[blowfish]

In my experience, 3D shockwaves have been a very controversial thing.  Some like them, but many believe that they are unrealistic and do not.  That is why I suggest putting 3D shockwaves in their own VP, so that they can be turned off and on easily, based on a user's preference

[Al Tarket]

the idea of 3d shockwaves shouldn't be controversial what so ever, space is used on the principles of a 3d axis plane. x, y and z. their is no discussion needed for that, to go against it would mean your discounting what physics has taught you. however if it is a modders nightmare to create such a thing then i support them if they say "it cant be done" which means it cant be done. at least not for now, but some point in the future... maybe.

[Jeff Vader]

to go against it would mean your discounting what physics has taught you.

*cough* This is FreeSpace.

[Al Tarket]

lol no **** sherlock. of course its freespace! which explains the part of if it can be done or not.

[Jeff Vader]

no **** sherlock.

Dig deeper, Watson.

The point being that too much realism isn't funny anymore. If we want to take it to the extreme, we should include things such as proper Newtonian flight models, realistic weapons instead of "laser" bolts traveling at 100 km/h, limited fuel supplys, radiation poisoning symptoms caused by improper or damaged materials on the ship, no subspace, and so on.

[ShadowGorrath]

Subspace can be realistic.

If you want real realism though, go play HomePlanet Gold. It is a realistic sci-fi game.

[blowfish]

Well, realism aside, I have heard from a number of people who don't like 3D shockwaves.

[Aardwolf]

Would it not be possible to make a model to replace it yourself, and upload it somewhere?

Also, real shockwaves would be 3d, but they would also not look as cool as any of the shockwaves in fs/fs2/fso.

[Hellstryker]

Real shockwaves would just be clear heatwaves with maybe some smoke. that would be cool

[Mars]

Realistic shortwaves may become possible with shaders. IMHO they'd look much better than a bunch of weird looking blue rings sticking out at angles.

[ShadowGorrath]

Space distortion shockwave effect

[bfobar]

Well really in space there would be no shockwave since a shockwave requires a medium with a defined particle velocity which the shock wavefront exceeds. Being in a vacuum, this doesn't work so well. (there are shockwaves in space,  but they generally involve nebular gas and really can't be seen unless you take a long exposure picture from several light years away.)

realistically, you would have an expanding sphere of grains of ship hull or bomb shell casing all traveling away from the explosion site very quickly, which would look not-at-all interesting compared to the blue bubbles.

[Hellstryker]

I still think it should be a clear heatwave effect, realism aside.

[Mars]

Well really in space there would be no shockwave since a shockwave requires a medium with a defined particle velocity which the shock wavefront exceeds. Being in a vacuum, this doesn't work so well. (there are shockwaves in space,  but they generally involve nebular gas and really can't be seen unless you take a long exposure picture from several light years away.)

realistically, you would have an expanding sphere of grains of ship hull or bomb shell casing all traveling away from the explosion site very quickly, which would look not-at-all interesting compared to the blue bubbles.

Exploding ships would become their own atmosphere... there'd be few enough grains, as the ship would be vaporizing as it explodes.

[bfobar]

not really. its in the pressures and thermal equalibrium. The ships don't have enough mass to make a physically realistic gas, and you need to be moving through a pre-existing gas to make a shock wave.  Anyway, I like the explosion effects and accept them with the non newtonian fighter physics.

[Droid803]

Anyway, I like the explosion effects and accept them with the non newtonian fighter physics.

Same. Its more fun that way.

[Bobboau]

I always liked 3d shockwaves because they gave a sense of depth to the explosions.

[Snail]

the idea of 3d shockwaves shouldn't be controversial what so ever, space is used on the principles of a 3d axis plane. x, y and z. their is no discussion needed for that, to go against it would mean your discounting what physics has taught you. however if it is a modders nightmare to create such a thing then i support them if they say "it cant be done" which means it cant be done. at least not for now, but some point in the future... maybe.

Yeah, and physics dictates that big explosions in space have giant, blue 2d rings expanding on different axes from them.


IMO space distortion would be the best idea.

[Mars]

Honestly in absence of space distortion effects, I think I prefer the 2D shockwave... the 3D ones were cool at first, but the more I've seen it (I must have been seeing it for several years now  ) the more ludicrous it looks.

 Not from a physics standpoint necessarily... it's just... I've seen real (not Hollywood) explosions on TV, nukes and such, and blastwaves don't look like that.

[S-99]

A space distortion shockwave? Yes shockwaves can happen in space. But more of in space you'd probably just see the explosion with the shockwaves just being the absolute expanse of the blast. If there was no shockwaves in space, that'd be like saying you can't see a nuke go off in space. Just because there's no medium for a shockwave in a vacuum doesn't mean that what's exploding doesn't have a medium for a shockwave itself. In space you probably just get different kinds of shockwaves more based on energy like radiation. Even still, what prevents atmosphere based shockwaves in space wont prevent other kinds of shockwaves in space.

For information on shockwaves in space click here. It's an interesting read.
Also, shockwaves are spherical...going in all directions. I can't wait for the day when we can have 3d spherical shockwaves because of shaders (you could do it through other methods too, though many have suggested it'd look best when done with shaders).

This was a side shot from a slow-mo camera recording a dude firing a 44 magnum. I was actually looking for an animated gif showing off what a spherical shockwave with a center flare up and explosion followed by a spherical transparent shockwave. I couldn't find it obviously