spellbook/magic rings+new spell effects

[FER]

Is there anyway to simplify the use of magic scrolls rather than having to open the menu and go select it every time the spell wears off?

Is it possible to fuse the spellbook and the scroll into a single item you can get on your hands like a weapon then select the type of spell you want to cast?
Basically the spellbook starts blank and each scroll you get adds a new spell into it. However you cant skip to stronger spells righ away so you have to add the weaker elemental variants first before being able to use them.
With right click you pick the element (fire/ice/lighting/etc or support) and with left click you charge the spell (so a lighting storm would need to charge to lvl3 since before it are chain lighting and erratic lighting)

Tomes however would be replaced by magic rings.
This ones would work differently as you would haveo only one single spell no matter how many you equip, however the spell would be different depending which rings you equip and on which finger they go.

For example, rings equiped on the index finger determine the type of projectile, the rings on the thumb determine the element and so on.
So lets say a lighting ring on the index finger make it shoot like a bolt of lighting, and if you add a fire ring on the thumb it becomes a heat ray (red laser)


As for the new spell effects, couldnt it be possible to enhace some of the existing ones? lighting storm doesnt use models so wouldnt it be possible to use a few yellow beams falling from the sky and produce some bolt effects when they land (think the satellite strike from scientist slaugtherhouse)

 

[Thothie]

Is there anyway to simplify the use of magic scrolls rather than having to open the menu and go select it every time the spell wears off?

Is it possible to fuse the spellbook and the scroll into a single item you can get on your hands like a weapon then select the type of spell you want to cast?

That'd be nice, but it'd require a code side solution for creating a bag with non-items in it. So... Go buy MiB something nice - been trying to get something like that from him for awhile.

Although I was thinking just merge scrolls and tomes, and have an interface where you could grab your spells from a book package *OR* use the spell key cycler, depending on which you preferred at the moment. Any spells you memorized would appear in the spellbook, so you could quick slot them, or use the book, and scrolls would simply be converted to tomes.


The rest of what you described borders on Magicka level of complication, and would have to await until the spell system was rebuilt from scratch. ...or make it a separate "ring magic" item... It's an idea though... Can't quite do it with rings, as described, but something along those lines maybe viable. If I could do it with rings as described, you'd probably be looking at a lot of work for yourself - as you'd get to the one to stick all those rings onto the magic hand model in neigh infinite submodel combinations.

As for the new spell effects, couldnt it be possible to enhace some of the existing ones? lighting storm doesnt use models so wouldnt it be possible to use a few yellow beams falling from the sky and produce some bolt effects when they land (think the satellite strike from scientist slaugtherhouse)

Apparently I need to go find ye old Scientist Slaugtherhouse, and check this out to see what it looks like. Maybe you could find it and time stamp it for me in this video, assuming its in there somewhere.

 

[FER]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... id=6938695

minus the explosion

 

[Thothie]

I think I see how that effect is done - though it's a bit tempent heavy (that spiral involves a lot of beams - maybe 20 per hoop, judging by how smooth it is) - and... Does seem rather more appropriate for a satellite strike than a lightning storm.

 

[FER]

No, the spiral is from something else

heres a video http://youtu.be/CiTFVLbKc5s?t=4m34s

 

[Thothie]

Oh, well that's just two straight beams then (one yellow, one red)... The "amplitude" function, that makes our lightning all jagged, is randomized, so if I place two jagged beams on each other, they won't line up right. It *maybe* that it's actually one beam with a fancy custom sprite, but that'd mean adding another sprite to the precache. I could replace our existing lgtning.spr - though it'd mean hunting down all instances of lgtning.spr to deal with the different, predefined, colors (vs. the standard gray one we have, that just picks up whatever colors are set on it).

I do seem to have trouble getting colors to come out right in CL beams - unlike all the other color settings (which are 0-255 RRR,GGG,BBB), they work on a float system, which seems restricted to primaries, for some darn reason.

 

[zeus9860]

Omfg a vortex in half life, make that an affliction spell in ms:c plox!