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[WxTech]

I just figured out how to get fires and smokes from planes crashing into forests (the 'layer cake' forest, that is) to not to be generated from a point on the topmost forest layer, but instead to be located on the forest floor (the terrain ground level.) This is so much better, with more distant fires either being not visible or barely so, with essentially only the smoke emerging from the crash site.

The flames' visibility will depend very much on the degree of clear 'cutouts' in one or more of the forest layer textures. Particularly the lowest, which often has the least transparency cutout area. If a forest texture set were to have no clear cutouts at all in the lowest layer, only the top part of the largest flames could ever be seen. If the next up texture also had little or no transparency cutouts, the flames would be invisible. But this is not normally the case, and so for most forests on all maps the flames should at least be partially visible. Often only when getting fairly close.

Anyway, this is much better than fires sitting on the very top of the forest canopy. A screenie of a crash site very near the edge of a forest, from two different angles. Pay attention to the appearance of the flames as permitted by the transparency cutouts.

[WxTech]

Continuing to tweak.

I've rationalized the hit effects for guns, so as to reduce the range of effects for a given calibre. In the stock implementation, a given calibre of projectile could be placed in 2 or even 3 effects groups designed all for different calibres. In other words, the binning scheme was very 'fuzzy', and that's before randomness is introduced as part of the process in assigning effects. For instance, a 12mm projectile previously might invoke no hit effect, or a hit for 7mm, 12mm or 20mm. But I've not straightjacketed hit effects entirely into a rigid binning; there is still some 'blurring of the lines'.

As part of the above, I've better differentiated between 7mm and 12mm class projectiles in their hit effects against planes, ground and water. New code and new effects did this.

For a fair number of smokes, I've slightly reduced the opacity. A denser smoke column suffers worse from the apparent sudden fading at termination. And a bit of transparency is aesthetically more pleasing, as it presents density variation in a smoke column.

For those smokes and fires in the OldSmokes folder, I've got more in line with Dave's Realism effects. Hopefully this will better accord with these effects added into missions over the years.

The stock code in AircraftState.class, for some reason, under certain conditions of a wing fire would drop the creation of the "SPD" version of the heavy damage smoke, drawing only the "TSPD" version. Because I use the 2D trail type smokes for all my TSPD-named effects (as a way to achieve a long, gently fading smoke extension at little cost in resources/computation), it was weird to have only the 2D trail smoke present. To combat this I created a new particle-based SPD effect, it being a less dense version of the usual one. Now there is always the better 3D smoke present with the 2D one, but starting as a thinner smoke, changing to the usual denser smoke with more damage.

[WxTech]

After mulling over my decision to use the 2D trail type smoke for plane damage effects named with "TSPD", I just spent a couple hours replacing them with similar-length ones built from the 3D particles, like their "SPD",-named counterparts. I found that I could reduce EmitFreq in most instances with the result that now a smoke trail comprised of particles in both effect types generated together still has a total particle count roughly similar when averaged for all damage effects. And I've retained the nice length as before.

The result is a better appearance overall, for essentially no additional hit on resources. The fading last half or so of the smoke column no longer presents the awful artifact of the trail type when seen more or less end-on, and there is smoke cloud structure instead of a more boring smoothness. Moreover, when a lighter trail type effect is present near a dark 3D type effect, with partial merging, the geometric diagonal pattern of the former is jarring; that's now gone.

On top of that I've adjusted the smoke textures for these smoke trails, to present a better form in terms of the alpha channel transparency variation.

After all these tweaks, I'll soon be releasing an update (to the whole works.)

Here's a screep cap showing the new full 3D particle-based plane damage smoke:

[WxTech]

I've been working on the cumulus clouds. In my previous release I had really pushed things to absolute minimal flickering, by applying a fair degree of blur to the alpha channel. But this made for clouds with no real definition, looking quite boring.

I've revisited my approach.

First off, I demand as high an opacity as I can achieve. And so the alpha layer must have the whitest possible tone that doesn't lead to too much flicker as cloud elements do their 'Z fighting' thing.  I find the low opacities commonly given to numerous cloud textures in other mods leads to sizeable parts of larger clouds--if not near the entire thing--that are quite diaphanous, gauzy, thin.

What I have done is to selectively apply my blurring, so that I can regain some reasonable amount of edge definition where it counts. But again, with an eye always to avoiding too much flicker. In the main, the smaller clouds can have more blur applied, because they look absurd if kept equally sharp as for large clouds. And because small clouds paradoxically tend to have as many if not more (!) texture elements making them up, any sharpness present is only further amplified, with an attendant flicker fest to further annoy.

I have a 'special' cloud texture that puts numbers and letters where the clouds would go. I've also given these characters a color scheme so as to make more apparent which texture groups from the 16 are used for which clouds by weather type. From this, I've determined a general trend whereby, going down by rows from top left to bottom right, the textures utilized for ever larger clouds go from top to bottom. This has informed me about how to selectively apply blurring. From the top row on down toward the bottom, the blurring required becomes less. That is, the top row has the most blurring, and the bottom row the least.

Here's one result after the first pass at this new treatment. Hazy weather. Note that because of the 105 degree FoV used here, the 'corner cube' effect on cloud textures toward the sides of the frame are fairly apparent; this is a normal consequence of the gnomonic projection.

[baggo]

Glen, re watching some old gun camera footage I noticed that dancing ammo strike effect on trains and trucks and rooftops preceeded the actual explosive effect by a second or so,and wondered if it was possible to have this slight split second delay, instead of the immediate explosion upon being hit,dont know if this accurate or even possible but in the spirit of hopefully helpful suggestions I thought I would let you know my thoughts, also I like very much how your clouds are shaping up,i thought there, maybe a few wind torn edges to break up to much roundness on cloud edges, again in the spirit of hopefully helpful suggestion, because I think so far you have produced a beautifully considered effects package which is in my opinion quite superb. kev.

[WxTech]

Kev,
About the delay between bullet hits and the earth shattering kaboom...

Already the game essentially has this covered from the standpoint of sufficient hits being first required to cause destruction. Assuming a target tougher than a stick of dynamite, the interval over which some number of hits accumulate damage necessarily involves a delay.

When watching gun cam films, be aware that in most cases the camera was overcranked, with playback typically being in the 1/2 to 1/4 speed range. This will add to the perception of delay.

[baggo]

Glen, thanks for your prompt reply, I did wonder before posting about that gun cam effect on old film about its accurasy, thanks for your very clear explanation. kev

[WxTech]

I just realized that while I did include the New Train Mod (included in B.A.T.) classfiles that I had altered, ...

I FORGOT TO INCLUDE THE ALTERED TRAIN CAR BODY MESHES! (In which the fixed or added anew "Damage" hooks are present.)

What a dolt I am.

My next release will be coming soon, and this oversight will be corrected.

[bomberkiller]

My next release will be coming soon, and this oversight will be corrected.

Hello WxTech,

go ahead, i can't wait anymore! 

Best regards, Gerhard 

 

[Flying H]

@WxTec, remember, even the sun has spots! 

[WxTech]

I dusted off a really old cumulus cloud 4X4 texture (from about 8 years ago) and did some tweaking on it. Here's the result, in hazy weather. I tried for a good balance between 'solidity' and not too much by way of 'raggedy' edges.




I've been playing around with train car explosions for the first time ever these past several days. Here's the current state of development, here with the fireball at nearly maximum size in this screen grab...

[SAS~tsisqua]

Glenn,
I just loaded up COD Blitz, and with the new updates and enhancements released by TF, the clouds look like . . . POOP! So does the aliasing of . . . just about everything, with the bastard turned as wide open as I can get it. And they will never un-pork the .50's in the GB series.  '46 Modded is still as good as it gets. And you are definitely helping to make it even better. Thanks for the update, and I am looking forward to your next release. These screenies are awesome.