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[choctaw111]

Did you add the suggested tracer related entries to the [Mods] section of conf.ini? I'm not certain at the moment if they're absolutely necessary, but best to be thorough.

That's it!  I only saw the readme's in the main file and tracer files and did NOT see the one in the tracer smoke folder.  Thanks for pointing that out!

[WxTech]

Chocks,
Is all good now, then?

If you browse through ALL folders you'll stumble over lots of readme files. They started mainly as reminders to myself, many evolving into at least useful background info for everyone.

You'll also begin to appreciate the scale of the whole thing. I've put well over a thousand hours into this continually evolving project.

[choctaw111]

Chocks,
Is all good now, then?

If you browse through ALL folders you'll stumble over lots of readme files. They started mainly as reminders to myself, many evolving into at least useful background info for everyone.

You'll also begin to appreciate the scale of the whole thing. I've put well over a thousand hours into this continually evolving project.

I appreciate your efforts, really!  Is there a way to increase the length of the tracer meshes?  I tried editing the .tga files to physically make them longer but I don't think that's working.  In addition, the line tracers should appear a little bit brighter and even in the day, should be visible from further away. 
I would also love to see a further increase on live times.  The increase to 3 seconds on the 20mm is wonderful but still far short of the realistic range as well as the other larger calibers

[choctaw111]

Now that I'm reading over more of your mod, I see that 10M is the max length of tracers in the conf which I imagine is 1.0

[choctaw111]

After some quick testing, the tracer length in the conf only changes the line tracer length, not the mesh length.  How is the the mesh length changed?

[WxTech]

For each color of tracer there is a file called Body.msh. I edit these using a spreadsheet, where I can graph 3 views on the mutually perpendicular planes. Once one mesh had been altered, the same vertex data can simply be copied to all the other meshes.

Do you want a 10m long 3D mesh, to match the stock 10m simple line length? Whatever length, I can cook up a set lickety split. (And supply a spreadsheet that will permit to customize.)

I went with a shorter model because I recall complaints from past years (before I started modding them myself) about the 10m being too long.  😀

[WxTech]

For v1.6 I'm making an executive decision on tracers. Currently I offer an array of options that probably are ignored, as presenting too much complexity. 

- The 3D mesh will have only the 'squiggly' form (that the guncam tracer mod first introduced years ago.) Given the great popularity of this tracer form, to the point of being the default in, e.g., B.A.T., I figure this is a safe enough stance.

- There will be no cycling texel animation between the squiggle and straight line. I've found that for whatever rate of cycling one chooses, there will be some tracer rate that syncs in such a way as to have just the straight line or just the squiggly line being drawn for some period of time, negating the 'guncam' aspect we sought in the first place.

- There will be no tracer 'head', which is typically a circular blob, resembling a comet head. Neither the eye nor the camera perceive such an aspect for a fast-moving point light source; the motion-blurred streak has essentially constant intensity along its length at any given moment. Besides, the squiggle as seen even exactly end-on presents as a short line, thus ensuring the visibility that the round head was originally intended to serve.

This also simplifies things for me.

Currently the 3D mesh is 6m long. The tracer line length adjustment I do offer control of in the conf.ini Mod section entry concerns only the simple line that is drawn when the 3D mesh is not. I will at least offer a 10m long 3D mesh, starting a little later today. Off to cook up the set right now...

[choctaw111]

For each color of tracer there is a file called Body.msh. I edit these using a spreadsheet, where I can graph 3 views on the mutually perpendicular planes. Once one mesh had been altered, the same vertex data can simply be copied to all the other meshes.

Do you want a 10m long 3D mesh, to match the stock 10m simple line length? Whatever length, I can cook up a set lickety split. (And supply a spreadsheet that will permit to customize.)

I went with a shorter model because I recall complaints from past years (before I started modding them myself) about the 10m being too long.  😀

Those complaints were made by people who never saw them in real life   Please make 2 sets, 15M and 20M in length so I can test them for visual accuracy. 
I'm not sure what else is possible but the tracers of the day were ignited in the barrel and were burning before they left the gun.  That made for a VERY long streak as they first exited.  I would love to see this effect in sim, where the tracers are visible right out of the gun barrel.   It's worth noting that "dark ignition" tracers were later developed, primarily for Infantry ammunition that wouldn't start burning until a good distance away from the shooter so as not to give away his exact position.  I've seen these for 5.56 and 7.62 calibers. Some of the 50 cal ammo I've fired over the years had different tracers from different lots and manufacturers.  Some of the older style had a plastic disc on the back to seal the tracer.  The plastic disc, as it burned, created a green trace for about 10 meters before turning red.  That was a super cool effect to see.  Also, the 50BMG had a tracer burnout range of 2,200 meters, the effective range for area targets.  The tracer burnout is an important visual aid for the gunner to determine if the target is within range.

[choctaw111]

- There will be no tracer 'head', which is typically a circular blob, resembling a comet head. Neither the eye nor the camera perceive such an aspect for a fast-moving point light source; the motion-blurred streak has essentially constant intensity along its length at any given moment. Besides, the squiggle as seen even exactly end-on presents as a short line, thus ensuring the visibility that the round head was originally intended to serve.

Yes, tracers are NOT like comets.  They are literally straight, glowing lines, that's it and that's all.

[WxTech]

Mod released, for the tracers only, in this thread:

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,70263.0.html

I think 15m and 20m would be just too long, for the reason outlined in that thread.

[choctaw111]

Another question...
I know that you mentioned lowering the view distance on daytime single line tracers.
I was doing some testing over the channel map, again with dozen of enemy bombers, and the airbase defense tracers seem to spawn out of nowhere, since they were fired outside of the viewable distance and then came into the viewable radius.
It just doesn't seem right.  They should be viewable for miles and since there is no option to "fade them in" as they get closer, only "on" or "off", can you increase the view distance?
Is this is the conf or something more advanced?
I also noticed the 20mm that you increased the flight times for (this and other larger calibers should be increased further) don't seem to have the ricochet effect.  HE will generally explode on impact but all the others should have a chance of bouncing off the ground or even planes and other objects.

[WxTech]

I can certainly raise the daytime view distance, to at least the same as at night. I'm not sure how far this can be pushed, it possibly being tied to one of a maximum draw distance parameters in World.class.

In BulletGeneric.class (in my version of the PAL tracers mod) I had the daytime distance limit at 4km. During the darkening twilight into night, the distance limit increased smoothly up to the maximum of 12km (which is what I think was the limit Pablo had set).

I'll cook up a new version. Perhaps I should add the capability for the player to set his own distance limit as a [Mods] section line entry in conf.ini...