I know Phoenix talked about doing a thread on this, but AFAIK he never did. Can anyone right up a brief tutorial on applying the hologram effect to objects?
Request: Guide to hologram effect
- Thread starter Halyn
- Start date
What I'm working on - it'd look cooler as a hologram.
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It's only a good idea if you have the skills to pull it off. Thus far, I'm not doing real well on that front. 
TL;DR: The .SHT must be a Customizable Shader (CSHD), have attached palettes for the colors of the hologram (Seems like CU+ had their own palettes for it, but you can use existing ones and then simply set the Palette ID in the .SHT), and have "effect\h_membrane_color2.eft" attached as the .EFT (CU+ had 2 more .EFT's of this, for cube maps and blur, but unsure if they work out of the box with PreCU, didn't test).
Easiest is to copy a .SHT from a CU+ hologram, edit the TXMS/TXM chunks accordingly to match the original .SHT, edit the .EFT and handle the palettes, then you'll get something like:
Hologram object IFF's seem to have also attached a .CDF file which typically had glows or attached appearances like particles or whatever and a base, if that's something you're looking for.
So just do what I said with the .SHT and look how the Holograms are handled inside the Object IFF/CDF/SHT in the CU+ and you should be good to go.
I'd make a more elaborate guide myself with a step by step, but don't have the time atm, but shouldn't be too hard to figure out beyond that if you see how CU+ stuff is done, but remember, importing CU+ .EFT's and potentially VSH/PSH can lead to crashes and/or funky shaders, especially from the NGE with the way bloom is handled and DOT3.
Easiest is to copy a .SHT from a CU+ hologram, edit the TXMS/TXM chunks accordingly to match the original .SHT, edit the .EFT and handle the palettes, then you'll get something like:
Hologram object IFF's seem to have also attached a .CDF file which typically had glows or attached appearances like particles or whatever and a base, if that's something you're looking for.
So just do what I said with the .SHT and look how the Holograms are handled inside the Object IFF/CDF/SHT in the CU+ and you should be good to go.
I'd make a more elaborate guide myself with a step by step, but don't have the time atm, but shouldn't be too hard to figure out beyond that if you see how CU+ stuff is done, but remember, importing CU+ .EFT's and potentially VSH/PSH can lead to crashes and/or funky shaders, especially from the NGE with the way bloom is handled and DOT3.
Ty for putting me on this track. I'll have to investigate more.
A thing I just noticed, manually changing the Palette ID values in the .SHT seems to have no effect on this, unsure why, so prob best to just port the palettes then.
hologram_main.pal (MAIN) = color of the actual object
hologram_rim.pal (HUEB) = color of the 'reflection', depending where light is coming from, etc.
hologram_main.pal (MAIN) = color of the actual object
hologram_rim.pal (HUEB) = color of the 'reflection', depending where light is coming from, etc.
So, as a related question, how did they apply the effect on the fly to player characters with the Force Ghost effect?
No idea, I'd assume with the same method, just forced inside the client to load that affect on the object appearance if I had to take a wild guess or something of that nature. Can't find anything specific in the files.
From what I googled, it looks like it's the same type of hologram effect, no? I have no idea what it even really is, I never did NGE. The 'glow' I see in some pics could be due to the _bloom.eft it uses combined with the NGE type bloom which isn't a thing in stock PreCU, at least shaders would potentially need to be rewritten or something, never looked too far into the HLSL shaders and what's possible.
Looking at the Obi Wan ghost, it uses the same hologram method in terms of .SHT.
From what I googled, it looks like it's the same type of hologram effect, no? I have no idea what it even really is, I never did NGE.
The 'glow' I see in some pics could be due to the _bloom.eft it uses combined with the NGE type bloom which isn't a thing in stock PreCU, at least shaders would potentially need to be rewritten or something, never looked too far into the HLSL shaders and what's possible. Looking at the Obi Wan ghost, it uses the same hologram method in terms of .SHT.
Yeah, basically it applied the hologram effect to the player character and any items/clothing equipped. Seems counter to the method you described since you'd have to have the hologram-friendly stuff hooked up to every single equippable in the game, which is why I asked.
Well it'd be, if it was how I guessed (as I didn't find anyfing in the files) just done internally vs attaching the effect manually.
Unsure how player appearance is handled internally in code, but I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard to apply it to the whole object itself.
Now, since this isn't a default thing in PreCU, you'd need to inject or w/e else if you wanted to replicate it dynamically, can't think of a smooth way to replicate it file wise purely through client side files dynamically as you only ever have access to one particular item at a time doing anything manually.
On that note though, for a future client expansion type thing, it'd be neat to have a function that you could trigger dynamically or add in checks that change the effect for the entire player model and/or parts of it, allowing you to add things such as the force ghost, 'wet' shaders if the weather is raining, etc.
Unsure how player appearance is handled internally in code, but I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard to apply it to the whole object itself.
Now, since this isn't a default thing in PreCU, you'd need to inject or w/e else if you wanted to replicate it dynamically, can't think of a smooth way to replicate it file wise purely through client side files dynamically as you only ever have access to one particular item at a time doing anything manually.
On that note though, for a future client expansion type thing, it'd be neat to have a function that you could trigger dynamically or add in checks that change the effect for the entire player model and/or parts of it, allowing you to add things such as the force ghost, 'wet' shaders if the weather is raining, etc.
As you can see by my forum avatar pic , i'm very very interested in this particular topic.
Anyways, i'm obviously new to these forums and newb to modding in general, so please excuse the ignorant questions:
1. During Pre-cu , there were 'vet reward' spinning holograms. (The 'Imperial Guard' hologram was the first, iirc) Couldn't those types of code/shaders/schems be somehow modded onto player-models?
2. I heard a rumor that the SWG 'source code' was released onto the interwebs. I haven't personally seen it myself , so again plz excuse the question-out-of-ignorance but: Wouldn't the files for 'blue glowy' effect be present there since Obi-Wan in Mustafar was originally the CU era ? And if so, can't those be reverse-engineered into a working mod?
3. There exists already (currently) a 'state' in our code called 'GLOWINGJEDI' . But there doesn't seem to be any art/graphics hooked up to it anymore (possibly cuz SOE disabled/removed it once Pub9 jedi revamp got released) . Has anyone attempted to get this 'state' functioning in-game yet? (i think Sytner did , briefly , and also TA said he tried for a sec but that was like 10 years ago) .
Anyways, i'm obviously new to these forums and newb to modding in general, so please excuse the ignorant questions:
1. During Pre-cu , there were 'vet reward' spinning holograms. (The 'Imperial Guard' hologram was the first, iirc) Couldn't those types of code/shaders/schems be somehow modded onto player-models?
2. I heard a rumor that the SWG 'source code' was released onto the interwebs. I haven't personally seen it myself , so again plz excuse the question-out-of-ignorance but: Wouldn't the files for 'blue glowy' effect be present there since Obi-Wan in Mustafar was originally the CU era ? And if so, can't those be reverse-engineered into a working mod?
3. There exists already (currently) a 'state' in our code called 'GLOWINGJEDI' . But there doesn't seem to be any art/graphics hooked up to it anymore (possibly cuz SOE disabled/removed it once Pub9 jedi revamp got released) . Has anyone attempted to get this 'state' functioning in-game yet? (i think Sytner did , briefly , and also TA said he tried for a sec but that was like 10 years ago) .
Welcome Need, nice to see you over here as well
I don't have a lot I can add here but I thought it may be worth point out the one related thread I remembered seeing
http://www.modthegalaxy.com/forums/thread-force-ghost-mod?highlight=hologram
Along with OB's ghost there was also a hologram of the emperior
I don't have a lot I can add here but I thought it may be worth point out the one related thread I remembered seeing
http://www.modthegalaxy.com/forums/thread-force-ghost-mod?highlight=hologram
Along with OB's ghost there was also a hologram of the emperior
Ohh that's right! Forgot about that.Pake said:
Darn though, that 'blue glowy' holo version of Emperor came with CU era 'Rage of the Wookiees' expansion. (for some reason i thought it was PRE-cu era and therefore accessible now in our code. Probably wishful thinking. )
hmm....
eqsanctum
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- Mar 26, 2015
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Ok, how'd you shrink that. I wanna know. I've been trying to ages to make POB deeds appear as the item, shrunk, for deco on the floors or walls or whatever of houses... you gotta tell me...I'm begging you. J/k ..... NO REALLY IM BEGGING YOU.Halyn said:What I'm working on - it'd look cooler as a hologram.
Make a new object template, use the ply_blah_blah.apt (er lod, apt, bleh) and scale it 0.XX.eqsanctum said:Ok, how'd you shrink that. I wanna know. I've been trying to ages to make POB deeds appear as the item, shrunk, for deco on the floors or walls or whatever of houses... you gotta tell me...I'm begging you. J/k ..... NO REALLY IM BEGGING YOU.Halyn said:What I'm working on - it'd look cooler as a hologram.
p.s. i really like how you changed the deed format @Halyn
I've been lazy thus far - I want to make all of them holograms yet, and I've only done a handful of buildings. (When JtL happens, I'm going to do the same thing with ship deeds using rescaled models from the NGE hangar system.)
Hence the title of this thread.