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[Flying H]

About the color of different smokes (if that´s a word). Leaking oil, I think, should look like the pale blue as in the pic in R#34, but burning oil should be black. (To add some smoke into the discussion;)) )

[Brother B.]

Hello WxTech, hello everyone!
Thank you for the amazing work you are doing and sharing with us. So far, I've only used most of your mods, but never wrote a word to thank you - for which I am so sorry. But that doesn't change the fact that I really like your approach to mods, both visual effects and aircraft cockpits (maybe even more ).
However, I would like to share an observation (not a criticism) on your effects pack. I mean the smoke from the train - in the basic B.A.T. v4.1.2. the smoke is gray and rises from the locomotive along the train to the rear. But when these effects are on, the smoke is black, moves sideways (sometimes forwards and sideways), and is of lower intensity / density.
The next thing to notice is the effect of starting the engine. I really like that it has been added in the so-called middle stage of running, blue smoke. In the final stages, however, the dark gray smoke has a uniform effect and ends fairly quickly. In my opinion, the effect that probably comes from effects by DESPEREAUX is more interesting - this smoke is gradually decomposing. Maybe it would be interesting to combine both of your effects?
I checked the effects of WxTech by playing the "Unsung Heroes: For a Country not their Own" campaign, which I had earlier on the VP Mod Pack.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that this is not a criticism, but maybe it will be an inspiration for further improvement of the mods. These are not my requirements either, because I appreciate your work, WxTech, and everyone who devotes their time to perfecting this hobby, which is this simulator.

Thank you for your attention and sorry for linguistic (and other) mistakes, because English is not my mother tongue, and I was writing with Goggle Translate.

Best regards to everyone and stay healthy!

[WxTech]

brat_be,
Do I decode this as "Belgian brat?" 

I absolutely welcome all constructive criticism and suggestions!

As I stated in the Readme and other comments, I've not looked deeply into all effects. And that includes the engine start smoke. For me it has ranked far behind in importance the more 'action oriented' stuff. I'll look at Despereaux's version for sure! Also not focused on as well are the effects related to sliding along the ground or water.

About trains. I used a train mod in 4.09 and 4.12 while playing with effects, and one or smokes set there may have had a different name. I should offer this train mod, with the modded classfiles, for 4.12 players. Now with BAT (which I've only had running for 3 weeks or so) *seems* to have other differences regarding trains. It gets a tad complicated sometimes.

To all,
Any other areas that are disappointing, let me know, and point me to a better solution.

Cheers!
Glenn

[Brother B.]

No no, I'm not a "Belgian brat". But I had a good laugh. I'm from Poland and my nick should be decode as "brother b."

I am glad that you are absolutely welcome it and that you perceive it that way.
Of course, I have read the Readme file and I know you haven't looked at all the effects. But since I've noticed, I will share my observation - it may get your attention in the future, but of course you don't change the importance and order of your works.

If I can help (and Despereaux won't mind), the following files are responsible for the effects of the engine:
in "3do\Effects\Aircraft\":
EngineStart1.eff
EngineStart2.eff
EngineStart3.eff
in "3do\Effects\Textures\":
Flame.mat
Flame.tga
Start.mat
Start.tga
Unfortunately, I haven't managed to figure out their content (parameters) yet. I also don't know which files are responsible for trains effects.

Best regards, cheers,
brother b

[WxTech]

A member recently PM'd me about an effect present in the latest engine mod. It represents aircraft ignited fuel leak fireballs of brief duration, separate from fuel tank fires that are generally continuous. This effect was added in the doSetTankState method in AircraftState.class. It's a neat effect! I just got round to adding my other changes from 4.12 to this version, and it works fine in BAT Red Core 4.0.

I'll soon release an update. First, at least, I'll look into the engine start effects, which I've never really paid much attention to before.

[SAS~Poltava]

I love the effects pack, it's great! But I think I've ran into some sort of strange bug. It appears when you fly at night. When the AA guns fire there are no flashes in the sky, and no individual flak burst clouds, but instead chains of burst (without any flash). Looks very strange. Thus:



I removed the Effects pack, and then it reverted to normal. Thus:



Has anyone else seen this? The map is La Chute.

[WxTech]

I've verified that I have proper flak burst flashes in the dead of night. I also incorporated Mike's flak illumination effect, albeit dialed back in intensity so that clouds at a distance don't light up like a thunderstorm.    As part of that is an additional flash texture whose size increases from daytime through to night. Which all works OK for me.

There should be no map dependence. To settle this, have you tried a stock map?

Does this occur for a variety of flak guns of differing caliber?

I'll be interested to see if anyone else has this problem... And I'll do some more testing in the meantime.

[WxTech]

Been tweaking the fuel leak fireball effect taken from the latest JCat effects.

This makes use of a texel for the fireball, comprised of 27 images run as an animation, for a nicely dynamic appearance. Still captures like this can't do it justice. (I use the same texel for a random fireball for destroyed stationary planes, as well as for nearly half of fuel cars destroyed.)

Originally, the duration of the various elements in this effect was quite brief, keeping everything rather tightly confined and thus resulting in essentially a 'spherical' fireball and smoke cloud. I've stretched things out in time somewhat, to provide some elongation. Moreover, I've reduced the emit velocity of the glowing and opaque 'sparks', so that they don't mimic a kind of explosion (albeit weak), but rather a more gentle breaking as the tank is breached and the escaping fuel ignites. This effect is not representative of an explosion; there's already a specific tank explosion effect just for that purpose.

[mikojan3]

  :Pthis is one of the most important effect very realistic see in the pacific dogfight against japanese

[WxTech]

These past couple of days I've been working on the gunfire muzzle flash textures. Here's a comparison between the stock textures and the ones I'm currently tweaking, the latter of which which I got from the Battle-Sights v4 mod. Some I've notably altered.

In this multi-texture array, the top two rows contain the stock 6-texture collection, the "vyaf"-named series being for the directed flame, and the "vyas"-named series for the general ball of gas. The bottom two rows are their replacements.

For the "vyaf" series, note that each contains two textures; the upper ones are not used and so can be ignored.

The "vyaf" textures are used ONLY for the 7mm, 12mm and 20mm class of guns, and the "vyas" ones are used by these guns as well. Larger calibres use ONLY the "vyas" textures. This is how it's been for many years at least. In my 4.09 game I altered the majority of the weapons classes so that all guns could use both sets of textures in the same way, with more variety tossed in as well. mI'd like to carry this over to BAT. But in the meantime, the next release of my effects pack will include this state of the replacement textures, which are directly compatible with the weapons classes as supplied.




Here's are two screen grabs to show the result of the new textures. Still shots fail utterly at giving a correct feel for the dynamic action and appearance.

[WxTech]

I should add that the stock treatment of these textures at night is horrifying. Making the flashes 4X larger is excessive in the extreme. I've kept the directed fire ("vyaf" textures") the same size, and increased the diameter of the 'gas balls' ("vyas" textures") by a factor or 1.4, or 2X the area. And of course I've made all textures brighter at night.

[whistler]

Very good work, WxTech.

Finding the balance between historical accuracy and an exciting gameplay must be tricky when working on effects.