lazer beams are straight lines of light , hard to make with the particles which typicly flare or spark which is good for making flames type effect, for lazers its much more effective to keep things simple such as two planes fixed in cross section in an X shape each with a simple color gradient texture . When they fire the model is scaled up along its length or flashes into view with simple show/hide . Im useing this method in my 3dspace game its effective enough for my needs and gives a good representation of what id imagin lazer beams to look like, im useing it for the ai and not with any player fire effect as of yet and im pretty sure you wold need to embellish the model more to get it looking right for player fire unless u use 3rd person view.
Rem Project: LaserDemo
Rem Created: 11/05/2010
autocam off
position camera 0,500,0 ; point camera 0,0,0
make object cube 1,10 ; color object 1,rgb(0,255,0)
load object "C:\Program Files\The Game Creators\Dark Basic Professional\Media\Models\laserbeam.x",2 ; ghost object on 2
make object cube 3,10 ; color object 1,rgb(0,25,225)
position object 1,300,0,0
position object 2,300,0,0
position object 3,-200,0,0
do
position object 2,object position x (1),object position y (1),object position z (1)
point object 1,0,0,0 ; move object left 1,.1
point object 2,object position x (3),object position y (3),object position z (3)
dec lasertime1,1
if lasertime1 =< 0 then lasertime1 = 1000
if lasertime1 > 910 then scale object 2,200,200,100
if lasertime1 < 910 then scale object 2,0,0,0
point object 3,0,0,0 ; move object left 3,.2
position camera 0,object position x (3),object position y (3)+500,object position z (3) ; point camera 0,0,0
text 20,20 ," Laser countdown1 " +str$(lasertime1)
loop
This code gives u the raw idea , with some tweaks you coud make it better .
feel free to use the x model i made (attached)
