Tweaks to The Smoke; Flames and Explosion effects in SF

[Daskal351]

Thanks for the reply frinik! I know what you're talik about. I had a similiar situation with a fan made train simulator. I also had to guess which parameter is which when I was tweaking something in it.

If we're talking about smoking tanks, check this out If I remember correctly, one of the sound mods had the same starter and engine sound. 

[starnon5]

The most vital thing is to programme it so that the player is still able to command his turretless tank after it has been blow off, just like in ultra-realistic film 'Battle of the Bulge' with Terry Savales enjoying the sunshine from his decapitated Chaffee!   

[frinik]

Battle of the Bulge?Are you talking about the 1965 turkey with Robert Ryan and Robert Shaw?The one with unmodified M47s supposed to be Tiger IIs?

[starnon5]

That's the one, where the snowy Ardennes forest is depicted both as Alpine and a dusty Mediterranean plain!

[frinik]

No wonder the film was shot in Italy and the Italian army loaned some of it's American made tanks to play the role of Tiger II tanks.They proabbly shot the movie in the central Appenines mountain range which has little similarity with either Belgium or Luxemburg...

[whukid]

ACHTUNG!
Frinik's sound, fire and smoke mod has been compacted and released! Download your copy now at http://www.mediafire.com/?jakmgq2qahfqcha !!
The following changes have been made;
-The Common Res file has been edited to increase smoke and fire output, as well as the new Panther sound
-the Sound files have been edited for new Cannon and Machinegun sounds


THIS VERSION IS ONLY COMPATABLE WITH SPM NTA 1.3!!!!!!
using with 1.4 has not been tested, and therefore is not reccomended

Credits
Frinik-        Just about everything
Lockie-       Testing
Kyth-         Testing
Whukid-      Testing, compacting to JSMGE, and being the most asthetically attractive member of this ad-hoc group

[frinik]

Many thanks Whukid or should I say Cutekid? Many thanks to Lockie and Kyth for testing!it's a complete surprise to me!

Just as a heads-up ;this mod includes new sounds for the KWK42,KWK36/43,KWK37,MG34 while old the other sounds for the German AT and tank guns have been reshuffled.Thus each German tank and the Pak 35/38 and 40 have their own sound.There are new hits and explosion sounds as well.

Re compatibility with other mods: I have those sounds installed on NTA 1.3 and 1.4 without issues.As well I have it with simple installs of Beta 1.5 and SP 1.4 and early versions of NTA with I called 1.1 and 1.1.1.Everything works well.I have had these new sounds for over 6 weeks now withotu any crash although at times the game slows down or stutters for a few seconds.However I must add that while I started using the new sounds in the form of mod through the mod enabler I had some incompatibility issues thus I reverted to my own personal preference which is to paste the new sounds files directly into the game main sounds folder in lieu of the existing ones( simply go data/k42/loc_rus/sounds).I am not recommending it simply stating what I prefer and what works best for me!

 I have more good news: I now have new tracks sounds for the KV, Churchill and Tiger I as well as a new gun sound for the 2pdr used by the Churchill and other British tanks.I will email them to Whu-OOps Cutekid, Kyth and Lockie and Daskal351 for testing .

Also I managed to tweak the engine exhaust fumes significantly.To try them just apply the values in the line below in your common res folder( main game folder):

smoke_eng,1,6,1.5,1,1,0.3,0.2,1.5,0.3,1,0,smk_sphere0,0x0000000a,sh_ablendd,0xff4D4D45,0x004D2D45,1,5;

It ain't perfect but I think you'll see a definite improvement in realism and immersion!The tanks now - even when the engine is idle- give off large amount of black exhaust smoke.The fps don't seem overly affected.

Cheers

[Friedrich-Wilhelm]

Thank you, Whukid and everyone else involved in packaging Frinik's new sounds and effects. I had a hard time struggling with the manual install of Frinik's new sounds for the Panther. it just wouldn't work. So this package is very much appreciated. All works fine now! Great new mod!

Cheers,

FW

[frinik]

Happy you worked it out FW! Try the smoke exhaust tweak as well.BTW I have new sounds for KV,Tiger I and Churchill tracks and for Churchill gun and MG.If you want them let me know by PM you can add them to the mod.

[whukid]

The pleasure was all mine! I'm slowly redeeming myself after the "Last Defense" wipeout.

[frinik]

Hey don't be hard on yourself! At least you tried and tried hard! Plus your work could lay the foundation of bringing more Soviet tanks onto the German player side.

[whukid]

Hey don't be hard on yourself! At least you tried and tried hard! Plus your work could lay the foundation of bringing more Soviet tanks onto the German player side.

meh Still, I plan on using Lockies (?) Churchill as a model for what needs to be added to the files. It might take a week or two and your stuff comes first, but I haven't completely written it off!

[frinik]

 Wekk Guys I have been working on tweaking the engine smoke effects to the limit and I must say that the result is astounding.The T34 smokes like a steamer now

Seriously, what I did is basically use values similar to the brown cloud of dust that the tanks seem to generate whenever they drive on bare ground.The result is telling and again little impact on the fps.Here are the values.Try them and tell me if I  overdid it.If any body feels so I can adjust them to more realistic values.The new values:

smoke_eng,1,12,1.5,4,1,0.2,0.2,1.5,0.5,1,0,smk_sphere0,0x0000000a,sh_ablendd,0xff4D4D45,0x004D2D45,1,5;

[KurtTank]

Norm the likelihood of a tank burning is not determined by one value only, it is determined by the type of shell you use(AP or HE and calibre), the angle where the hit lands on tank or vehicle, the velocity of the shell, distance from the target and whether the round penetrated the target or not.Believe me with the tweaks I am proposing at least half or more of tanks/APcs on the battlefield will catch fire! Check the pics that Kyth posted they are taken from my missions and you can see the high number of vehicles burning.You don´t want to overdo it( I did some testing and when the values are too high every single hit results in an exploding tanks which is not realistic).If you want to tweak the shots I will send you the chnage to the guns I have made in the common res files with reliagned penetration and concussive values for Tiger I,II, Panther, JS-2, T34 and Panzer IV etween these and the Fx tweaks yoiu´ll be happy!

I would love to see the new changes you made to the guns....can you post them, or have you already?
Thanks!

[Mistwalker]

Also I managed to tweak the engine exhaust fumes significantly.To try them just apply the values in the line below in your common res folder( main game folder):

smoke_eng,1,6,1.5,1,1,0.3,0.2,1.5,0.3,1,0,smk_sphere0,0x0000000a,sh_ablendd,0xff4D4D45,0x004D2D45,1,5;

It ain't perfect but I think you'll see a definite improvement in realism and immersion!The tanks now - even when the engine is idle- give off large amount of black exhaust smoke.The fps don't seem overly affected.

I would gladly include better exaust effects in the UU, but with this line it still needs improvement. The "exaust spheres" already have a large size right after they appear, it looks like they just pop up out of nowhere.

With new values it looks better, but still noticeable. If only "smoke sphere" could be scaled from small size in the beginning of it's lifetime to bigger size in the end...

[frinik]

Ok Mistwalker I am willing to refine them just tell me what you would want modified and I'll do it!

[Mistwalker]

Ok Mistwalker I am willing to refine them just tell me what you would want modified and I'll do it!

Unfortunatelly, I don't know anything  about values in there. I can only recommend to try to make every "element" of smoke smaller in size as it appears, and  increased in size near the time when it  disappears. Do you understand what I mean?

[frinik]

Yes I think I grasp your ideas when the engine is pushed the smoke shrinks as the fuel consumption increases and is tunred into kinetic energy whereas the moment the engine is idled or put into slow gear the amount of smoke increases until the e ngine is finally shut off or reaches a lower regimeOk I shall endeavour to work ont his and submit new values!

Zum Befehl!

[Kyth]

Frinik,

I think the idea is for the puffs of exhaust smoke to start out small and concentrated (from the exhaust pipes),
then expand and become more dispersed as they rise up and away.

[Estnische]

Yes I think I grasp your ideas when the engine is pushed the smoke shrinks as the fuel consumption increases and is tunred into kinetic energy whereas the moment the engine is idled or put into slow gear the amount of smoke increases until the e ngine is finally shut off or reaches a lower regime

No. Watch a semi prime mover next time it takes off from the lights. Twin stacks blowing black smoke as the fuel is dumped into the cylinders faster than the engine can efficiently burn it, leaving lots of particulate matter. You can tell a badly tuned diesel by the black smoke. High air flow and low throttle, leaves a cleaner exhaust.