Want to see your tracers and smoke trails better?

[+Winder 32]

Good work, Winston, looking forward to trying the Effects.xml file changes this weekend, I didn't even know there were entries there for the tracers and I can't believe we didn't think of that..

Excellent, and thanks for the effort!

 

 

Lol Rabu - 'we did' and they are modified!

Compare the OFF effects file to the CFS3 one.....

 

Best

 

WM

[Bullethead 12]

the frontview i made lot smaller and also grey, so there are no more tennisballs but some smokepuffs instead.

i would like to compare my version with winston's version.

 

The overall effect of this mod is quite excellent! Great work and thanks :).

 

However, the above quote is a nit I feel the need to pick at. I'm sure we've all read memoirs or heard stories where the narrator described incoming tracer as the size of tennis balls. I used to think that was just exaggeration used as a way to convey the pucker factor of being shot at. However, that was before I went off to war myself and had quite a few tracers whiz by my head. And I saw that yes indeed, tracers look friggin' HUGE from the front.

 

Incoming rifle-caliber tracers are easily the size of tennis balls--bright, glowing, evil tennis balls. It's very strange, because they appear much larger from the front than from the sides or rear. The stock tracers in OFF conveyed that very well and looked quite realistic to me. With the mod, they look much better than before from the sides and back, but the front view is unfortunately not as realistic as it was before.

 

It's puzzled me for a long time as to why tracer looks so big from the front. After all, the actual burning bit isn't much bigger than a match head and the body of the bullet blocks your direct view of it. But it's certainly not psychological because I've had a few cases where I knew I wasn't the target but was just close to the line of fire, and they still looked as big as when they were shot at me. Besides, everybody who's seen the fronts of tracers always says the same thing, even though they all have different mental states and were affected differently by the experience.

 

So I did some poking around. It's not a subject that's drawn a lot of research, but what little I could find suggested that it was a perfectly natural, although seldom-seen, lighting effect. The bullet is travelling way faster than sound so has a shockwave coming off its nose. Shockwaves do strange things to the air, such as causing the water vapor to condense and re-evaporate nearly instantly. I'm sure you've seen photos of supersonic F-14s sticking out of cones of fog. Well, it's the same sort of thing here, only of course the fog cone is much smaller and less dense. But what happens is, the brightly burning tracer illuminates this cone of otherwise invisible fog from the inside, thereby exposing its extent. It's rather like how a lightbulb illuminates a lampshade.

 

Thus, from the front, you're looking through the shockwave towards the bullet, and the shock front is all lit up by the tracer. Hence, the tracer appears much larger than the bullet itself, about the size of a tennis ball. But from the sides and rear, you're just seeing the tracer element itself without the "lampshade effect", so it appears to be a small dot of light. Or at least, that's the best explanation I could find out there.

 

So anyway, if possible, it would be nice of tracers could keep their nice, new, beautiful smoke trails but go back to looking like tennis balls from the front :).

[Hasse Wind 46]

Great work! I think this should become official in a patch... (And I don't mean to say the current tracers look bad, the OFF team has done superb work with what they had in CFS3!)

[Creaghorn 10]

great research bullethead,

 

and it's sorry to hear you have experienced things like that in RL. it's easy to talk about kills and stuff like this with blood in the mouth, knowing it's only a game. real experience is different, which most of us don't have.

 

what i did in my frontview version is primarily eliminate the glowing effect. maybe i'm wrong, but IMHO only incendiary bullets had the flashlike look. so made the glow smaller and wanted to have only the bullet with the trail. the bullet itself is not too much smaller than original. just grey and mur smokelike.

there was a topic about tracer bullets some days ago, where i have posted some pics with my version (wich is again modified in the meantime). if you look some pages back you should find it and tell my your opinion.

 

i can't wait to try the new smoke settings of winston and rabu later :-).

[Bullethead 12]

and it's sorry to hear you have experienced things like that in RL.

 

I don't mind. The greatest feeling in the world is to be shot at and just missed. There's just no other sensation like it. Everybody should experience it, it's that good. And no harm done, because it missed you

 

what i did in my frontview version is primarily eliminate the glowing effect. maybe i'm wrong, but IMHO only incendiary bullets had the flashlike look.

 

The ones I've seen myself were mostly solid lead slugs (7.62mm), and they looked all big and bright. That's why I'm thinking it's the shockwave glowing like a lampshade, regardless of what's inside the bullet. I've also had some 12.7mm and 14mm come my way, and I'm sure some of those were either explosive or incendiary, but they all looked the same. They did, of course, look rather bigger than the rifle-caliber types, like the size of softballs or grapefruit, but all of them in the burst were the same size :yes: .

 

As I understand things, WW1 tracers were practically incendiary bullets anyway. Most of their lead filling was replaced by phosphorus exposed at the rear, which burned and created the light and the smoke trail. This made them lighter than ball rounds, which is why they flew differently and were thus only an approximate aiming guide. IIRC, an incendiary round was fully enclosed phosphorus that didn't burn to the target but relied on breaking up to expose and ignite the phosphorus. But if they did burn en route, they would have been pretty much indistinguishable from regular tracer.

[Hasse Wind 46]

As I understand things, WW1 tracers were practically incendiary bullets anyway. Most of their lead filling was replaced by phosphorus exposed at the rear, which burned and created the light and the smoke trail.

 

Magnesium was also used in WW1 tracer bullets. It burns with a very bright white flame and is therefore ideal for tracers.

[Bullethead 12]

Magnesium was also used in WW1 tracer bullets. It burns with a very bright white flame and is therefore ideal for tracers.

 

Didn't know they used magnesium back then. From what I gather, in WW1 they thought the smoke was more important than the light, and I believe phosphorus smokes better. Or maybe that was just a Brit thing. But even in WW2, Brit .303 tracer left very visible smoke trails, at a time when other folks' tracer was leaving little or none. It's my understanding that was a holdover from WW1.

[Winston DoRight 3]

Bullethead, my tracers and smoke mod are actually larger than what you get in the stock OFF settings.

 

From:

TracerLength="1.7" TracerWidth="1.7

TracerLength="2.5" TracerWidth="2.5"

 

To:

TracerLength="2.5" TracerWidth="2.5"

TracerLength="3.5" TracerWidth="3.5"

 

I would have made them bigger but there's a point where they look too big going away from your machine gun(s) that I had to back off a bit. I was getting the look that I had just fired a tennis ball sized projectile from a .30 cal barrel.

 

Don't confuse my mod with what Creaghorn has done with his, he made them smaller, I made them bigger; to match the bigger smoke trails. I think you'll find a much larger bullet coming at you now. But you can always go back if you want the smaller tracers and smoke trails. Actually I was going for visibility here and not realism. I wanted to see where the fire that hits me came from and got exactly the results I was going for.

 

Last night while playing I got suckered down low over the front by an enemy Ace that I just couldn't let go of. I was amazed at how the machine gun fire from the ground was much more visible. I originally only wanted to see my own smoke trails from the cockpit when making a long deflection shot to help out my wingmen. I got a much better result overall than what I set out to do.

 

OT, what are the color of the russian made small arms tracers these days? When I was in the military you had to duck the green meanies.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Is it me?...I am going NUTS trying to find the code I need to change in my XMl.... Reams and reams!...Can't find it anywhere!

[Cameljockey 3]

Start at the bottom and work your way up. It's closer to the bottom.

 

CJ

[Winston DoRight 3]

Use the "Find" function in the pull down menus of notepad. Search for tracersmoke. It'll take you right down to the 3 lines you need to change.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

easy when you know how!...thanks guys, found that in 10 seconds!

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Really good modification!..Very impressed!!!...well done guys

[rabu 9]

Lol Rabu - 'we did' and they are modified!

Compare the OFF effects file to the CFS3 one.....

 

Best

 

WM

 

 

 

Opps, sorry, guess I just forgot, but they've done some improvements, it looks like.. will try it out this weekend.

[HomeBoy 1]

I love this tracer mod! I don't even care if it's realistic or not. They look fantastic!

 

Thank you everyone who had a hand in producing these!

[AROTH 0]

Ahhh! I'm going blind! Approximately, where on the "effects.xml file" page is this located? I had it open the other night and found it, but cannot find it tonite for some reason.

[sitting_duck 3]

hi,

 

like the other post said,,,in notpad go to edit > find > and paste this in <Tracer_and_Smoke ClassName="TracerEffect" TracerLength="1.7 and hit find next...

 

just make sure you know EXACTLY what the line above what you are going to be deleting looks like, so if for any reason you loose your place in notepad before you go to paste the new text in, you know where to put it.

[AROTH 0]

Finally found it. I was on the right page in notepad the whole time, just staring at 3 billion lines of tiny text was straining my poor old eyes!

[AROTH 0]

Very nice effect. Subtle, but effective. Looks especially good during dawn or dusk or in a blue sky.

[Creaghorn 10]

wohhoo!

i just tried it and i'm really impressed. one can even see the trail from VC, which was the main problem all the time. I immediately threw my version out because yours is so much better.

 

very good job, winston!!! - - - - - - - - - - - - -...

[rabu 9]

To make this easier and take the strain off your eyes, do this, it's actually a lot easier then it appears at first:

 

Back up the effects.xml file in the main OFF folder

 

Open the file in Notepad

 

From the menu choose "Replace"

 

1. In the "Find What" slot type this exactly, or paste it in: TracerLength="2.5"
   
2. In the "Replace With" slot type this exaclty, or paste it in: TracerLength="3.5"
   
3. Click the "Find Next" button and then the "Replace" button as you find the one replacement incidence.
   
4. Edit the "Find What" TracerLength="2.5" and change it to TracerLength="1.7"
   
5. And edit the "Replace With" TracerLength="3.5" and change it to TracerLength="2.5"
   
6. Click the "Find Next" button and then the "Replace" button as you find the two replacement incidences, or if you feel adventures, simply click the "Replace All" button.
   
7. Next, you are going to change the TracerLength entries to TracerWidth entries
   
8. Now edit the "Find What" TracerLength="2.5" and change it to TracerWidth="2.5"
   
9. Edit the "Replace With" TracerLength="3.5" and change it to TracerWidth="3.5"
   
10. Run the replace, as in step 3
    
11. Now edit the "Find What" TracerWidth="3.5" and change it to TracerWidth="1.7"
    
12. Edit the "Replace With" TracerWidth="3.5" and change it to TracerWidth="2.5"
    
13. Run the replace, as in step 6
    

[Winston DoRight 3]

Rabu, actually more is changed in my mod. Smoke length and smoke width will have to be modified as well. Here's an idea, I don't know why I didn't think of this before as it's the only mod I've ever made to the effects.xml file, here's a effects.xml file that's already modified you can download and use as a replacement for your original file. Make sure you backup your original before placing this one in your OFF folder.

 

Don't forget you still need rabu's modified tracers and smoke AND rabu's latest tracersmoke4.dds file.

Edited April 17, 2009 by Winston DoRight

[frog 0]

Just to help you all, I've created a small program (OFFTracers) to easily modify effects.xml file.

Also included modified dds files for easy installation - can also revert to original dds file.

As a side note I use MS XMLNotepad to view and edit xml files

Available here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

[Bullethead 12]

Just to help you all, I've created a small program (OFFTracers) to easily modify effects.xml file.

 

Thanks, man! I don't know how the rest of us would survive without geeks who have both time on their hands and similar interests

 

EDIT: BTW, where can I find this marvelous program?

Edited April 17, 2009 by Bullethead

[frog 0]

Downloads (at top of page)\Flanders Fields\Modding tools