OK. I tried your code verbatim, and it made the beam dance in a little
ball around my muzzle. I modified it to get the proper angles (which gave
me basically the same code as I had before), and I've got the following in
my beam update function (which is called by ItemPostFrame in the weapon
class, as ItemBusyFrame seems to only be called once during the execution
of the whole game):
#ifdef CLIENT_DLL
if( m_Beam.m_hLinkedToEntity != NULL )
{
Vector endPos, shotDir;
endPos = m_Beam.m_hLinkedToEntity->Weapon_ShootPosition();
m_Beam.m_hLinkedToEntity->EyeVectors( &shotDir );
trace_t tr;
UTIL_TraceLine( endPos, endPos + ( shotDir * MAX_TRACE_LENGTH ),
MASK_SHOT, m_Beam.m_hLinkedToEntity, COLLISION_GROUP_NONE, &tr );
endPos = tr.endpos;
m_Beam.UpdateEndPosition( endPos );
}
#endif // CLIENT_DLL
It's just as slow as before. I have a feeling I should be using a CBeam,
but I don't know. To be honest, there's no real documentation I could find
about the differences between CBeam and BeamInfo_t, and all the different
types of beams, etc. :S
Alex Thomson wrote:
>You'll want to link the beam to an entity (the character that fired it,
>or possibly even the weapon which fired it). Probably the best way to do
>this is something like:
>
>[in your beam class declaration]
>CHandle<CBaseEntity> m_hLinkedToEntity;
>
>[in your beam spawn function]
>pBeam->hLinkedToEntity = pPlayerWhoFiredMe;
>
>[in your beam update function e.g. ItemBusyFrame]
>if( hLinkedToEntity != NULL )
>{
> my_end_point = hLinkedToEntity->Weapon_ShootPosition();
>}
>
>So if the beam's linked to an entity, it will update the beam's position
>every frame. Provided your class is defined on the client and the
>server, this will update both.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sent: 15 August 2005 10:16
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: [hlcoders] Beams that move with you
>
>Right. I'm still working on this beam weapon, and I've just decided that
>my beam code isn't good enough. :P
>
>Currently, I'm setting up a BeamInfo_t structure, and then displaying it
>using beams->CreateBeamEntPoint( beamInfo ), where "beams" is the
>statically exposed IViewRenderBeams object.
>
>This is fine, until you come to move; the end point of the beam stays
>anchored to one point. It was late at night when I encountered this, so
>I
>just hackhacked it to update the end point of the beam with a freshly
>calculated vector based on the player's eye angles every frame.
>
>My problem is that this is OK for beams that switch off quickly, but for
>continuous-fire beams (a la Star Trek phaser), it lags. Badly.
>
>Is there a beam creation function similar to CreateBeamEntPoint that
>would
>take, for example, a start point, and a vector, and make the beam always
>point in that direction, transparently? Or, have I got it all wrong, and
>should I be using a CBeam?
>
>:S
>
>
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