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Barely visible spell effects

SilvarenSilvaren Member Posts: 178
edited June 2019 in Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
It's hard to see AoE from Stinking Cloud spell on certain type of floor. Even fire explosion blend with the color of the floor in some areas at Dragon's Eye. Some spell effects seam visually "dim", similar to avatars affected by invisibility.

Is it possible to bring back old SFX animations?

Stinking Cloud animation at the screen below:
q0gqi5nl5phe.jpg

I know that it looked different as in original Icewind Dale, like on the next screen:
9gJ3zWn.jpg

Is it possible to bring back old animations? I tried every graphical options and nothing helped.

Comments

  • kjeronkjeron Member Posts: 2,368
    edited June 2019
    Their projectiles are missing a flag check, makes them look more like a light source than colored gas.
    Extracting the attached to the games folder should restore the old graphics.

    IDPRO95.PRO = Stinking Cloud
    IDPRO187.PRO = Death Fog
    IDPRO212.PRO = Cloudkill
    FIREBALL.PRO = Fireball
    CGNECROM.PRO = Necromancy Cast
    Post edited by kjeron on
  • SilvarenSilvaren Member Posts: 178
    edited June 2019
    It solved the problem with cloud spells, but there is still isue with fire animation of the fireball spell (screen below, above the stinking cloud):

    pb4b1yx0fr77.jpg

    Is it something what was changed during Enhanced Edition update? I remember it looked normal back in 2015 when I bought that version of ID.
  • kjeronkjeron Member Posts: 2,368
    Added fireball to the archive ^^.
  • SilvarenSilvaren Member Posts: 178
    edited June 2019
    kjeron wrote: »
    Added fireball to the archive ^^.

    Thank you very much. I will post in this thread if I encounter other problems with SFX. I wonder what makes those changes. Was it some kind of update?

    I wonder about necromancy casting effect. Is it brighter than usual?

    c00i50tw3c88.jpg
    Post edited by Silvaren on
  • kjeronkjeron Member Posts: 2,368
    edited June 2019
    The animation files themselves are unchanged, but the projectiles (which define how/where/when) those animations play in this case, I believe were all hardcoded in the original IWD.
    The EE's would have to had recreate those projectiles, as the EE's all use BG2EE engine as a base. The "Area Spread" animation has two flags which can be set, one adds transparency but looks faded, the other makes it look like a light source but is too bright. Together they give the desired results, at least for these specific animations.

    Necromancy Casting Graphic - Personally I don't know if it's brighter (don't have the original installed to compare) but it can be made less bright. (the issue is mostly the same, as Casting animations are actually projectiles, just setup differently):
    First Image is both flags (Current), second image is transparency flag, third is blended flag (similar to what you saw for the cloud spells), and last (for comparison) is neither flag (base animation):
    8kpnb2lrkj0b.png
    If the second image looks more accurate to you, I can add it to the archive.
  • SilvarenSilvaren Member Posts: 178
    kjeron wrote: »
    If the second image looks more accurate to you, I can add it to the archive.
    It looks very similar to the second. Better to cure causes than symptoms. I played it back at 2015 and all animations looked normal, juest like in original game. But not now. I'm the only one lacking those projectiles animations? I'm playing Steam version of the game. I verified files of the installation and it didn't help.
  • kjeronkjeron Member Posts: 2,368
    Silvaren wrote: »
    I'm the only one lacking those projectiles animations?
    I think the way they are processed in the EE's changed between v1.4 and v2.5.
    Transparency was default for the new projectiles, now it requires explicit flagging.
    This doesn't apply to the Necromancy casting animation, just the clouds/fireball.
    Archive updated with Necromancy casting.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
    Stinking Cloud, Fireball, Cloudkill, Sunfire, Death Fog, Soul Eater, and Acid Storm will be properly blended in the 2.6 version.
  • GalactygonGalactygon Member, Developer Posts: 412
    The issue for the cloud animation blends in IWD:EE is known and has been filed as 38599. Should be fixed for 2.6.
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