I remember seeing something as a kid in a book about optical illusions (we had no Internet then, kids) that always stuck with me – it was an image comprised of two sets of concentric circles, the centres of which were slightly offset. It made your eyes go funny and that was a good thing.
So I started on that basis, by updating the geometry shaders I discuss here to include multiple sets of shapes that are offset by a certain amount. It took quite a while to get this working in a way I was happy with (and to structure the HLSL in a way that was sensible and would allow me to add other shape types easily), but the result was pretty satisfying if nothing like the effect I set out trying to achieve!
I realised there was just too much being drawn in the shader so I set about adding some different paint modes to vary the effect created. As well as the original ‘OR’ logic (if a pixel contains a shape it’s drawn) I added AND, XOR and NOT modes that react differently, particularly where shapes overlap. For the AND and NOT modes I allow a number of overlaps to be specified, with AND any pixel that contains >= the number of overlaps is drawn, with NOT and pixel that contains < the number of overlaps is drawn.
By combining these modes and a lot (and I mean a lot) of tweaking I was finally able to achieve the type of effect I'd set out to create. The final version consists of two overlapping geometry shaders for the bulk of the effect, particles around the barrel of the weapon, and a smaller 'negative' geometry shader also around the barrel of the weapon.
As with most of these weapons, the actual mechanics of it were pretty straightforward to program. It acts really like a kind of RPG that must be 'charged' before being released, if anything it's even simpler than the RPG because I'm allowing this one to travel through buildings (I'm not sure if I'll keep it like that or not, it does seem a little weird).
I did also have to update the enemy AI to allow them to cope with a 'charge and hold' type weapon but that was pretty easy. The audio design for this one's gonna be fun!
Dev Time: 2 days
Total Dev Time: approx 136.5 days
First Stab At Updated Geometry Shader
Adding Different Paint Modes To The Geometry Shader
The Final Sonic Boom Effect
Adjusting Enemy AI For ‘Charge And Hold’
The BitBull Blog 
One Trackback
[…] the flamethrower. For ‘area of effect’ style weapons like the grenade launcher, RPG and sonic boom I can only really approximate an idea of maximum […]