines), with the proper angle settings, you'll be able to capture some crease and fold outlines -- albeit inconsistently since it's based on depth. Thickness can be slightly controlled by angle ranges, but more than likely would need supplemental filter passes.

• Edge-Mesh. This was a technique was implemented on ZEQ2. It's a logical extension of the way Wireframe outlines work. For each edge of a mesh, a quad is created. This quad can easily be scaled, squashed, distorted, colored, and even textured. This means that not only do you have consistently sized outlines, you can apply ANY kind of stylized visual effect you want per segment. Since every unique edge has an appropriate mesh, you have full crease/fold lines as well.

And that's just about HALF of the techniques that were available for inking in 2007. There are technically many, MANY others that are far more interesting/advanced. In most games/engines and default environments with shaders, you'll sadly only see the 1st or 3rd technique in place -- which is a shame since they are quite lackluster in terms of quality, consistency, and features.

By smooth I mean color blended, shenku knows what I mean he says he has looked at the ue4 cel-shading tutorials Smile

Shading being "smooth" or being "color blended" aren't even mildly related concepts. Smooth generally would refer to the number of steps to make something appear continually indistinguishable. A blend is completely different and just involves mixing two things based on an operation.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Zeth wrote :

By smooth I mean color blended, shenku knows what I mean he says he has looked at the ue4 cel-shading tutorials Smile

Shading being "smooth" or being "color blended" aren't even mildly related concepts. Smooth generally would refer to the number of steps to make something appear continually indistinguishable. A blend is completely different and just involves mixing two things based on an operation.

I don't know I just know a lot of people who use the metarial editor always adjust smoothing properties to give the cel-shade a more blended look, by the way Zeth are you guys still working on putting ZEQ on unity??

Friday, August 14, 2015

Shenku wrote : Tried following another Outline example I found on the UE4 forums, seems to work a bit better than the other method I was using (and was a much simpler setup too), but doesn't agree very much with the Cel Shading setup I had before, so I might have to tinker with it some more later...

Looks closer to what I said I wanted for the outlines at least...

why not just download the stylisedrendering demo and use its celshade then just adjust to your liking? after all that's what its there for, to learn https://de45xmedrsdbp.cloudfront.net/blog/StylizedScreen3-770x250-1807830790.png

Friday, August 14, 2015

I don't know I just know a lot of people who use the metarial editor always adjust smoothing properties to give the cel-shade a more blended look

See, that's the problem. You don't know much of ANYTHING about the techniques you are using. You're basically just trying to copy/paste a project together without any technical knowledge.

If you actually read my above breakdowns of inking techniques, you'd know PRECISELY why the above worked. Start reading my technical breakdowns and responding intelligently based on them.

by the way Zeth are you guys still working on putting ZEQ on unity??

Who is "you guys"? The forums, blog, and moddb entry have all stated that development never even began. We simply didn't get any applicants.

why not just download the stylisedrendering demo and use its celshade then just adjust to your liking? after all that's what its there for, to learn Smile

That's a fairly dated demo using largely 2003 tech. Very, very little to learn from it.

Friday, August 14, 2015

emirh08 wrote :
why not just download the stylisedrendering demo and use its celshade then just adjust to your liking? after all that's what its there for, to learn https://de45xmedrsdbp.cloudfront.net/blog/StylizedScreen3-770x250-1807830790.png

I tried that one, but wasn't happy with it, so I decided to look for other options.

Zeth wrote :
• Image-Space. (also known as edge detection/sobel). This approach involves taking a depth render of an object (or the full render buffer) and doing an edge detection algorithm on it (usually sobel) to determine where an outline needs to be. Since it is a post-process approach, this technique is very costly compared to the above two and will scale in cost based on fill area / resolution. Unlike the above techniques (which only do silhouette outlines), with the proper angle settings, you'll be able to capture some crease and fold outlines -- albeit inconsistently since it's based on depth. Thickness can be slightly controlled by angle ranges, but more than likely would need supplemental filter passes.

I believe that most techniques for UE4, at least that have been shared with the community on the UE4 forums/answer hub, utilize the Sobel method for edge detection and outline effects.

And when I say I want a mixture between soft and Cel shading, I mean that I want certain bands within the Cel Band I'm using to be softer transitions than others, like the attached image below. Mostly solid "hard edge" banding, but with some softer (more steps, smoother gradient, whatever you want to call it) transitions in key areas, such as on highlights for certain characters/objects.



And Wh1t34Gl3(SAS), no. lloyd no I don't want it to be "realistically" rendered, as it doesn't fit the rest of the art style of the characters and world. I want it stylized similarly to a well done digital painting, and not just another generic "Cel-Shaded Game" like every other game that uses some form of Cartoon/Ink styled rendering...