VBS2 Style Afterburners

[nzdfcrash 33]

I believe this effect can be done in a2/oa by linking it to the model config but i am not too sure how this is done via the model or model config. Am hoping someone has knowhow about creating this in a2/oa.

Effect that is desired is similar to this.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

[[aps]gnat 28]

Bit hard to see whats actually going on there .....

It looks like an effect a few mod'ers have used. Its a cone shape(s) thats been textured with a semi transparent texture. Its then animated, size and length, by virtue of "engine revs" and "afterburner on"

Unfortunately "Engine Revs" is a little buggy in A2OA, but still usable.

One of the more difficult things from memory is lumination. i.e. getting it to be a large flare at night. Can probably be done with either a texture/surface to emits light ot by hide/unhide some light source points.

[[frl]myke 14]

I have a similar engine effect on the F-16. It uses a cone as described by Gnat with several "stages". The model.cfg class animations looks like this:

		class engineflame_base {
			type="translation";
			source="user";
			animPeriod=0.1;
			selection="engine_flame_base";
			begin = "axis_point_engine_flame_base";
			end = "axis_point_engine_flame_end";
			memory=1;
			minValue=0;
			maxValue=2;
			offset0=0;
			offset1=0.001;
		};
		class engineflame_stage1: engineflame_base {selection="engine_flame_stage1";offset1=0.25;};
		class engineflame_stage2: engineflame_base {selection="engine_flame_stage2";offset1=0.5;};
		class engineflame_stage3: engineflame_base {selection="engine_flame_stage3";offset1=0.75;};
		class engineflame_end: engineflame_base {selection="engine_flame_end";offset1=1;};

and the scriptcode to animate it looks like this:

{_plane animate [_x, (0.4 + (((inputAction "HeliUp") + (inputAction "HeliThrottlePos")) * (0.75 + (random 0.05))))]} foreach ["engineflame_base", "engineflame_stage1", "engineflame_stage2", "engineflame_stage3", "engineflame_end"];

As you can see, i've linked it to throttle input and not on any plane data (like i.e. rpm). Also there is a small random modifier to make it look less static.

You can see here how it looks like:

p9hNpe5kgSU

The glow is made by the rvmat file:

emmisive[] = {1, 1, 1, 0.5};

[nzdfcrash 33]

Sorry but to demonstrate my general no0bishness with animations how would one enable the scriptcode to enable the ABs if you do that via the model config?

[[aps]gnat 28]

Well, one way would be in Mykes example, the flame is extended between 2 points;

axis_point_engine_flame_base

axis_point_engine_flame_end

Easy way I suspect;

Do another TRANSLATION animation driven by USER animation.

So if the "end" point was beside the "base" point, there'd be no flame.

Animate the end point back to the base location when "Afterburners Off"

[[frl]myke 14]

Well, the very start is a cylinder with several segments like this

On this cylinder, select one ring of points and create a named selection

The rest is a simple translation animation along it's longitudal axis. As each selection can be animated separately you can easily create this pulsating effect like the script snippet does.

I'm sorry, i can't describe it better as myself had a lot of trial and error before i got it working and i really can't remember any single step.

Last thing i know is, after texturing and assigning named selections, i've selected all points and then flattened the points so it transformed from a cylinder to a disc. This way it can remain burried in the planes shape when anims are set to zero. So initial position is disclike and the animations "stretches it to the tube form.

I'm really sorry i can't be of more help as i really just made it once and had a lot of trial&error to do.