Creating an electricity/lighting/tesla coil effect in a 2D XNA game?

Question

I'd like to create beams of electricity between two points very similar to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMJ8-56L3Lc. The effect is so dynamic, with varying lengths and pseudo-random movement in-between the points, that I'm having trouble imagining how I'd accomplish such a thing. Is there any helpful information that might point me in the right direction?

I should note that I'm using the XNA 4.0 Reach profile, but custom shaders are okay because I'm not targeting the Windows Phone.

score 16 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 21 '11 at 16:57

16

My friend is working on a side-scrolling shooter in XNA that uses similar effects (here's a video of an early test). He wrote a blog post about the technique that you might find helpful.

He's also usually hanging out in the #graphicschat IRC channel on irc.afternet.org (name's Drilian) and could probably help you out.

answered Jan 21 '11 at 16:57

That is an excellent blog post; thank you! Exactly what I was looking for! – Christopher Horenstein Jan 21 '11 at 17:23

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 23 '11 at 03:20

3

http://www.catalinzima.com/samples/12-months-12-samples-2008/lightning-sample/

and for XNA 4.0: http://www.hatchingdisaster.com/LightningSampleXNA4.zip

answered May 23 '11 at 03:20

Dan Colasanti

46
1

This is even closer to what I was looking for, so I'm moving the accepted answer to here. – Christopher Horenstein Jun 01 '11 at 00:39

Creating an electricity/lighting/tesla coil effect in a 2D XNA game?

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