Post by manuelifeno in Need Support? Post here!

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Hello again! Using the shader and I was wondering a few things.

I have applied the shader to the characters in our game before, and the results are different when I apply them when showing the character or when defining the character. It seems the gradient is calculated differently, and it looks like it starts the gradiant close to the outside edge of the shader. I attached a screenshot of one of my poor characters struggling with his spiky hair, and the transform applied. If I apply the shader after the character has been defined, the gradiant seems to look better. Is there a way to smoothly transition from the two colors when defining a character with this shader?

Thank you!

transform shadowOne:

outline_transform(30, "#0000002f", 4.0, end_color="#00000000", num_passes=1.0, gradient_smoothing=1.0, is_mesh=True, mesh_pad=True, drawable_res=True, offset=(0, 0))

image low Normal A cape:

"Lowri/LowAHNormal.png"

shadowOne

zoom .25

yoffset 200

Feniks86 days ago

Hello! I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're asking - can you elaborate on what difference you are seeing between the two methods? What are the two colours you want to transition between? If you prefer the look of one method, is there a reason you can't use that method for the effect you want?

manuelifeno86 days ago (1 edit)

Hello! Sorry for the confusion. I want a drop-shadow effect on each character (to make them standout from the background), and I would prefer not to have to apply the transformation every time I show a character, but on the character definition. As you can see in the screenshot I attached, the dropshadow effect is not displaying correctly when attaching to the character definition. The two colors are black, one with a bit of transparency, and one with full transparency. I want a smooth transtion between the two, but I am getting a transition only at the edge of the outline. This was not the case when applying the transformation when showing the character for some reason, but if I had to apply the transform on every time I show a character... it would take a really long time, and it would break some of my existing transformations.

Feniks86 days ago

I think there's perhaps a mismatching of expectations here - there's always going to be a visible seam where the gradient ends because it's a set size and at some points the step between "can make out the outline" and "outline is too transparent to reliably discern" will be visible simply because of how perception works. You can make glowing outlines in an editor like photoshop and you'll still see where the glow ends.

As for applying the outline to a character, you can use a LayeredImageProxy or just apply it right to the image declaration, depending on how you've set up things. For example, image eileen outline = LayeredImageProxy("eileen", outline_transform(...)) will automatically apply the transform to the layered image "eileen" for whatever attribute combinations you need just by show eileen outline, or if you don't want it toggleable then just add an at outline_transform(...) right at the top of the layeredimage declaration itself.

manuelifeno86 days ago

mmm I understand the outline will be visible. I am more trying to reproduce the soft shadow effect I see on the dagger example on the page of this plugging, but for me it is looking different. It is like the gradiant is only being applied to the outside border of the outline, instead of the entire width of the outline. Lets say the width of the outline is 20px, the gradiant seems to only apply to the last 5pixels of the outline.

As for applying the transform on a proxy, let me try that and see if it changes the behavior of the outline. Thanks!

Feniks86 days ago

I am looking into the possibility of alternate blending methods, and if I land on something I like I'll update the listing with a devlog noting the changes :)

manuelifeno86 days ago

Thanks! Only thing I can say right now looking at the code is that it seems the current blending is depending on the scale of the image, instead of the outline width. That is probably why if I apply the outline after the existing transformation or before it changes the smoothness of the border. (my characters are zoomed out so the scale changes quite a bit). I still have to try the proxy transformation. That might solve my issues as it applies the outline transform after my zoom transform.

Feniks86 days ago

Oh I think I understand what you mean now - yes order of operations matters. If you apply the shader to a zoomed image, the outline won't be zoomed. If you apply the shader and then zoom the image, the outline gets zoomed as well. You can see the property order here: https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/atl.html#property-order So if you want to go out of order, you'll have to make an image that's got the shader already applied and then zoom that, for example.

manuelifeno86 days ago

That is awesome information! Thank you!

Feniks20 days ago

Hello again! I just wanted to update you that I've added two new arguments to the shader, smoothstep and power, so you have more control over how it blends glowing outlines. Thanks for your patience!

manuelifeno20 days ago

That is awesome! Thank you! I will be updating the shaders and giving the new blends a try

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