PCA 2024 Nominated Bites O' Fyre | A Collection of Pyro Shorts | WIP

[Kablary]

In an attempt to prepare myself to rework the long-ago announced Octane project, I've decided to start small and get my feet wet. 

 

Bites O' Fyre will be a mini series of four 1- to 2-minute shows, each with a unique setting built just for that sequence. We'll start with Bite O' Fun, a futuristic, high-energy, happy-go-lucky romp, and then follow it up with Bite O' Bark, a gritty and suspenseful cellist-driven ballad. The third show, Bite O' Spook, sadly became corrupted by spooky spirits and refused to be resurrected. A replacement show, Bite O' Fang, tears through the skies this February, leaving our final show in the series, Bite O' Dust, promising to be the wildest pyro in the wilderness! 

 

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Take a gander at Bite O' Fun!

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Pull up a seat and peep Bite O' Bark!

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Grab your umbrella for Bite O' Fang!

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The next show is Bite O' Dust

Tumblin' through the forums soon....

Edited March 21 by Kablary
Updated media

[wolfpaw]

I think this is a great idea to get back into show-making! Reminds me of Claudio's old Rock n Pop Dynamics - just small shows with nothing too grand in mind just focused on delivering awesome, fun pyro shows.

I'm super excited to see what you can do and look forward to updates! Especially to see you take on the Bite O' Spook one, for obvious reasons 

Also, side note - love the new signature, Kablary

[Bookworm91]

Well this looks fun! The posters look really cool and I can’t wait to see some screenshots!

[Kablary]

On 6/6/2023 at 11:11 AM, wolfpaw said:

I think this is a great idea to get back into show-making! Reminds me of Claudio's old Rock n Pop Dynamics - just small shows with nothing too grand in mind just focused on delivering awesome, fun pyro shows.

I'm super excited to see what you can do and look forward to updates! Especially to see you take on the Bite O' Spook one, for obvious reasons 

Also, side note - love the new signature, Kablary

It's gonna have all the spook. I promise. 

7 hours ago, Bookworm91 said:

Well this looks fun! The posters look really cool and I can’t wait to see some screenshots!

My goodness fellas, I forgot how annoying and tedious it was to build stages in game. No wonder everyone learned to make their own CSO sets  Yesterday I spent a few hours sorta just "blocking" everything out with basic walls, then went in with coaster track to try and do something more ~elaborate~ and realized there was no Peep rename cheat for ride intersections. So then I had to learn how to edit the Options.txt file, which is a whole other issue for the Steam-based game. Special thanks to @Wilhelm1407's Reddit post from years ago where he very plainly typed out the directory location - stumbled upon that after an hour of Googling...you guys, I've never felt so OLD and out of touch with computers as I have this past week. 

[wolfpaw]

35 minutes ago, OldBones said:

My goodness fellas, I forgot how annoying and tedious it was to build stages in game. No wonder everyone learned to make their own CSO sets  Yesterday I spent a few hours sorta just "blocking" everything out with basic walls, then went in with coaster track to try and do something more ~elaborate~ and realized there was no Peep rename cheat for ride intersections. So then I had to learn how to edit the Options.txt file, which is a whole other issue for the Steam-based game. Special thanks to @Wilhelm1407's Reddit post from years ago where he very plainly typed out the directory location - stumbled upon that after an hour of Googling...you guys, I've never felt so OLD and out of touch with computers as I have this past week. 

Oh I don't want to burst your bubble but it was here all along at the very bottom under How To's 

 

[Kablary]

26 minutes ago, wolfpaw said:

Oh I don't want to burst your bubble but it was here all along at the very bottom under How To's 

So even following that, I couldn't access the correct folder! Apparently it was hidden in my files? I'm not sure. Eventually I just copy/pasted this C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\Frontier\RCT3 from Reddit into the Windows search bar and got to where I needed to be. 

[wolfpaw]

Hmm, interesting - the appdata folder is usually hidden and doesn't show until you turn on view hidden files and folders but typing %appdata% into the URL bar lets you go to straight to there. Glad you figured it out though!

[Kablary]

2 hours ago, wolfpaw said:

Hmm, interesting - the appdata folder is usually hidden and doesn't show until you turn on view hidden files and folders but typing %appdata% into the URL bar lets you go to straight to there. Glad you figured it out though!

I'M A STOOPID OLD HOOMAN, WOLFIE, OKAY. 

 

Here's a snippet of the already-miniature first soundtrack.

 

 

 

[wolfpaw]

Ooooh that does sound like fun! Can't wait to see what you do with it, I can already envision so many cool things to that tune! LET YOUR BONES SHINE, kablary!

[Kablary]

I think I went a little overboard with this set...the song doesn't even pass 90 seconds 

I'm not enthused by the piss-infested look of the water in these daytime shots....thankfully fireworks happen at night!

Special thanks to @shyguy for his monumental contributions to the showbuilding scene with the Expo 3000 sets. You just can't make a pyro stage without them. This is the way. 

[wolfpaw]

Using Expo 3000 for your set?

Looks really cool! Lots of awesome opportunities for lasers and lighting with that set.

[Kablary]

After accidentally deleting a laser that I spent 30 minutes editing, I decided to snap this picture last night.

I never really bothered with lasers in any of my previous shows. In fact, of the 2 shows I ever completed and released, only one 1 of them even had lasers present. I didn't have the patience back then to learn the ins and outs of the ALE, and at a time when lasers were being reinvented and masterfully choreographed by the likes of Kikos and @Anon-P, I felt even less encouraged. But since these "Bite" shows are chances for me to relearn the MixMaster and game mechanics, I figured it was a great time to dive into the ALE and get more familiar. 

From a show-building standpoint, doing a pass with lasers/lighting helps map out color palettes and other sequences that will help guide pyro choreo later on. Plus, from what I've noticed, lasers cause very little - if any - lag in game! So it's much easier to finish most of the laser work before starting firework placement, even if only to avoid lag from doing both at the same time. 

Edited July 2, 2023 by OldBones

[Anon-P]

2 hours ago, OldBones said:

After accidentally deleting a laser that I spent 30 minutes editing, I decided to snap this picture last night.

I never really bothered with lasers in any of my previous shows. In fact, of the 2 shows I ever completed and released, only one 1 of them even had lasers present. I didn't have the patience back then to learn the ins and outs of the ALE, and at a time when lasers were being reinvented and masterfully choreographed by the likes of Kikos and @Anon-P, I felt even less encouraged. But since these "Bite" shows are chances for me to relearn the MixMaster and game mechanics, I figured it was a great time to dive into the ALE and get more familiar. 

From a show-building standpoint, doing a pass with lasers/lighting helps map out color palettes and other sequences that will help guide pyro choreo later on. Plus, from what I've noticed, lasers cause very little - if any - lag in game! So it's much easier to finish most of the laser work before starting firework placement, even if only to avoid lag from doing both at the same time. 

Funny you did mention me tho

[wolfpaw]

Great first shot! Really good interaction with the set and the lasers, I know this is mostly testing to see what you can do but the only piece of advice I can give regarding lighting right now would be to add about 3 laser discs in the back behind the set (basically a laser that has the elevation set to 0 and that you base aim towards the camera so it's like a half circle). Set it a nice soft color and you'll get a really nice illumination behind your set so your set pops out more. You can have 1 big laser disc or 3 smaller ones behind your set (I usually do 3 smaller ones for better control). Adding some nice feathered lasers on the foreground of your set can also help illuminate it!

Looking forward to seeing more, an awesome start! 

[Bookworm91]

I like doing lasers before pyro because it gives me an idea on what I want to do before all the lag comes in to play.  The screenshot looks great and I love the set!

[Kablary]

On 7/2/2023 at 10:19 AM, wolfpaw said:

Great first shot! Really good interaction with the set and the lasers, I know this is mostly testing to see what you can do but the only piece of advice I can give regarding lighting right now would be to add about 3 laser discs in the back behind the set (basically a laser that has the elevation set to 0 and that you base aim towards the camera so it's like a half circle). Set it a nice soft color and you'll get a really nice illumination behind your set so your set pops out more. You can have 1 big laser disc or 3 smaller ones behind your set (I usually do 3 smaller ones for better control). Adding some nice feathered lasers on the foreground of your set can also help illuminate it!

Looking forward to seeing more, an awesome start! 

Thank you for that tip! I'll start experimentig more with backlighting like that. There's one laser in particular you used in The Call (timestamp 2:20) that I've been trying to recreate, but have been unsuccessful... it's basially two beams with a faint plane of light between them. HOW?! 

On 7/3/2023 at 8:10 AM, Bookworm91 said:

I like doing lasers before pyro because it gives me an idea on what I want to do before all the lag comes in to play.  The screenshot looks great and I love the set!

Thanks so much! I am definitely feeling the burn on having such a large set for such a short piece...lots of area to fill. The following 30 seconds of laser choreo is like..........I don't even know how many hours worth of work. I know ya'll are no strangers to that, though.

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by Kablary

[wolfpaw]

Very cool lighting so far, love those color changes with the beats you have - especially towards the end. Awesome interaction with the set too, lighting really fills in those empty spaces. Once you add pyro this is going to look so good 

The only thing I could say is what you already brought up, some backlit laser discs to help make your set pop out more is the only thing I could see needing to be added. If you want to see what I'm talking about, I can send you my laser disc laser file so you can mess around with it? You just place it on a laser emitter directly behind the set and base aim it parallel to the ground facing the front of the set. Adding color changes (or even increasing the brightness just on those beat sections) on the laser disc will really help bring it all together!

As for the laser you're talking about in The Call, those are my electro lasers and I can see you have something similar at the very end in the front of your set. The way I created it is to have a cone of light laser with max number of beams and max trail persist with the beam width left at 1.0. Keep your colors and brightness low - very low, never going past 45 and you'll get the same effect. I also keep my elevation at around 0.2 so you get those sharp edges.

In total for my shows, I only work with 6 lasers - Electro Laser, Electro Laser Soft (Basically just a softer version without the sharp edges of my Electro Laser, you can sometimes see them coming out rotating from the top of the tower in The Call), Laser Disc (used to backlit sets), Main Laser (this is your typical cone of light, 4 beams thick width laser that I usually use on the foreground of sets), Flash Laser Outer (same as the main laser but only 3 beams and very bright very quick, used as a flash for beats, you can see these at 2:28 in The Call, the white ones), and Flash Laser Outer (same as the flash one but softer used to place ontop of the inner ones so you get a nice diadem effect of lasers). These are the only 6 effects I use and just change their colors, elevation, and rotation if needed throughout the show!

[Anon-P]

For me, I used Eclipse Pyro's ambient laser pack all the time, and modified them depending of what I would like to see.

1 hour ago, wolfpaw said:

In total for my shows, I only work with 6 lasers - Electro Laser, Electro Laser Soft (Basically just a softer version without the sharp edges of my Electro Laser, you can sometimes see them coming out rotating from the top of the tower in The Call), Laser Disc (used to backlit sets), Main Laser (this is your typical cone of light, 4 beams thick width laser that I usually use on the foreground of sets), Flash Laser Outer (same as the main laser but only 3 beams and very bright very quick, used as a flash for beats, you can see these at 2:28 in The Call, the white ones), and Flash Laser Outer (same as the flash one but softer used to place ontop of the inner ones so you get a nice diadem effect of lasers). These are the only 6 effects I use and just change their colors, elevation, and rotation if needed throughout the show!

Also, care to share your laser stuff as well, Wolfie? Maybe I can cook something good with them.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Anon-P
How do you post GIFs here?

[Sinjon]

Wow, that looks awesome. Clever and creative ways to light up that set! You're Old Bones now, but you'll always be Kablary in my heart <3

[Kablary]

3 hours ago, Sinjon said:

Wow, that looks awesome. Clever and creative ways to light up that set! You're Old Bones now, but you'll always be Kablary in my heart <3

How honored and flattered I am that you've chosen to make your first post on ParkCrafters here in this topic! Hope you stick around Sinjon. It's good to have the OG crowd here.

I might need to reach out to @wolfpaw and see about having my username changed....

NEVERMIND

Edited July 9, 2023 by Kablary

[Kablary]

Laser choreo is all done for Bite O' Fun!

 

Massive thanks for @wolfpaw for his guidance in laser creation (and his patience while I noob'ed out on him in a chat). 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by Kablary

[Bookworm91]

Those look so good!!!  Each one makes the set look and feel different.

[wolfpaw]

Those color changes are just so freakin' good and those electro lasers are on point! Really really awesome stuff to see so far, this is really going to look so good once you add pyro. Specially love that fast rotating laser and how it slows down with the music at the end there. I agree with Bookworm too, the way the lasers expand and contract in the negative space of your set really makes everything just come alive, extremely cool use of your set!

So glad the lasers came out well, this is seriously looking awesome and I can't wait to see the full thing. KEEP GOING KABLARY!

[CrazHadder]

I Resign, Good day!

[Kablary]

On 7/12/2023 at 2:41 PM, Bookworm91 said:

Those look so good!!!  Each one makes the set look and feel different.

Thanks Bookworm! I strayed away from lasers for the entire time I've been familar with the MixMaster, until just last week!  What a difference they make, not only visually, but from a show-building and planning perspective. 

Happy Belated Birthday, by the way! 

13 hours ago, wolfpaw said:

Those color changes are just so freakin' good and those electro lasers are on point! Really really awesome stuff to see so far, this is really going to look so good once you add pyro. Specially love that fast rotating laser and how it slows down with the music at the end there. I agree with Bookworm too, the way the lasers expand and contract in the negative space of your set really makes everything just come alive, extremely cool use of your set!

So glad the lasers came out well, this is seriously looking awesome and I can't wait to see the full thing. KEEP GOING KABLARY!

I'm a FAN of lasers that change rotation speed throughout their presence. I'm glad you noticed! I will say, though, that I'm rather hesitant to go back and add pyro. I don't want to ruin what I've created so far 

46 minutes ago, CrazHadder said:

I Resign, Good day!

STAHP THAT. Your set alone for I R E - Amity trounces anything I've done thus far. I expect to see some PROGRESS on that show of your soon