[MOD] Coloured Engine Effects and Trails

Familiar · Post by **Familiar** » Wed, 12. May 10, 08:46

Algoran, you're the best!

Tested 1.3 Familiar edition all night!

First of all, I was shocked
Before this very special update I was flying in Enhanced Kea like this:

http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 0308693874

But Algoran pimped my ride

I loaded save, started from station and pressed F2. What I saw:

http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 7055877762

WTF... OMG...

my ship is burning...

http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 7536311378
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 0200193202

Looks pretty cool on screenshots. Pirates are suckers now in trail tuning

Teladi rules! They mix nostrop oil, space fuel and space weed and burn it in engines

Shots of simple harrier hauler

http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 0389379026
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 7849503618
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 2610962802

If be serious, this mega fire trail can be applied to teladi. Just little reduce size of it and make less smoke and sparks around.
I have not decided yet, is it to be reworked or removed.
Teladi ships looks like they have engines from our modern rockets
So may be it's good idea, on full speed it looks amazing. On slow speed I got odd rotating smoke and so on. Don't now. Maybe you'll offer to try it out on first page and then vote.
For anyone I suggest to try it out. Quite impressive you now
But there an issue with it - after leaving sector trails become normal (is it intended ?)
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 7692950930
As for TS TP M8 - thank you for my special request. I'll stick to vanilla exhaust unless you add flares or flares + trails to them.

As I'm now your biggest fan

I've spent some time (all night actually) on testing.

Seems like your mod requires new start to work as intended.
Here some testing:
Sector - Loonmachstrat Legacy
Ship - fresh spawned Telady Osprey:
It's from new game:
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 6647158674
It's from savegame:
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 1052492034
In second case I have not cool round flares.
The same for pirates and paranid...
For me it's not a problem to import my game to new start. I think I'll do so. But WHY flares look so different in new|saved game ?

Another issue to be adressed - is argon trails colors. Light blue matching engine tone oe white would be perfect.

Also I've noticed Split Chimera is needed one more trail - it has double engine. It should have double trail.

Centaur now looks fine, btw
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 8148519970
But his pirate version has wrong (blue) flare
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 5502354018

Hyperion have simple white trails. Not paranid-like
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 3934918194

Skiron looks very weak... May be make thick trails for it?
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 9456487138

Pirates Marauder Hauler has unlimited particle lifetime
Here it standind still
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 4589491842
You may noticed Marauder spammed all space around with his particles...
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 6989624082
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 0303959266

After losing very special telady trail on harrier (just fly to another sector) I spawned KEA and it had this vst trail.
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 8729403890
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 6613390194

Borons look excellent. I also liked your idea to have additional engines on raider variants, where it possible. Great job!

In conclusion, I may say for anyone who wants to see impressive flares and don't want to see bubbles, your mod has no alternatives.
May be you should add link to it in
Community Script & Mod Download Library for X3: Terran Conflict ?

Algoran · Post by **Algoran** » Wed, 12. May 10, 16:39

Martox29a wrote:
SS_T wrote:they are the different particles, see this screenshot, the ship has three different colours in the trail. At least that is what I have worked out, but i'm not a 100% sure.
In this screenshot stars in the background seem particularly thick and bright, is that a mod? If so, where can i ged it?

By the way this trail mod is fantastic! Only problem: trails on fast ships (like the kestrel) look weird for me, and it's getting more noticeable with turbo booster form the bonus pack. Nothing serious anyway.
I would really love to see some glow and some flares (but no trails!) on capital ships.

Great work!

Thanks! Swamp Trooper was just posting that shot to demonstrate a point about how trails work - it's not actually from my mod. Don't know about the background either sorry!

About the fast ships, do you mean the way when you corner the trail goes all kindof... zig-zaggy? That's an engine limitation I believe, can't do anything about it I'm afraid.

And capital ships - absolutely, that's just what I intend to do

First though I'm working on TS/TP/TM effects.

@Familiar:
Wow, you have been busy! And that I have a fan at all is pretty awesome

Alright so first, those firey teladi trails - they are not supposed to look like that!

And they don't on my game either.. do you have any other mods which edit effects and could be interfering with mine?

About things changing when you leave the sector, what's happening is when you load a save many changes made to existing ships are not applied. When you change sector the ships are respawned with up to date attributes. So what I mean is, the ships are supposed to look like what they do after you've moved sector

- apologies if you like the fire effect lol!

Your osprey pictures.. they look the same to me?

The pirate centaur, split chimera and paranid hyperion - you're right on all counts. The Marauder isn't supposed to have that trail either, it was the one XTM used for the M7 Pirate Reaver - on which it looked quite quite epic. But it's a tad silly for an M6

I'll have that lot fixed in the next version - thanks for pointing it all out! Very helpful

The extra raider variant effects were actually hansi's idea, and he placed the emitters - I don't want to claim his credit!

Having this in the library could be cool actually, I'll look into it.

Martox29a · Post by **Martox29a** » Wed, 12. May 10, 17:52

Algoran wrote:About the fast ships, do you mean the way when you corner the trail goes all kindof... zig-zaggy? That's an engine limitation I believe, can't do anything about it I'm afraid.

No i mean when you reach a certain speed all particles collapse in a single point.

Here a screen:
497 m/s
[ external image ]
514 m/s
[ external image ]
No cornering.

However it's a minor issue, you don't see much ships going a that speed, and people don't usually drive kestrels in external view.
I agree it's an engine limitation since all other trail mods have the same problem as far as i know (but your mod is absolutely superior in many ways).

connary · Post by **connary** » Wed, 12. May 10, 20:36

Algoran wrote:Alright well here we go, just for you :

Engine Effects 1.3 (No TS effects)

Engine Effects 1.3 (No TS effects, Cmod 1.03 compatible)

Removed the new engine textures for TS/TM/TP/M8.

I might have a look at the argon trails. The flare textures I very much doubt I can change whatever it is, they were made by egosoft and I don't know how to edit them - not for lack of trying.

And thankyou

Do you know exactly which textures need to be modified to change the flares? If yes i can try to make a high res version.

Familiar · Post by **Familiar** » Wed, 12. May 10, 21:48

Alright so first, those firey teladi trails - they are not supposed to look like that!

?

?
1.3 with TP TS effects don't have fire trail on teladi
1.3 without TP TS effects have fire trail on teladi before entering any warp gate
Both I used as fake patch
What I use in my game:
11 cmod ui
12 cmod3 1.01
13 drafut fixes
14 immersion background and lightning mod
15 no civils basic
16 Engine Effects 1.3 (No TS effects, Cmod 1.03 compatible)

and some scripts... not much
Anyway I will not miss this fire effect.

I had enough fun with it already. I thought it kinda a joke from modder

After my words of powerful engine and nostrop oil

It looks awesome on screenshot, but odd in motion.

As for telady osprey effect (idiom like butterfly effect ?

)
May be you will see difference on Perseus :
This one is from new game
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 1986968610
This one from saved game
http://picasaweb.google.ru/101041079651 ... 8105577138
Take a closer look on blue circle area around engine emitter
On first picture you can see smooth gradient color fill
On second this circle seems like low res or compresed texture or may be 16 bit color or whatever.

Algoran · Post by **Algoran** » Thu, 13. May 10, 02:55

Martox29a wrote: No i mean when you reach a certain speed all particles collapse in a single point.

Ah right, yes that is another engine limitation. I didn't realize there was any ship fast enough to show it without overtuning though lol.

connary wrote: Do you know exactly which textures need to be modified to change the flares? If yes i can try to make a high res version.

Unfortunately no, haven't been able to find them. I did find the textures for the long straight bit of the flare (as opposed to the circular bit) but turns out that was used for stars too - I wanted to change its colour, but it made stars look broken.

Anyway by the sounds of it the flare textures have mystically gotten better, so no problem!

@Familiar:

Ah found it, I made a mistake with just the no TS, Cmod version which you are using. Fixed and reuploaded! I did notice that both it and the normal cmod version have another issue though - Teladi fighter flares aren't showing up at all. Don't know why, have to work on it.

I see what you mean about the flare textures now. And I have noo idea why they have changed, I didn't do anything! But you're saying they're better now, right? So thats nice

Familiar · Post by **Familiar** » Thu, 13. May 10, 07:44

O'k I've spent all night trying to find out what causes this .... telady osprey effect.
What I did
Disabled Immersive and draffuts fix, no civilians mods just for shure
Used 1.3 for Cmod (both TS non TS editions):

Started new game (argon patriot) - flare looks ok save-load - ok
Warped to Seizwell - ok save-load ok
Warped to Inamus Zura - ok save-load - flare became crappy....
Load before that save - flare's ok.
Jump to Loon...... Legacy ok save-load flare became crappy.... WTF...
Load before that, jump to Loon...... Legacy and back to Omicron Lyrae save-load - OK!!!
So, flare get broken when saving at some sectors.
First I thought it all with teladi ships (as they don't have flare at all or have fire trail - something messed with effect I suppose?), but Seizwell did not corrupted it.
Very strange indeed. Drives me crazy

This crappy flares I saw when I installed mod first time and did not wanted to use your mod. Needs more testing anyway.

As for fire trails bug

- this fire effect looks similar as cmod3 bomb launcher

Algoran · Post by **Algoran** » Thu, 13. May 10, 07:57

Well that is totally weird. No idea why it would happen!

And yes, that's exactly what it was

Cmod adds that effect into the slot I was using for the teladi fighter flares, and in your version I forgot to change the effect reference for the teladi fighters to the new slot.

Familiar · Post by **Familiar** » Thu, 13. May 10, 08:25

Unfortunately no, haven't been able to find them. I did find the textures for the long straight bit of the flare (as opposed to the circular bit) but turns out that was used for stars too - I wanted to change its color, but it made stars look broken.

If circle flare are related to stars, may be that causes corruption after saving at some sectors... or what...
Can you check flares in your game have this habit to become crappy?
The same way I tested. You will need only 5 minutes and cycrow cheat pack.

Today I'll make fresh new install of x3tc and only your mod to make sure nothing messes up.

Algoran · Post by **Algoran** » Thu, 13. May 10, 14:54

Yea did it just now, I found the same thing you did. Consistent too, I jumped to IZ and saved/loaded twice, and the flares went pixelated both times. Pretty crazy, but I don't think it's that big of a deal - I never noticed the low res flares till you pointed them out

Familiar · Post by **Familiar** » Thu, 13. May 10, 15:50

So it's bug indeed.
Looks awful, especially in dark sectors.
Eliminate that eye candy effect that mod gives.
Any ideas how to fix that?

Algoran · Post by **Algoran** » Thu, 13. May 10, 15:52

Really no idea, I'm afraid

cnecktor · Post by **cnecktor** » Fri, 14. May 10, 02:32

I couldn't really get this going in my game ,not sure if its the mod or not, but I don't think its you mod just strange thing happening with my game. I wonder would this work on x3 reunion?

Algoran · Post by **Algoran** » Fri, 14. May 10, 03:06

Hmm well can you give me any more detail about what's not working?

And no it won't work for Reunion, if it doesn't just crash some very screwy things would happen. It uses all the TC files, Reunion ones will be different

Familiar · Post by **Familiar** » Fri, 14. May 10, 05:36

Algoran,

One more thing I've noticed - removing your mod make save impossible to load - game crashes to windows.

Can you explain how this flare works - you just check box for each ship to use flare and what color and size in editor? Can diameter be adjusted ?

Don't make sense - looks like the game stores in saves some info that tells engine - "hey, that guy had back luck to save in Acquisition Repository sector. make his flare crappy from now and forever

"

another engine bug or what ?
I'll try to test out killerog's flares in same way. it is harder to notice in his mod because diameter of flares is smaller. Meanwhile, no offense I mean, but his trails crappy it self

cnecktor · Post by **cnecktor** » Fri, 14. May 10, 16:03

That too bad it wont work in x3r would be cool. The problem I'm having is when I enter some jump gate and come out the other side I get one fps but I don't really think it's from your mod. I'm not sure why this happens.

Familiar · Post by **Familiar** » Sun, 16. May 10, 00:19

Algoran,

I've managed to find out this bug (crappy flares) don't last forever.
If you load then in "right sector" (argon prime for example) then flares goes ok again.
So, I agree, it is minor bug.
Also all flairs in game are affected. Even without mod, missiles for example...
Also I took a look at x3 editor and all my question about how to modify flares have gone.

Have you looked at SRM mod? It should improve gameplay great .Now I'm thinking of it, but can't stop using your trails....

SRM has merged version of killerog's trails, reworked to be better. Anyway your trails is more impressive.
Also strange thing - when I tried load SRM and your mod together (which is kinda no point to do, because your mod overrides tships and so on) I could save\load in Inama Zura and did not get crappy flares...
Which is very, very strange.

Anyway, I hope there will be updates of such cool mod!

Algoran · Post by **Algoran** » Mon, 17. May 10, 07:33

Familiar wrote:Algoran,

One more thing I've noticed - removing your mod make save impossible to load - game crashes to windows.

Yea that's due to changes to the scene files of pre-existing ships I believe, if you make the save when you're in a spacesuit in an empty sector it will be fine. Obviously that's a bit of trouble to go to; being in a spacesuit looking away from all other ships or even simply being in a ship which isn't changed by this mod might be sufficient, I'm not sure.

Good you've had a play with the editor too. All I know how to change with the flares is size, I'm afraid. Colour has thus far eluded me

Oh and I manged to make some of them look totally spazz, however that wasn't very helpful..

cnecktor wrote:That too bad it wont work in x3r would be cool. The problem I'm having is when I enter some jump gate and come out the other side I get one fps but I don't really think it's from your mod. I'm not sure why this happens.

Yea I doubt it is this mod.. you can just try removing mods one at a time till the problem goes away.

Familiar · Post by **Familiar** » Mon, 17. May 10, 10:04

@Algoran

Hope you don't mind,

, I asked paulwheeler to adapt your cool engines to SRM.
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... &start=450

His rebalance really improves game.
It's mandatory, like cmod3

Algoran · Post by **Algoran** » Mon, 17. May 10, 11:40

Don't mind at all

Perhaps I will take a look at it.. although I havn't actually played x3 for a while now.

I just finished adding trails to all the bombers, which will be in the next version. Thought you might be interested to hear that, lol.