Long SAM Smoke Trail Effect won't work this time...?

[+malibu43 142]

I downloaded the Large Sam Smoke Trail Effect 2.0 (from combat ace) a long time ago, and installed it when I had just WOE. I'm pretty sure that it worked the way I thought it would, and I had long visible sam smoke trails that made it much easier to identify and evade SAMs. I also had Dueces Effects installed.

 

I reinstalled WOE after I got WOV, merged the two, and added Dueces effects pack. The SAM trails were back to being none existent after the boost phase. After initial launch and boost, it was impossible to see the missile or it's exhaust trail. I downloaded the SAM smoke trail effect 2.0 again and installed it as instructed, but now I'm not seeing any difference at all. The instuctions just state to drop the particlesystem.ini file into the flight folder. I did so and saw no change.

 

For what it's worth, the instructions say to back up the original particlesystem.ini, however, my flight folder didn't have a particlesystem.ini file in there to start with...

 

Did I miss something? Does anyone know what I did wrong?

 

Thanks!

[+Dave 2,322]

Do an unmerged install and see if the problem persists. I got a feeling it does with a merged one.

[Canadair 16]

I got crazy about this one. I think I know your problem.

Check in yuor effect folder an effect named chimneysmoke, or something like that; I think it is namd smokestackeffect

In my case this effect was making a call to sam trail texture and materials and causing the bad effect youseem to describe.

Probably we have the same bad version: simply remove the smokestackeffect; you won't have chimney smoke but sams will b okei

Le me know

[+malibu43 142]

Ok. There's good news and bad news.

 

Good News: I got it to work.

 

Bad News: I still don't know what the cause of the problem was, and I was a little late to work from too much fiddling around.

 

I started by trying Canadair's suggestion. I did not find any chimney smoke effect. The closest thing I found was coolingtower effect. I removed it and didn't really see any change.

 

So then I went after the merged/not merged theory. I did a clean install of WOV and patched it up. I then added just the SAM smoke trail effect. It worked pretty much like it should have; nice long visible smoke trails that hung in the air. There was this weired issue with some little smoke puffs shooting out to the side just after launch. It's hard to describe w/o a screen shot. But for the most part everything was alright.

 

I then added Dueces effects. The problem with the little smoke puffs shooting out at an angle went away, and now I had the nice big launch clouds as well. The SAM smoke trail got noticeably thinner, though.

 

Then I added the weapons pack. The only change now was that the smoke trail did not hang in the air as long. This resulted in the SAM looking like a "snake" moving through the air. The smoke trail was basically much shorter and the end was "chasing" the missle. Again, a screen shot would have been a good idea, but hopefully you get the point. But for the most part, I'm OK with the end result here: I've got the weapons pack and effects pack, and the SAM's have a somewhat visible (but short) smoke trail to make them easier to identify.

 

So after all this, I repeated the process with a clean install of WOE. Patched it up and installed the 3 different add-ons in the order listed above. I got the same results. At this point, I was thinking it was going to be a problem caused by the merge.

 

So I installed WOE again and merged this time. I repeated the add on process. However, everything worked as expected. So it is not a problem with a merged install.

 

I originally had a couple aircraft added, two add-on terrains, and some different sky tiles installed. It's possible that one of the terrains had some effects that came with it that may have caused the issue. I think both the ANW and Desert I had installed had some factorys that may have used some smoke effects that could have messed it up. But honestly, I don't really need the terrain, and I don't feel like reinstalling if it screws up again, so I'm not going to experiment with that...for now.

 

The only other thing I could think of, is that this time, when I merged, I merged WOE with a copy of WOV that already had the add-ons installed. I don't think the merge copies effects or weapons, so it shouldn't matter. But it's something I did differently, so I thought I should mention it.

 

USAFMTL - do you know why installing the weapons pack would result in shorter smoke trails? Is there any easy way to fix that?

 

Anyways, thanks for the help and suggestions...and for reading this long post if you made it this far. If anyone else has any ideas, they are more than welcome.

 

Thanks!

 

Gregg

[+Dave 2,322]

Ok. There's good news and bad news.

 

Good News: I got it to work.

 

Bad News: I still don't know what the cause of the problem was, and I was a little late to work from too much fiddling around.

 

I started by trying Canadair's suggestion. I did not find any chimney smoke effect. The closest thing I found was coolingtower effect. I removed it and didn't really see any change.

 

So then I went after the merged/not merged theory. I did a clean install of WOV and patched it up. I then added just the SAM smoke trail effect. It worked pretty much like it should have; nice long visible smoke trails that hung in the air. There was this weired issue with some little smoke puffs shooting out to the side just after launch. It's hard to describe w/o a screen shot. But for the most part everything was alright.

 

I then added Dueces effects. The problem with the little smoke puffs shooting out at an angle went away, and now I had the nice big launch clouds as well. The SAM smoke trail got noticeably thinner, though.

 

Then I added the weapons pack. The only change now was that the smoke trail did not hang in the air as long. This resulted in the SAM looking like a "snake" moving through the air. The smoke trail was basically much shorter and the end was "chasing" the missle. Again, a screen shot would have been a good idea, but hopefully you get the point. But for the most part, I'm OK with the end result here: I've got the weapons pack and effects pack, and the SAM's have a somewhat visible (but short) smoke trail to make them easier to identify.

 

So after all this, I repeated the process with a clean install of WOE. Patched it up and installed the 3 different add-ons in the order listed above. I got the same results. At this point, I was thinking it was going to be a problem caused by the merge.

 

So I installed WOE again and merged this time. I repeated the add on process. However, everything worked as expected. So it is not a problem with a merged install.

 

I originally had a couple aircraft added, two add-on terrains, and some different sky tiles installed. It's possible that one of the terrains had some effects that came with it that may have caused the issue. I think both the ANW and Desert I had installed had some factorys that may have used some smoke effects that could have messed it up. But honestly, I don't really need the terrain, and I don't feel like reinstalling if it screws up again, so I'm not going to experiment with that...for now.

 

The only other thing I could think of, is that this time, when I merged, I merged WOE with a copy of WOV that already had the add-ons installed. I don't think the merge copies effects or weapons, so it shouldn't matter. But it's something I did differently, so I thought I should mention it.

 

USAFMTL - do you know why installing the weapons pack would result in shorter smoke trails? Is there any easy way to fix that?

 

Anyways, thanks for the help and suggestions...and for reading this long post if you made it this far. If anyone else has any ideas, they are more than welcome.

 

Thanks!

 

Gregg

Gregg the weps pack comes with its own effects. I would install the smoke trails after the weps pack is installed.

[+malibu43 142]

Gregg the weps pack comes with its own effects. I would install the smoke trails after the weps pack is installed.

 

The smoke trails installation only consists of dropping "particlesystems.ini" into the flight folder. That file is still there after installing the weapons pack.

 

I'm not familiar enough with the way the effects work to understand how ot override what was installed with the weps pack with the smoke trails add-on. If there's an easy fix, that's great. If not, then I'll just live with it.

 

I appreciate your help.

 

Thanks!