Blastcore: Phoenix 2

[mr_centipede 31]

It's really good so far,

For the smoke screen effect, I tend to agree that it's too much. vanilla got it right. Another thing that I think vanilla got it right is the MBT main gun firing effect...

[Antorugby 2]

At night it's so beautiful.

You did a great Job, thank you so much for this, BRAVO!

Inviato dal mio GT-I9300 utilizzando Tapatalk

[Greenfist 1863]

Is it normal that rocket lights stutter/don't move on every frame?

video

This was recorded at around 40 fps then slowed down to 20. You can see the difference between rockets and the MG tracers.

The effect is still very visible even at 70 fps.

And no explosions on rocket impact? :confused: Destroyed vehicles work and look amazing though.

[Zorg_DK 10]

awesome from what i've seen so far. like the bigger smoke grenades, and mlrs.

great job, and thanks. :D

[fennecus 10]

Hi Opticalsnare,

i like that someone in the community focusses on improving the vanilla effects. I prefer changes that make the effects more realistic and give the gameplay a more authentic feeling. Your mod seems to focus more on "hoolywood-effects". Nevertheless i am interested in your mod and like to help you improving it. Subsequently a bug list and some suggestions for improvements.

I like the shell ejection on the AA-tanks, but like somebody else already mentioned, it ejects 3 shells for every shot. Besides that the ejection path should be more to the sides and the back of the turret like its indicated in the screenshot (video reference:

):

Furthermore you should get rid of the "explosion effect" tagged in the next screen. It doesn't look good and is unnecessary as the effect already looks great without it as you can see in the previous screenshot. Beyond that the muzzle flash of the AA-gun in first person view can lead to epileptic shock and headaches.

You already pointed out that you will tweak the tank cannon effect in the near future. I hope you will fix the bad flame effect which looks very pixelated. The HE-explosion effect should be over-worked too, the vanilla one looks much better. Yours is very small and doesn't look very impressive.

Most of your explosion effects are too bright in my opinion and the greenish/yelloish tint they have were also mentioned in this thread before. In addition to that i suggest to make the light effect a split second longer so that its still visible while the explosion sprite shows up. The red arrows indicate the area that isn't lit up but should be.

After your explosion sprite vanishes the spark effects kick in. Make them a small light source if possible. Otherwise you might be able to fake it by just letting the previous light effect mentioned in the screen above last a little bit longer but with a greatly reduced radius.

Your smoke screen effect is far better than the vanilla one but should last much longer and be directional.

The dust kicked up by a handgranade is too white in my opinion. It should be more ground colored.

Flares are only white points and don't generate very much smoke. In its current state the vanilla flares look better in my opinion.

I like the amount of debris that fly through the air when a vehicle explodes but the burning parts (green arrow) are too bouncy. The smoke could be more black (blue arrow) and the fire/explosion effect (red arrow) i don't like at all. I prefer dusty/smoky explosions. Besides that the high smoke columns greated by burning vehicles are great but currently only seem to work with tank wracks. While we are on tanks, the secondary explosions from the tank wracks are only white smoke. I am sure you can come up with something more interesting in the future. Your best bet would be to do something like this:

.

Your rocket artillery looks really great. Some improvements though: The smoke could be less white and it should kick up a lot of dust behind the launcher (red arrows).

My two cents regarding smoke grenades:

Don't touch them. There are to many gameplay problems in terms of AI and player visibility.

That's it for the moment. I hope that my post helps you improving your mod and don't get depressed by hearing that much criticism.

Edited December 21, 2013 by Fennecus

[Flens 10]

What's up with the bizarro yellow tint to all fire/explosions?

[PTV-Jobo 820]

Concerning smoke grenades and saying BIS has them accurate...I disagree to an extent:

Maybe if they upped the particles a bit more or at least increased the time before it disappears instead of this quick dust-fart and vanish thing. I think OS's choice is better, but might need to tone down slightly.

I will also chime in on the slightly over-powerful yellow tint that tends to take away compared to BIS's color pallet in A3. However overall, quite impressed with OS's work and would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him.

Awesome job, mate. Hope you and yours have an excellent holidays and a healthy and successful New Year. :)

[spectrersg 9]

OS, I love this. Always have. But as stated before, I feel all explosions are too yellowish.

The only thing I'd like to bring up is please please please, do something with the miniguns. Stock looks horrible, and I don't believe you did anything to them. We need some barrel sparks and some impact sparks. Something to get rid of this weak laser beam stuff.

[RogerDodger 10]

OS, do you and Jarhead realize what you've done? You two have completely transformed the Arma 3 game. Other mod makers have added some really nice terrain, units, weapons, etc, but you too have changed the game in such a fundamental way that going back to vanilla sounds and vanilla effects is out of the question. I tip my hat and give a very sincere and heartfelt thank you to the both of you. Well done.

[Flens 10]

OS, do you and Jarhead realize what you've done? You two have completely transformed the Arma 3 game. Other mod makers have added some really nice terrain, units, weapons, etc, but you too have changed the game in such a fundamental way that going back to vanilla sounds and vanilla effects is out of the question. I tip my hat and give a very sincere and heartfelt thank you to the both of you. Well done.

*tips fedora*

[TheCrusader 10]

OS, do you and Jarhead realize what you've done? You two have completely transformed the Arma 3 game. Other mod makers have added some really nice terrain, units, weapons, etc, but you too have changed the game in such a fundamental way that going back to vanilla sounds and vanilla effects is out of the question. I tip my hat and give a very sincere and heartfelt thank you to the both of you. Well done.

+1

couldn't have said it better

Cheers,

Crusader

[x3djokerx 1]

the server keys are not working properly on our dedicated server. no one can join it with the keys supplied. just a heads up.

[dcal 16]

OS, do you and Jarhead realize what you've done? You two have completely transformed the Arma 3 game. Other mod makers have added some really nice terrain, units, weapons, etc, but you too have changed the game in such a fundamental way that going back to vanilla sounds and vanilla effects is out of the question. I tip my hat and give a very sincere and heartfelt thank you to the both of you. Well done.

Well said! I agree 100%

[CyclonicTuna 87]

Hi Opticalsnare,

i like that someone in the community focusses on improving the vanilla effects. I prefer changes that make the effects more realistic and give the gameplay a more authentic feeling. Your mod seems to focus more on "hoolywood-effects". Nevertheless i am interested in your mod and like to help you improving it. Subsequently a bug list and some suggestions for improvements.

I like the shell ejection on the AA-tanks, but like somebody else already mentioned, it ejects 3 shells for every shot. Besides that the ejection path should be more to the sides and the back of the turret like its indicated in the screenshot (video reference:

):

http://s1.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/x7y23au3.jpg

Furthermore you should get rid of the "explosion effect" tagged in the next screen. It doesn't look good and is unnecessary as the effect already looks great without it as you can see in the previous screenshot. Beyond that the muzzle flash of the AA-gun in first person view can lead to epileptic shock and headaches.

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/q5ph9vdo.jpg

You already pointed out that you will tweak the tank cannon effect in the near future. I hope you will fix the bad flame effect which looks very pixelated. The HE-explosion effect should be over-worked too, the vanilla one looks much better. Yours is very small and doesn't look very impressive.

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/xoxcbmpy.jpg

Most of your explosion effects are too bright in my opinion and the greenish/yelloish tint they have were also mentioned in this thread before. In addition to that i suggest to make the light effect a split second longer so that its still visible while the explosion sprite shows up. The red arrows indicate the area that isn't lit up but should be.

http://s7.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/la3wg428.jpg

After your explosion sprite vanishes the spark effects kick in. Make them a small light source if possible. Otherwise you might be able to fake it by just letting the previous light effect mentioned in the screen above last a little bit longer but with a greatly reduced radius.

http://s1.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/bm8ezrfu.jpg

Your smoke screen effect is far better than the vanilla one but should last much longer and be directional.

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/ezdl4nqm.jpg

The dust kicked up by a handgranade is too white in my opinion. It should be more ground colored.

http://s1.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/fct2skko.jpg

Flares are only white points and don't generate very much smoke. In its current state the vanilla flares look better in my opinion.

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/92i39ykb.jpg

I like the amount of debris that fly through the air when a vehicle explodes but the burning parts (green arrow) are too bouncy. The smoke could be more black (blue arrow) and the fire/explosion effect (red arrow) i don't like at all. I prefer dusty/smoky explosions. Besides that the high smoke columns greated by burning vehicles are great but currently only seem to work with tank wracks. While we are on tanks, the secondary explosions from the tank wracks are only white smoke. I am sure you can come up with something more interesting in the future. Your best bet would be to do something like this:

.

http://s7.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/hntr6nke.jpg

Your rocket artillery looks really great. Some improvements though: The smoke could be less white and it should kick up a lot of dust behind the launcher (red arrows).

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/ooizyvf8.jpg

My two cents regarding smoke grenades:

Don't touch them. There are to many gameplay problems in terms of AI and player visibility.

That's it for the moment. I hope that my post helps you improving your mod and don't get depressed by hearing that much criticism.

I agree with most of the things you said. However there are a few things I just can't agree on.

First of all the vanilla flares weren't ugly, but OS's flares even in the WIP phase that there are now look so much better. The vanilla ones didn't look bad but the just weren't realistic, because these are real aircraft flares:

A light point with a small thin smoketrail following it. Much more realistic then the vanilla fireballs. I have no idea what you were talking about when you said OS's flares make to much smoke because the vanilla ones create a lot more.

OS has improved the effects in such a way that, to me atleast, I can't go back to the vanilla ones. effects that havn't had a major overhaul in 7 years. All BIS effects are way to soft and un-explosive. Explosions should be hard fast and overwhelming. A GBU just looks like a hollywood-style gasoline explosion.

Edited December 21, 2013 by CyclonicTuna

[BirdFilm 1]

This is amazing, and thankyou. Have to agree with the "too yellow" camp though.

Perhaps the whole reason CSAT are on Altis in the first place is to mine the enormous amounts of Sodium from the salt lakes.

[fennecus 10]

@ CyclonicTuna

i wrote "Flares are only white points and don't generate very much smoke."

[PTV-Jobo 820]

OS, do you and Jarhead realize what you've done? You two have completely transformed the Arma 3 game. Other mod makers have added some really nice terrain, units, weapons, etc, but you too have changed the game in such a fundamental way that going back to vanilla sounds and vanilla effects is out of the question. I tip my hat and give a very sincere and heartfelt thank you to the both of you. Well done.

amen to that! :)

[marcai 1]

Really nice visual improvements, but not without its flaws. Whilst an FPS hit is to be expected, I just dropped 20fps whilst blowing up a HEMMT from a Littlebird during a night mission, leaving me at a slow-mo 5fps. I can also confirm what Doln said as trying the same mission with a Blackfoot and I couldn't tell if my gunner had acquired a HMG instead of the normal cannon. Hope you keep working on this OS, this is a really promising improvement to the vanilla effects!

[NeuroFunker 11]

Hi Opticalsnare,

i like that someone in the community focusses on improving the vanilla effects. I prefer changes that make the effects more realistic and give the gameplay a more authentic feeling. Your mod seems to focus more on "hoolywood-effects". Nevertheless i am interested in your mod and like to help you improving it. Subsequently a bug list and some suggestions for improvements.

I like the shell ejection on the AA-tanks, but like somebody else already mentioned, it ejects 3 shells for every shot. Besides that the ejection path should be more to the sides and the back of the turret like its indicated in the screenshot (video reference:

):

http://s1.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/x7y23au3.jpg

Furthermore you should get rid of the "explosion effect" tagged in the next screen. It doesn't look good and is unnecessary as the effect already looks great without it as you can see in the previous screenshot. Beyond that the muzzle flash of the AA-gun in first person view can lead to epileptic shock and headaches.

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/q5ph9vdo.jpg

You already pointed out that you will tweak the tank cannon effect in the near future. I hope you will fix the bad flame effect which looks very pixelated. The HE-explosion effect should be over-worked too, the vanilla one looks much better. Yours is very small and doesn't look very impressive.

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/xoxcbmpy.jpg

Most of your explosion effects are too bright in my opinion and the greenish/yelloish tint they have were also mentioned in this thread before. In addition to that i suggest to make the light effect a split second longer so that its still visible while the explosion sprite shows up. The red arrows indicate the area that isn't lit up but should be.

http://s7.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/la3wg428.jpg

After your explosion sprite vanishes the spark effects kick in. Make them a small light source if possible. Otherwise you might be able to fake it by just letting the previous light effect mentioned in the screen above last a little bit longer but with a greatly reduced radius.

http://s1.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/bm8ezrfu.jpg

Your smoke screen effect is far better than the vanilla one but should last much longer and be directional.

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/ezdl4nqm.jpg

The dust kicked up by a handgranade is too white in my opinion. It should be more ground colored.

http://s1.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/fct2skko.jpg

Flares are only white points and don't generate very much smoke. In its current state the vanilla flares look better in my opinion.

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/92i39ykb.jpg

I like the amount of debris that fly through the air when a vehicle explodes but the burning parts (green arrow) are too bouncy. The smoke could be more black (blue arrow) and the fire/explosion effect (red arrow) i don't like at all. I prefer dusty/smoky explosions. Besides that the high smoke columns greated by burning vehicles are great but currently only seem to work with tank wracks. While we are on tanks, the secondary explosions from the tank wracks are only white smoke. I am sure you can come up with something more interesting in the future. Your best bet would be to do something like this:

.

http://s7.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/hntr6nke.jpg

Your rocket artillery looks really great. Some improvements though: The smoke could be less white and it should kick up a lot of dust behind the launcher (red arrows).

http://s14.directupload.net/images/131221/temp/ooizyvf8.jpg

My two cents regarding smoke grenades:

Don't touch them. There are to many gameplay problems in terms of AI and player visibility.

That's it for the moment. I hope that my post helps you improving your mod and don't get depressed by hearing that much criticism.

very good and constructive feedback, sign nearly under everything you said.

[rehtus777 10]

The Smoke Grenades: How about a compromise? The vanilla does not give out enough smoke and Blastcore gives out just a little too much. Check out the video below at the 2 minute mark....it demonstrates an M83 smoke grenade, one of many types of smoke grenades used by the US Military. Blastcore is much closer to this reality than vanilla.

Also, when I'm near or in the middle of a smoke screen and fire my gun, part of the smoke disappears near me....but when I quit firing, the smoke pop's back into view all around me.

Side note: I'm on the Stable Branch.

Edit: On second thought, if you take away the strong wind, then Blastcore may not be too far off..... there is a lot of smoke there. In A3, the wind doesn't blow near that hard unless you put the wind on full strength. Just imagine if this was set-off on a day with hardly any wind, the guy would have really needed to use his gas-mask then. :p

Edited December 21, 2013 by rehtus777

[Siege-A 4056]

OS, do you and Jarhead realize what you've done? You two have completely transformed the Arma 3 game. Other mod makers have added some really nice terrain, units, weapons, etc, but you too have changed the game in such a fundamental way that going back to vanilla sounds and vanilla effects is out of the question. I tip my hat and give a very sincere and heartfelt thank you to the both of you. Well done.

Seems you made the comment that most of us were thinking. +1

OS, fantastic job man...the effects may not be based 100% around realism, but I really enjoy the new effects, makes the night battles like visual eye-candy. Keep up the great work, as I know it will only get better at this point. Between this, JSRS, and the ported maps by Alduric...It's gonna be hard to stay away from ArmA this holiday. Thanks again.

[CyclonicTuna 87]

@ CyclonicTuna

i wrote "Flares are only white points and don't generate very much smoke."

Oh I do apologize, I'm dislexic and sometimes my mind reads faster then my eyes ;)

[Opticalsnare 12]

Points taken, the flares are WIP so is the Muzzleflash on tank cannons. Both are supposed have a kinda of flare with them but they arnt working atm thats why they look abit iffy. I will make the explosions slightly less yellowish as pointed out. I can tone down the amount of smoke grenades produce too although as i said before theres a high chance they will be made sep to the BC mod in the future. Adding light sources to sparks is a no go, it will wipe out other lights in the area as there is a limit on the amount of light sources allowed in any giving scene.

As for the light sources i still have to match them to the explosions. I did have a differnt kind of light design before where the light would fade up and down again insted of being just on/off but it produced some problems and was replaced with a more basic design for the moment till i can get the concept i was working on to work as intended.

Have to remember some things just gobbles up time than others i spent like 3 weeks on just one effect alone to get it work right. Other times things can be easy fixes with slight adjustments, most of the things mentioned are pretty simple to fix. But like the cannons and vehicle flares that was just gobbling up time without much progress.

Its like whatcha do spend loads of time on something which in the end is the result you wanted or settle for something that works for the moment and move on to another effect which needs less time. I know that after a while when i keep hitting a wall over something it gets abit boring and i rapidly lose interest in the whole thing.

Don't forget every single change i have to make, major or minor i have to restart the game everytime just to see the results and i mean that to a extreme. In the space of like 1hr work i will restart the game 30-40 times.

Anyway ive already fixed a few things mentioned so over the holidays when im happy with the progress i will update with the results.

Edited December 21, 2013 by Opticalsnare

[x3djokerx 1]

possible fix to the bikeys so we can run it on our dedicated server? works fine locally, just not on a dedicated. no one can connect

[Opticalsnare 12]

possible fix to the bikeys so we can run it on our dedicated server? works fine locally, just not on a dedicated. no one can connect

I think someone mentioned how to fix them,

which was rename the bisign file to WarFXPE.pbo.WarFXPE.bisign

i knew they would go wrong everytime ive released them it comes out wrong.