Prolonged smoke & fire for crashed aircraft mod/Smoke & fire for destroyed static aircraft mod

[Stonehouse]

Pretty sure these are fine with 5.204 but haven't had time to check so far

Edited June 19, 2024 by Stonehouse

[Stonehouse]

9 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

Pretty sure these are fine with 5.204 but haven't had time to check so far

 

Believe all ok post 5.204

[RedeyeStorm]

Here is a screenshot from the mod 'smoke and fire large blocks'. The gratifying result of a B-26 bombing raid near Calais. The picture is taken in VR.

 

[Stonehouse]

5 hours ago, RedeyeStorm said:

Here is a screenshot from the mod 'smoke and fire large blocks'. The gratifying result of a B-26 bombing raid near Calais. The picture is taken in VR.

..................

 

Interesting - it looks like that smoke is not blowing north? Guessing you were roughly flying N or NE back to England?

[RedeyeStorm]

At that point more parallel to the coast so NE. The site was near Calais and the smoke was blowing towards the coast.

Edited June 20, 2024 by RedeyeStorm

[Stonehouse]

On 6/19/2024 at 9:55 PM, Stonehouse said:

 

Believe all ok post 5.204

 

ok after 5.204b

[Stonehouse]

Still to review post 5.504

[Stonehouse]

Believe fine post 5.504b

[Stonehouse]

Believe fine post 5.505

[knight2931]

Thank you!

[Stonehouse]

Believe all three mods fine post 5.506

[Dekioo]

hello, can I get the link ?

ty !

[Stonehouse]

17 minutes ago, Dekioo said:

hello, can I get the link ?

ty !

All my mods have the link for download in the first post of the thread

 

eg 

 

[KodiakJac]

Hi @Stonehouse

 

I started using your 3 "Smoke" mods in your OP a week or two ago.  They are great!

 

But I started getting an error message in my first Flying Circus missions since adding your smoke mods and 2 other mods that are not yours, and I was wondering if it could be related to your smoke mods, or if you'd recognize it as unrelated, but maybe know what it is.  The funny thing is, the file air_aero.txt is not included in any of these recent mods I've added (yours or the others).  And it only occurs in Flying Circus.  The other 2 mods I've added are "Slower Balloons" and "Train Momentum and Damage." 

 

It's a little pop-up window that comes up with an OK button.  The pop-up pauses the game, but when I click on OK, the game resumes just fine.  But when the pop-up is there, I can't do a screen print, so I wrote it down...

 

Object Undefined

luascripts/worldobjects/explosions/small/air_aero.txt

 

Since you seem to know a lot about smoke (and everything...lol) I'd thought I'd run it by you 

 

Thanks!

 

Edited April 21 by KodiakJac
Added: Object Undefined

[Stonehouse]

8 minutes ago, KodiakJac said:

Hi @Stonehouse

 

I started using your 3 "Smoke" mods in your OP a week or two ago.  They are great!

 

But I started getting an error message in my first Flying Circus missions since adding your smoke mods and 2 other mods that are not yours, and I was wondering if it could be related to your smoke mods, or if you'd recognize it as unrelated, but maybe know what it is.  The funny thing is, the file air_aero.txt is not included in any of these recent mods I've added (yours or the others).  And it only occurs in Flying Circus.  The other 2 mods I've added are "Slower Balloons" and "Train Momentum and Damage." 

 

It's a little pop-up window that comes up with an OK button.  The pop-up pauses the game, but when I click on OK, the game resumes just fine.  But when the pop-up is there, I can't do a screen print, so I wrote it down...

 

luascripts/worldobjects/explosions/small/air_aero.txt

 

Since you seem to know a lot about smoke (and everything...lol) I'd thought I'd run it by you 

 

Thanks!

 

Best I can tell there is no such folder as "small" under explosions in the stock game and therefore logically the file air_aero.txt is also not standard. air_aero.txt doesn't seem to exist in any other folder under luascripts/worldobjects. So I would believe that the file and folder is being referred to by one of the other mods but either the reference is in error or the file and folder wasn't included in the mod or it got lost when you installed it somehow. I think I recall you are using JSGME so I would disable one of the two mods that isn't mine and see if it goes away. It is does then that mod is the culprit and if it doesn't then the one you left enabled is responsible. Just a guess but if I had to guess the problem one I would think it is probably slower balloons.

 

Folders which exist within the explosions folder in the stock game are as below. Only my opinion but if air_aero.txt is an effects file (I suspect it is) then it should have been in the effects folder but for some reason the author decided to move it outside the standard game folder structure. 

 

If the author of the problematic mod is no longer around to fix the issue, then you could disable the mod in JSGME, add a folder called small to the explosions folder in the mod and within the small folder create an empty text file called air_aero.txt. Then re-enable the mod.

 

I believe this would stop the popup appearing.

 

[czech693]

I'm running the same three mods and when I checked in the luascripts/worldobjects/explosions folder the small folder was in there.  I left click it and it disappeared.  There is no small folder in any of those three mods so I did a search on all the mods I have in JSGME and a small folder did not appear.  I've never had a message pop up with the small folder in it.  Don't know how it go there in the first place.

[Stonehouse]

10 hours ago, czech693 said:

luascripts/worldobjects/explosions folder the small folder was in there

 

All I can say is that it isn't something from my mods nor is it a standard folder and ditto for the file air_aero.txt. Obvious conclusion is that it has been introduced by someone else's mod. Past that I don't know.

 

<edit>

Took 5 mins and searched for slower balloons. It turns out that this is a Rise of Flight mod not FC. The balloon definitions refer to the file air_aero.txt

The mod is not usable for Flying Circus as it has different folder structures and files and refers to effects that only exist in RoF. Someone would have to do the work to translate the mod and its concepts across to FC.

 

Edited April 20 by Stonehouse

[KodiakJac]

Thanks for finding the problem, @Stonehouse

 

I had disabled "Train Momentum and Damage" and still got the air_aero.txt error and was going to disable Slower Balloons next, but you've completely identified the problem.  So won't be using Slower Balloons.

 

Cheers! 

[czech693]

Yeah, that was it.  Slower Balloons was brought up from ROF but the programming line was not altered and was pointing at folders that are not in FC.

[KodiakJac]

The same variable (cord speed) appears in the Flying Circus balloon files but in a separate folder "Balloons" on the same path data/luascripts/worldobjects/balloons

 

So, I modded the 4 FC files of the same names and made a new version of Slower Balloons.  I'll test it to see if it works, and if it does, I'll send it to whoever made the Slower Balloons mod for RoF to see if they want to publish it.  If not, I guess I could make a download link for it if it works.  I did some modding for RoF back in the day, but I'm not really excited about supporting mods anymore...lol 

[Stonehouse]

All 3 mods ok post 5.507

[Stonehouse]

All 3 mods ok post 6.001 but please note that best I can tell there are no static Odessa aircraft models yet and possibly the mod for building fires needs expansion to cover Odessa and eventually Leningrad large buildings. Possibly they are already covered by the modified effects files but as Odessa has its own unique block definitions it is hard to tell without detailed analysis. Best interesting to hear from someone owning the new module and using these mods and what their experience is with destroyed large buildings on the new map. 

Edited May 29 by Stonehouse

[Skipper-]

Hi @Stonehouse

 

I've been away from IL2 for a year. Have just reinstalled everything and am working my way through Hell Hawks over the Bulge.

In Mission 3, if I have your 'Smoke and fire large blocks' mod active, my FPS goes crazy if there is smoke on the screen, dropping to 10fps from a, normally, guaranteed smooth 60fps all the time.

 

I can't remember if I needed to change a setting or something to get this beautiful mod working correctly. Any ideas as I would love to see big dark smoke clouds over the battlefield? Your other mod, Prolonged smoke and fire for crashed aircraft, does not affect my fps.

 

I have a 4090 and am running at 4K with MSAA 4x but that shouldn't be an issue.

I'm also running the latest version of IL2 but I do not own the Odessa & Leningrad add-on yet.

Thanks for any help

Edited June 10 by Skipper-

[Stonehouse]

4 hours ago, Skipper- said:

Hi @Stonehouse

 

I've been away from IL2 for a year. Have just reinstalled everything and am working my way through Hell Hawks over the Bulge.

In Mission 3, if I have your 'Smoke and fire large blocks' mod active, my FPS goes crazy if there is smoke on the screen, dropping to 10fps from a, normally, guaranteed smooth 60fps all the time.

 

I can't remember if I needed to change a setting or something to get this beautiful mod working correctly. Any ideas as I would love to see big dark smoke clouds over the battlefield? Your other mod, Prolonged smoke and fire for crashed aircraft, does not affect my fps.

 

I have a 4090 and am running at 4K with MSAA 4x but that shouldn't be an issue.

I'm also running the latest version of IL2 but I do not own the Odessa & Leningrad add-on yet.

Thanks for any help

 

I've never had that issue and I have an 8-year-old much lower spec machine than you which I am hoping to finally upgrade this year. The large blocks smoke and fire mod should only kick in when large blocks are destroyed, so do you see the issue after a bombing run? or are a lot of buildings destroyed by another activity in the mission?

 

Can you make a track of the mission and upload it so I can try to replay what you see here?

 

[Skipper-]

39 minutes ago, Stonehouse said:

 

I've never had that issue and I have an 8-year-old much lower spec machine than you which I am hoping to finally upgrade this year. The large blocks smoke and fire mod should only kick in when large blocks are destroyed, so do you see the issue after a bombing run? or are a lot of buildings destroyed by another activity in the mission?

 

Can you make a track of the mission and upload it so I can try to replay what you see here?

 

Appreciate your reply. I don't know how to make a track, getting too old for this, sorry. The smoke is already there in the mission as you approach the target area.

Without your mod, there is one visible fire with black smoke (very small) and about six other small smoke plumes (white).
With your mod, there are a couple (maybe more) of big black clouds and the fire looks amazing, much larger and more intense but the framerate falls apart. It's strange and I've only seen this before when trying to antialias clouds in flight simulator but that was years ago.

If I watch the frametime, the cpu (maybe) becomes very active and there is loads of activity combined with the drop in framerate but it is only happening with this specific mod active.

 

Sorry that I can't be more help.

Edited June 10 by Skipper-

[Stonehouse]

10 hours ago, Skipper- said:

Appreciate your reply. I don't know how to make a track, getting too old for this, sorry. The smoke is already there in the mission as you approach the target area.

Without your mod, there is one visible fire with black smoke (very small) and about six other small smoke plumes (white).
With your mod, there are a couple (maybe more) of big black clouds and the fire looks amazing, much larger and more intense but the framerate falls apart. It's strange and I've only seen this before when trying to antialias clouds in flight simulator but that was years ago.

If I watch the frametime, the cpu (maybe) becomes very active and there is loads of activity combined with the drop in framerate but it is only happening with this specific mod active.

 

Sorry that I can't be more help.

Ok I will try to see if I can create a similar situation to what you are describing. I don't think I have the Hellhawks campaign but will check later today.

 

Usually, the keybind for creating a track is left control and R I think but you can check in the game key binds to see what it is for you or set it how you want. You essentially hit control R or whatever to start recording the track and then hit it again to turn it off. You would just need to create a short track when you are experiencing the issue......maybe 20 or 30 secs as tracks can get large quickly. 

 

Then you find the track in folder IL-2 Sturmovik Great Battles\data\Tracks and the track consists of a file with the extension trk and a folder and its contents where the folder name is the same as the file name of the trk file. 

 

For example, a track I recorded about a bug with the B26 climb rate, your file name and folder name would be different and likely something to do with the campaign mission name. You'd have to zip up the trk file and folder and contents and upload it somewhere I can get it. 

 

[Stonehouse]

OK I do have Hellhawks and I do see the same issue with my fps going from 60-70 down to 19-20 when I look at the dark smoke columns that appear not long after takeoff when using the mod for mission 3. These seem to be fires in empty land to a large degree. I cannot open the mission file to be sure as it is encrypted but I believe the author has placed static emitters to generate smoke columns. That said I don't know why the large blocks smoke and fire are causing the issue. I will see what I can do but can't promise anything as we only see the tip of the iceberg for these sorts of mods as a lot of the info is buried in hexadecimal in the epl and efx files.

 

Do you also use the Dynamic effects and units mod?

[Skipper-]

I'm relieved that you see that too, hopefully we'll be able to find a solution. 

These are the mods that I am using, I don't have the Dynamic effects and units mod, should I?

[Stonehouse]

1 hour ago, Skipper- said:

I don't have the Dynamic effects and units mod, should I

Purely optional, I just asked as that mod plays around with static emitters like large city fires for example, so it's kind of in the same space as the large blocks smoke and fire.

[Stonehouse]

@Skipper- see PM.

[Stonehouse]

Believe these are fine post 6.002 but will give them a review