Worse graphic fidelity vs stock career mode

[kurdes]

Hello!

Like mentioned in the smoke and effects mod thread (last page), theres a big difference in graphics fidelity between the stock career mode and missions generated by PW campaign generator with activated smoke and emitters draw distance mod! Thinks like fires, smokes and whole citys and buildings fade in and out of sight. 

 

Not so in the stock career mode, everything works like it should...no fade in and out of fires and smokes and so on. Like its a complete higher graphics setting allowed for the stock career mode.

 

Does anybody know who's more in the practics of mission generating, whats causing this?

 

Thank you and greetings,

Steffen

Edited August 11, 2020 by kurdes
Specified the use of draw distance mod

[PatrickAWlson]

PWCG uses the same graphics as the game.  Could be due to PWCG  using more than the system can handle.  otherwise not sure.

[RedeyeStorm]

Hmm. I fly the stock campaigns also but the smoke fades in and out as well.

[dburne]

1 hour ago, [Pb]RedeyeStorm said:

Hmm. I fly the stock campaigns also but the smoke fades in and out as well.

 

Same here.

[kurdes]

With the enhanced visibility mod (draw distance emitters.zip) activated?

Edited August 11, 2020 by kurdes

[TheSNAFU]

I can’t say without a doubt but I have never noticed any difference between the game graphics in pwcg vs any other mode of play. 

[kurdes]

Just install the mod and watch the smoke in cities etc... Even the buildings of the towns and cities act different! In generated missions they plop into sight each time you look in another direction and then back. Not so in the official career, for me a big immersion killer! Its realy sad because Pat Wilson CG is great...

[kurdes]

In the PWCG generated missions-file are sections like this:

 

  MCU_CheckZone
  {
    Index = 52072;
    Name = "CheckZone Smoke Activate";
    Desc = "";
    Targets = [52073,52086];
    Objects = [32];
    XPos = 117924.000;
    YPos = 0.000;
    ZPos = 166183.000;
    XOri = 0.00;
    YOri = 0.00;
    ZOri = 0.00;
    Zone = 20000;
    Cylinder = 1;
    Closer = 1;
  }

 

and like this:

 

MCU_Timer
  {
    Index = 52081;
    Name = "smokeLoopTimer";
    Desc = "";
    Targets = [52077];
    Objects = [];
    XPos = 117924.000;
    YPos = 0.000;
    ZPos = 166183.000;
    XOri = 0.00;
    YOri = 0.00;
    ZOri = 0.00;
    Time = 14;
    Random = 100;
  }

 

Cant cross-check the official career ones, because i cant find them.

 

However my thoughts are, that that these overwrite the better draw distances of the mod...

of course, i might be wrong! ?

[vonGraf]

But when you're using a mod it's not the 'stock career'.

[PatrickAWlson]

The timer loop is an unfortunate necessity.  Any career mode smoke has to use the same mechanism. 

 

What they did was make the emitter work for n number of seconds, so you have to continuously loop to restart the emitter.  Why not a simple on/off mechanism I have no idea.  It is not really noticeable on 1x but on time compression you can see the smoke go on/off on/off. 

 

What you are seeing is that the distance to initiate smoke is 20 km.  If you have a mod that messes with draw distance I guess there could be all sorts of potential incompatibilities.  I do not claim that PWCG is compatible with any given mod.  You might be right that the two do not play nice together.  

[kurdes]

I find it very noticeable even in 1x time compression. It fades every 5 seconds or so. I think what they do is, the same smoke emitter multiple times on the same spot with different start times. So you never see it fade out because one instance is always shown.

 

Could you implement this behavior in your mission generating algorithm, or is it to much work?

 

And regards the activating distance for the smoke, maybe an option to set the wanted distance? ?

 

I find this really important cause it adds so much to the immersion...

[Redwo1f]

I haven't really noticed a problem at all. But as I check, I also notice I am running a mod called "smoke fade fix" (besides others) - so that may be the key? -- and the said mod I must have found somewhere in the mod forum.