[Request] Can anyone fix the FireFXMod?

[Max Bain]

With the actual game version the FireFxMod is broken. The fire effects do still work, but when you use the mod, S ships dont explode properly anymore.

The effects of this mod are outstanding. If a module got destroyed, it smokes a lot and burns and looks just so immersive. Because this game does not have a proper damage indicator, the smoking modules are a perfect addition.
It would be a shame if this mod wont be fixed.

Here is the link to the mod on Nexus:
https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/307

Anyone who knows more about X4 modding than me is required

[Angsaar]

A revamp is in the works, with better shader and all (dark smoke like in XR again, had to separate it from X4 smoke changes). The fires are back to WIP though, but I could do a quick release with a compromise if you don't mind.

It's actually really simple stuff but I've been away on XR these days, with the 3.0 changes to FX stuff likely breaking the mod again I decided to skip the middle patches.

A VRO patch should be the next thing I'll look into.

Edit: you can try leaving only the fire01 and fire02 entries in Materiallibrary.xml (I think) and the explosions might go back to normal, I think I edited them in an inelegant way when adding the up-sampled texture paths

[Max Bain]

A revamp is in the works, with better shader and all (dark smoke like in XR again, had to separate it from X4 smoke changes). The fires are back to WIP though, but I could do a quick release with a compromise if you don't mind.

It's actually really simple stuff but I've been away on XR these days, with the 3.0 changes to FX stuff likely breaking the mod again I decided to skip the middle patches.

A VRO patch should be the next thing I'll look into.

Edit: you can try leaving only the fire01 and fire02 entries in Materiallibrary.xml (I think) and the explosions might go back to normal, I think I edited them in an inelegant way when adding the up-sampled texture paths

Thank you so much! It works.

I also tested it with the VRO mod (including the FireFx VRO fix) and I had no problems so far. At least the smoke and fire effects worked and the small ship explosions looked like vanilla explosions (as expected). Whats the problem with VRO?

Btw, this mod in combination with the XR explosion effect mod is awesome! Take the best parts of XR and the best parts of X4 and yeah this game rocks!

[Angsaar]

Whats the problem with VRO?

Btw, this mod in combination with the XR explosion effect mod is awesome! Take the best parts of XR and the best parts of X4 and yeah this game rocks!

No problem as of now, but the next release might change a few vanilla fx ID's for tagged copies (something like fire01_an) so I don't replace anything vanilla where possible, that should avoid most issues with future patches. And I don't know yet what goodies VRO 2.0 will bring, I'm thinking of handpicking a few effects so surface components have more variety in explosions, like I did adding electric arc effects to exploding shields. Some effects might throw out debris, things like that.

True, X4 with the XR effects, a certain person's XR Ships mod and VRO makes for a very sweet experience!

I'm excited to see how 3.0 will turn out!

I'll be taking a look at sun lens flares for a mod I'm making for XR, might translate that to X4 too. Is there any sector's sun you dislike the current effects?

I have a hard time dealing with excess brightness, sounds crazy but the Albion flare gives me sneezes! heheh

[Max Bain]

Whats the problem with VRO?

Btw, this mod in combination with the XR explosion effect mod is awesome! Take the best parts of XR and the best parts of X4 and yeah this game rocks!

No problem as of now, but the next release might change a few vanilla fx ID's for tagged copies (something like fire01_an) so I don't replace anything vanilla where possible, that should avoid most issues with future patches. And I don't know yet what goodies VRO 2.0 will bring, I'm thinking of handpicking a few effects so surface components have more variety in explosions, like I did adding electric arc effects to exploding shields. Some effects might throw out debris, things like that.

True, X4 with the XR effects, a certain person's XR Ships mod and VRO makes for a very sweet experience!

I'm excited to see how 3.0 will turn out!

I'll be taking a look at sun lens flares for a mod I'm making for XR, might translate that to X4 too. Is there any sector's sun you dislike the current effects?

I have a hard time dealing with excess brightness, sounds crazy but the Albion flare gives me sneezes! heheh

Sounds great!

I must admit that so far I havent really played X4. I am just trying things out and mod things in. So far I am waiting for the 3.0 release with the new missions before I start my first real game. I hope that this will come before christmas because of 14 days of free play time .
So I can not name you a system with an effect I dislike.
What I dislike are a lot of the small impact effects of some projectiles...

[Angsaar]

What I dislike are a lot of the small impact effects of some projectiles...

That's another thing I intend to take a bit of a look into, I'm considering taking out the impact smoke in particular from high RoF weapons, that could ease a little the toll on performance during intense fights. Might take some time to look into aesthetics of them along with it.

[Shuulo]

you can get VRO 2.0 here, just rename the folder to VRO instead of VRO-master and delete md folder, its only for debug. Its already in release candidate state, except some texts, ui things and a bit of balance (still testing a bunch of scenarios). Be warned that new game may be needed, I still didnt get to the point of creating patching MDs.
I added few lens effects to projectiles of new weapons, but im a bit confused about all the parameters for them, so it was mostly trial-and-error approach, I will be so happy if you know a bit about lense effects and if you are willing to share your knowledge.
Pity that adding trail effect to projectiles does not work, though it did in XR as I see from files

[Angsaar]

you can get VRO 2.0 here, just rename the folder to VRO instead of VRO-master and delete md folder, its only for debug. Its already in release candidate state, except some texts, ui things and a bit of balance (still testing a bunch of scenarios). Be warned that new game may be needed, I still didnt get to the point of creating patching MDs.
I added few lens effects to projectiles of new weapons, but im a bit confused about all the parameters for them, so it was mostly trial-and-error approach, I will be so happy if you know a bit about lense effects and if you are willing to share your knowledge.
Pity that adding trail effect to projectiles does not work, though it did in XR as I see from files

Sweet, an early holiday present! I'll try to get a RC out these days too.

It's great to know you are working on projectile lens effects, I'm looking forward to seeing what you have in store! Beams and sometimes extreme RoF weapons 'en masse' have a tendency to bloat the image out, kind of frustrating after the hours I've put into the Reshade I'm working on.

True, some settings like the LOD pixel size can be less than intuitive without knowing their inner workings, any particular ones giving you trouble?

[Shuulo]

Well, i just want to understand what each parameter means:

Code: Select all

inviewvariation="50" inviewduration="3" blendorder="behind" shinebehind="1" distancefactor="100" distancescale="linear" rotation="0" fadeangle="0" r2dtype="static" active="1" glow="1" facecamera="1"

Its not that obvious ) like, how I make lenseeffect to fade out if the camera is more than 10 km from it?

[Angsaar]

I haven't played around with most yet, but I'd assume you can achieve a desirable result with a mix of

distancefactor= // I'm assuming it's how many distance units to start drop-off. Suns have a very large value, so could be both distance to start drop-off and distance to finish fading.
and
distancescale= // I'm assuming linear means x:y drop-off and quadratic x:y² (linear or exponential drop) or something like it.


Conjecture:

rotation= // Rotate texture (x90º maybe)?

position= // Distance from source to screen center? '1' seems to be on source, negative seems to be opposite side of screen center (like classic sun reflections lined up on center axis)

fadeangle= // Effect fades when source off screen centre?

blendorder= // Some glow effects like the round blue engine ones need to be placed behind the object?

inviewduration= // Time to fade in/out when source drawn screen?

inviewvariation= // How much the effect fades? Percentage of size or strength?

glow= // Brightness threshold to trigger fx? Or allow triggering of bloom?

Edit: rewriting of thoughts on distancefactor and distancescale

[Shuulo]

Thanks, this makes it a bit more clear, ill play with some values.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

I miss this mod
I want to check out this XR explosions mod in X4 tho

[Max Bain]

I miss this mod
I want to check out this XR explosions mod in X4 tho

Just fix it like Angsaar said and it works like a dream. No magic is needed here

[Angsaar]

Temporary update being uploaded to Nexus

No new effects, but has better fire/smoke lighting and doesn't break 3.0b effects.

[Max Bain]

Temporary update being uploaded to Nexus

No new effects, but has better fire/smoke lighting and doesn't break 3.0b effects.

Works like a dream .

Btw something that would be a cool addition would be when ships would start with some minor explosions when the Hull got really damaged. So lets say when you have 25% Hull, some small explosions appear and maybe some more at 10% before the final explosion appears at 0%. But I think this is more for the XR Effects mod?

[Angsaar]

Works like a dream .

Btw something that would be a cool addition would be when ships would start with some minor explosions when the Hull got really damaged. So lets say when you have 25% Hull, some small explosions appear and maybe some more at 10% before the final explosion appears at 0%. But I think this is more for the XR Effects mod?

Great to hear!

I'm not sure how main body pre-destruction effects could be implemented, but it's possible something with 3.0b could be used if the new random small explosions can be triggered sooner. I'll check if the damage effect system can be extrapolated beyond surface components, they do have multiple stages of damage effects (something like 50%/30%/15%) but their hp is so miserably low that the first two just don't have time to trigger. It should be [grey smoke>dark smoke>dark smoke + fire] I think.

Edit: I tested one of these new small explosions with the surface components but their height needs to be adjusted or most of the effect happens below the hull (the smoke and fire currently start below the actual model too)

[Buzz2005]

the effects stay after the ship is destroyed, ex a K, his XL shield surface elements still give those flames on wrecks

and they look awfull , maybe less upscale?

[Angsaar]

the effects stay after the ship is destroyed, ex a K, his XL shield surface elements still give those flames on wrecks

and they look awfull , maybe less upscale?

I might have increased fx times at some point during testing and forgotten about it, my bad!

The ugliness I think it's not a texture up-scaling issue because it was there as soon as I restored the effect, before I even found where the textures were, it was just as ugly but in lower resolution

Some things didn't fit well in the porting (new model sizes for some surface components might be a part of it and related unused X4 textures were missing pixels and other such "damage" compared to their XR counterparts) so they'll need fixing at some point, but the frequent patching and news they were working on new FX didn't really encourage me working further on re-scaling and re-texturing what could change overnight.

That and I'm a lazy person.

Edit: And current release is just a quick and dirty edit for compatibility removing a bunch of things I changed, lacks a couple of fixes too

[Max Bain]

Can we expect a fix before christmas?

Or can you tell us what we need to change?

[Angsaar]

Can we expect a fix before christmas?

Or can you tell us what we need to change?

The effect time and scale is really easy, just nine effects:

On 'firefx_mod\libraries\effects.xml' replace each duration="time-in-seconds" and minscale="X.0" maxscale="X.0" by something you find sensible. If you can share what values looked good I'll be very grateful!

Many components I haven't been able to test yet to get a one-size-fits-all for every effect, with original XR values some effects look gargantuan (sefx_damage_s I've used used for M components, sefx_damage_m for L components and sefx_damage_L for XL components, still looked big. XL effects might need replacement to look good)

If you can set up a couple of screenshots of the most offending effects with a few thoughts on what could be improved (texture/scale/etc) on something like imgur or Steam I'll try making a quick fix re-scaling or re-texturing today/tomorrow.

The main update might take a few more days for me to make sure is working fine, it has significant code and ID changes and very prone to mistakes on my part (I have an elderly lady to care for and a nephew over on holiday, it's been kind of hard to keep track of all the bits and pieces to write on one go) but I'll see about getting a beta up if you'd like to check it out, certainly before christmas.