I looked at the tank dust mod Bomberkiller provided a link to in post #4. It will be compatible with all game versions, as it merely provides the standard effects for:
- Aircraft dust blown back by prop blast on non-winter maps (GrayGroundDust1.eff).
- Dust raised by the aircraft wheels when rolling above a certain speed (SmokeAirTouch.eff).
- TankDust on all maps (TankDust.eff).
These effects are provided in two flavours, which you must choose from. One is for general use, the other is intended for desert maps. Note that ONLY ONE can be in effect at any given time, as they both cover the same effects! If you intend to fly desert maps, put this folder in your MODS or #SAS or #WAW3 folder:
0_0_0_can't see shit! desert
If you want to fly on non-desert maps, put this folder in your MODS or #SAS or #WAW3 folder:
0_0_0_can't see shit!
You could of course put both of these folders in place, and simply put a "-" character at the beginning of the folder's name you do not wish to use. Any time you should make a swap in this fashion, you must quit and restart the game.
Note that the root folder "Massive Dust Trail" is NOT to be put in your game! Only the two aforementioned child folders (starting with "0_0_0") go into whatever is your mods folder.
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I note that these effects are based on the class "TSmokeSpiralParams". Nowadays smoke effects are most often based on the class "TParticlesSystemParams", as they make for a more realistic appearance. ALL of my smoke effects are of the "particle" type. The spiral type was used extensively in the early days of the game, as this is less resource intensive. But they introduce a systematic 'corkscrew' action, which I find objectionable.
For instance, let's examine the desert tank smoke effect.
[ClassInfo]
ClassName TSmokeSpiralParams
[General]
MatName DesertTankDust.mat
Color0 0.912 0.772 0.616 0.5
Color1 0.980 0.984 0.772 0.001
nParticles 400
FinishTime -1
MaxR 30
PhiN 5
PsiN 0
LiveTime 100
EmitFrq 3
TranspTransitionTime 1.0f
EmitVelocity 3.5 0.5
EmitTheta 0 0
Wind 2.5
Size 8 50
GasResist 0.09
VertAccel -0.015
Rnd 0.4
The particles live for 100 seconds (LiveTime 100), and during this time the particles execute 5 spirals about the mean axis of emission (PhiN 5), meaning that it takes 20 seconds for each full spiral to complete. By the time a particle disappears, its distance as it spirals about the mean axis will have got to as far as 30 meters (MaxR 30). The particles are emitted at a rate of 3 per second (EmitFrq 3), meaning that over the 100 second live time there will be drawn at any given moment 300 smoke particles. nParticles 400 is unnecessary; 300 is perfectly fine, but this causes no issue. From creation to the point of disappearance, each smoke particle grows from 8 to 50 meters (Size 8 50); this is the size of the full square texture. The particles will tend to slowly sink, the rate being a balance between the VertAccel value of 0.015 m/s^2 downward and the GasResist value of 0.09 exerting some amount of retardance to motion. The 'effect wind' will cause the particles to drift at a characteristic speed of 2.5 m/s, sometimes stopping and sometimes going faster.
Given the significant number of smoke particles a tank can be generating (300 at a time), a well populated column or columns(!) can result in thousands of particles being drawn at once. And of course other effects can be in process of execution at the same time. This can result in flickering or missing smoke trails when the graphics engine limits are reached.
In all events I recommend to set Effects=1 in conf.ini. Effects=2 will have a pseudo shading applied to every smoke particle (looks nice--when not flickering), which gets to be resource intensive, and can lead to truly ghastly flickering between full black and full white at times.
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Topic: dust trail in desert (Read 1972 times)
