[MOD] Draw distance increase (ships, stalingrad smoke) UPDATED

[LizLemon]

Ships draw distance is pretty much infinite. FPS impact of about 2-4fps on a laptop with intel integrated graphics.

 

The large smoke from Stalingrad has also been increased. FPS hit of about 1 also on intel hd 4000.

 

INSTALL

 

Simply drag the "data" folder in the archive into the root folder of your bos installation, ie "xxxx\steam\steamapps\common\IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad\"

https://mega.nz/#!nWxzUCgS!dDN_YlpYMe0OfTe3SBYUoE0dBgVeGAjnacH9n0nqgKo

 

EDIT

Added "draw distance emitters" which makes the range of all map emitter smokes near infinite. Install in the same way as above.

draw distance emitters.zip

draw distance.zip

Edited April 5, 2019 by LizLemon

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

This looks very interesting.  Thanks!  I am thinking this is just ships (+ smoke) or you would have said so BUT does this also affect target industrial/hangar buildings, etc.?  If not, does each object target have to go through a process to be part of the mod?  Certain smaller objects wouldn't matter.

Edited September 6, 2018 by VBF-12_Stick-95

[LizLemon]

Yes, individual buildings could be done. But I'm trying to find a better way of extending the draw distance then just having certain objects render all the time.

[Blitzen]

Many thanks to you & other Mod-makers for pushing the visuals !

[Semor76]

This is my mod of the month!

 

Not only for increasing the visually distance...

 

@LizLemon are you aware of the fact that you eliminate the annoying "fading bug" with this mod?

 

I´ve done a few tests and the big black smoke objects are rock solid now. No more fade in or our fade out. The medium grey smoke objects come very close to this but still pops in if the player turns his sight away and back. But I didn´t test all the small objects like burning trucks,tanks etc.

 

you are genius man....

Edited September 7, 2018 by Semor76

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

Wow great mod specially for those in career modes..
Great work..

re:
Certain things will only ever be rendered when you look at them directly pretty much and with enough delay they will be notable (this is a direct X and Graphics limitation)

Mostly

 

[LizLemon]

53 minutes ago, Semor76 said:

This is my mod of the month!

 

Not only for increasing the visually distance...

 

@LizLemon are you aware of the fact that you eliminate the annoying "fading bug" with this mod?

 

I´ve done a few tests and the big black smoke objects are rock solid now. No more fade in or our fade out. The medium grey smoke objects come very close to this but still pops in if the player turns his sight away and back. But I didn´t test all the small objects like burning trucks,tanks etc.

 

you are genius man....

 

Its only the big fires that have the extended distance, but I can make this happen to the smaller smoke effects too.

[DocHolliday]

4 hours ago, LizLemon said:

 

Its only the big fires that have the extended distance, but I can make this happen to the smaller smoke effects too.

 

Just not seeing the fading bug with the smoke from the big fires is awesome! 

[keeno]

Fantastic MOD!

[Veteran66]

i try this mod with aHe111 vs ship Mission.

This Mod must be in the official IL2X Version

maybe as a distance option in the Missions Edidor so all important objects like targets can switch the distance

 

very important for all bomber pilots

[Adger]

Excellent mod again LizLemon,your mods really are an excellent addition to this great sim

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Great mod, unfortunately only SP, MP mods on servers do not show up ...  I wonder if same can be done with roads?

12 hours ago, =TBAS=Sshadow14 said:

 

12 hours ago, =TBAS=Sshadow14 said:

Wow great mod specially for those in career modes..
Great work..

re:
Certain things will only ever be rendered when you look at them directly pretty much and with enough delay they will be notable (this is a direct X and Graphics limitation)

Mostly

 

But not smoke, same was with ROF someone did mod for this and all smokes were permanent. You can look away and it stayed there.

Edited September 8, 2018 by 307_Tomcat

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

13 minutes ago, 307_Tomcat said:

Great mod, unfortunately only SP, MP mods on servers do not show up ...  I wonder if same can be done with roads?

But not smoke, same was with ROF someone did mod for this and all smokes were permanent. You can look away and it stayed there.

DX9 different graphics system not using Deferred rendering afaik but ok :D.

you can always tell if they permenant as you can see them when you look away and instant you look back they are loaded.

[Semor76]

On 9/8/2018 at 1:17 AM, LizLemon said:

 

Its only the big fires that have the extended distance, but I can make this happen to the smaller smoke effects too.

Go for it!  ?

[Blitzen]

15 minutes ago, Semor76 said:

Go for it!  ?

Yeah- what he said!?

[Picchio]

TREES, MAN!

[BornToBattle]

Excellent! Again, also eliminated the smoke flickering which drove me nuts. Should be an official mod. 

 

Thank you for your endeavors!

[Henree]

woah! it's like flying into the apocalypse!

[Habu]

I have to try that. ?

[JonRedcorn]

Maybe it's time we start leaving people on 10 yearold hardware behind. Should be a standard feature in the game.

[==Tirelepetitdoigt]

Major improvement. Thanks.

 

For information, I made a copy paste of \data\luascripts\worldobjects\mapemitters\city_fire.txt and renamed it \data\luascripts\worldobjects\mapemitters\villagesmoke.txt

Now I have also the villages smoke.

LB

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Laurentlb33

[CountZero]

Works great, this should be in next game patch, if only airplnes distances could be increased also, its finaly nice to see ships from far

[Missionbug]

Superb mod, thank you very much, really appreciated.

 

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[MrNoice]

please add it to the game by default...

[LizLemon]

I did all the smoke map emitters, link at the bottom of the first post.

 

7 hours ago, 77.CountZero said:

Works great, this should be in next game patch, if only airplnes distances could be increased also, its finaly nice to see ships from far

 

Planes can be done in the same way as this, but because it is editing what is more or less the master config file for aircraft the game will spit out an error message if you try to fly that plane.

Edited September 11, 2018 by LizLemon

[Ptk]

6 hours ago, LizLemon said:

I did all the smoke map emitters, link at the bottom of the first post.

 

 

Planes can be done in the same way as this, but because it is editing what is more or less the master config file for aircraft the game will spit out an error message if you try to fly that plane.

But we could load it for all the planes we aren't flying though? (IA_ALWAYSVISIBLE=128,)

 

So if I'm in a p40 campaign, have a mod which loads all the edited files excluding the p40? If I switch to my 190 career, load that mod etc.

 

I'd be fine with that.

[Ptk]

The above works by the way. Just load the mod for the plane you're flying and enjoy dots from far beyond 10k. Thanks Liz!!

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/gvsgs3f8b7nmr79/image_attr.rar/file

 

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2018 by Ptk

[LizLemon]

The image attribute variable works like this;

 

ImageAttr=xxx    //the value here is the variables below you want added up
//    IA_DEFAULT=0,
//    IA_NOCLIP=1, //presumable stops the camera from nocliping the object, I dont think this works
//    IA_NOCLIP_ANIM=2, // no idea
//    IA_NOROTINTERPOLATION=4, //no idea either but may be related to sprites
//    IA_NOMINZ=8, //no idea
//    IA_NOMINPIXELS=16, //probably related to lod and the minimum number of pixels threshold and object needs to hit to be drawn
//    IA_NOPOSINTERPOLATION=32, //no idea
//    IA_CLOSEVIEWARG=64, //no idea
//    IA_ALWAYSVISIBLE=128, //this is what makes the ships and smoke be visible from extreme distances
//    IA_SCALEARG=256, //this scales far lod models, appears to only be used by aircraft
//    ImageAttr=Attr1+Attr2+...+AttrN //

[Ptk]

Yup, I  added +128 to all the planes I'm not flying and presto, instant long range view. Just pick the plane you're going to fly with jsgme and start il2. Have to exit out and change it again with jsgme if you want to fly something else.

 

They might be too visible long range. Might have to tweak the lods, which I think is do-able.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

LizLemon, what about roads, can be done? I hate when they just disappeared, lacking of continuity, not helping in navigation.

[Blitzen]

9 hours ago, Ptk said:

Yup, I  added +128 to all the planes I'm not flying and presto, instant long range view. Just pick the plane you're going to fly with jsgme and start il2. Have to exit out and change it again with jsgme if you want to fly something else.

 

They might be too visible long range. Might have to tweak the lods, which I think is do-able.

Fly a plane through JSGME? What am I missing here? Can you chose planes this way? For QM’s? SM’s? How ? How does Draw distance work on definition on your aircraft- I only see it with better clarity on the AI aircraft I can see from my cockpit....?

[TG-55Panthercules]

6 minutes ago, Blitzen said:

Fly a plane through JSGME? What am I missing here? Can you chose planes this way? For QM’s? SM’s? How ? How does Draw distance work on definition on your aircraft- I only see it with better clarity on the AI aircraft I can see from my cockpit....?

 

I believe what he means is that you have a separate mod package for each type of plane.  Then, before you start BoX, you decide which type of plane you're going to be flying, and you use JSGME to activate the one mod package that corresponds to your chosen type of plane. Then you start BoX and fly that plane in whatever kind of mission you want..

[CountZero]

21 hours ago, LizLemon said:

I did all the smoke map emitters, link at the bottom of the first post.

 

 

Planes can be done in the same way as this, but because it is editing what is more or less the master config file for aircraft the game will spit out an error message if you try to fly that plane.

 

ok ill try that just to see what impact it has on my game if i have them visable from 15km or higher insted 9,5, i was testing things yesterday but i was probably changing wrong parametars as i see in your other post

13 hours ago, Ptk said:

The above works by the way. Just load the mod for the plane you're flying and enjoy dots from far beyond 10k. Thanks Liz!!

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/gvsgs3f8b7nmr79/image_attr.rar/file

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, just tetsed your mod andit works perfectly, i just activated lagg3 as this is one i flew, and yes distance is probably to high i was able to see he-111 from 50+km, insted default 9.5km, so mod works as intended.

No problems or bad impact on my game, so i see no game limiting reasons for not have higher ranges avialabe for airplanes

 

PS. can you try make contrails visable from far also, and maybe have this mode in separate topic

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

1 hour ago, 77.CountZero said:

 

No problems or bad impact on my game, so i see no game limiting reasons for not have higher ranges avialabe for airplanes

 

Not just guessing but multiplayer ,it would kill it . I think net code need to be overhauled significant.

[IckyATLAS]

Many thanks LizLemon. You do a terrific job. 

[TP_Jacko]

This would be wonderful to have for MP our squad enables mods mostly to help the VR boys. Even if only for ships it would be a bonus

[TP_Silk]

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong. Got this installed and working now for SP, although I needed to put the mod into my IL2_MODS folder for JSGME rather than directly into the existing Data structure as it says in the first post. As I said, works fine is SP with ships visible from a distance of around 25km  at 5000ft in an A20. Tried running this on a Dserver with mods enabled and for some reason it was back to a draw distance of around 10km at 5000ft.

 

Are single player draw distances handled differently from multi-player?

[CountZero]

15 hours ago, 307_Tomcat said:

 

Not just guessing but multiplayer ,it would kill it . I think net code need to be overhauled significant.

 

atleast they should test it now when we know thats posible to incress range abouw 9.5km, unlike they said before when asked about it

 

does this increses range infinitly for objects or it can be adjusted to certen distance higher then 9,5?

[IckyATLAS]

1 hour ago, TP_Silk said:

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong. Got this installed and working now for SP, although I needed to put the mod into my IL2_MODS folder for JSGME rather than directly into the existing Data structure as it says in the first post. As I said, works fine is SP with ships visible from a distance of around 25km  at 5000ft in an A20. Tried running this on a Dserver with mods enabled and for some reason it was back to a draw distance of around 10km at 5000ft.

 

Are single player draw distances handled differently from multi-player?

My understanding is that Mods are working only locally and in single player. Mods are not authorized on servers.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

13 minutes ago, IckyATLAS said:

My understanding is that Mods are working only locally and in single player. Mods are not authorized on servers.

 You can play multiplayer in mods on mode. Just host server with mods and enable mods in the game. Others who connect need same mods ( not all -some mods can work only server side) and enabled  mode to join .

Edited September 13, 2018 by 307_Tomcat