The new looped effects

[jollyjack]

Has any one been experimenting with the loop effects yet?

 

I am planning on a setup for a looped city fire started by a He111 bomb explosion, triggering destruction and then after a while of burning turns into (looped) smoke.

In fact more buildings (a whole city area) should be damaged/destroyed by separate bombs. I know it, i am terrible .... sorry.

But revenge is in the planning: a mission complete after you kill the He111s, with a bonus if you get them before the droppings. 

 

I had it running thanks Jim_TM with the old effects, quite complicated logic ...

This new loop stuff looks better, only the smoke has some weird up-wind visuals i found out already.

 

But before i start re-inventing the wheel, maybe someone has figured the best way for such mayhem ..?

[Habu]

I suggest you to use the new loop effect. It has a better visual effect (no stop), and it's easier to use it in the editor.

[Jaegermeister]

No experimenting is necessary. The Devs improved the effects, you trigger them and they run without stopping and restarting.

[jollyjack]

Looped effects and experimenting ... the large city fire starts very abruptly and stops the same way.

I was looking for it to change gradually into smoke only and the fire dying out in a fading way. Guess that's not possible.

 

That's more or less what my question was about on experimenting by the experts, but i wasn't clear on that, sorry ?.

For now i probably will stick to the city smoke only after bombing. Only the looped smoke is of a white grey, more like dust.

Edited May 4, 2021 by jollyjack

[Jaegermeister]

9 hours ago, jollyjack said:

... the large city fire starts very abruptly and stops the same way.

I was looking for it to change gradually into smoke only and the fire dying out in a fading way. Guess that's not possible.

 

I recently did a mission with the new exploding fuel tanks. I used an on object damaged trigger and started the city fire effect after the initial explosion died down a little bit. Then I started city smoke a minute or so later and ended the city fire effect after the smoke started. The transition was fairly smooth from the vantage point of flying around it. 

[PatrickAWlson]

2 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

 

I recently did a mission with the new exploding fuel tanks. I used an on object damaged trigger and started the city fire effect after the initial explosion died down a little bit. Then I started city smoke a minute or so later and ended the city fire effect after the smoke started. The transition was fairly smooth from the vantage point of flying around it. 

 

It gets jaggy if you are in accelerated time.  Otherwise it looks good. 

[jollyjack]

I am messing around with it, damage trigger i never really tried .. curious now.

Smoke form smoke and fire have their own wind private direction it seems ...

 

Pat, you're right about time scale .. al that testing you tend to loose patience, the game loading time has again increased too it seems.

Still wish the editor and game could run side by side, would be a great time saver for mission making regarding testing.

[IckyATLAS]

I would say that I still miss the fact that the city_fire is not depending on wind. If you have wind then you can manually orient the plume by rotating the effect and that's a plan B and ok for now. But if you have no wind all the other smoke effects that depend on wind will rise vertical and the the city fire smoke effect will go at an angle as if it was windy. Visually it is completely weird to see these effects in the same picture, one raises straight and the other not. And if wind is strong then the other have a much steeper angle and city-fire has always the same, so this discrepancy is again visually weird.

 

There is also another weird effect and that is related to the creation of the plume. If you activate a city fire, then the plume should start raising, grow and become what it is.

At the moment you go from nothing to bam an immense plume in one shot. It is totally weird visually. You see the explosion then you have the immense plume that appears in one instant. The other smoke effects do have this start and raising of the smoke column.

 

The other effects have another issue. If you look at them fine, but if they get out of the direction of sight then when they come back they have disappeared and restart again. This is not true for city_fire as the smoke plume remains entire, so a plus here.

 

Now in  my opinion here, devs know how to have the permanent smoke as in the city_fire effect, and they know how to make smoke rise from the base to top.

Conclusion, all ingredients are here for the new dev member that works on effects to combine and make us all the smoke effects with the same characteristics:

 

1) They raise from the base up in the sky until they are fully developed in height and size according to the type.

2) Once they are in their final size they stay so even if they are out of the screen and back.

3) They depend on wind direction and strength.

 

Dear "effect dev" just fulfill there three points and you will be our hero, and immersion will be perfect for this outstanding IL2 Great Battles simulator.