Blastcore: Phoenix 2

[Redfield-77 10]

Yet another mod that I cannot play without now. My question is concerning the smoke grenades block AI view. Im sorry if this was discussed already but I am curious how it works being that it is a client side mod. Does the server have to be running it? Most of my unit runs it but a few guys still dont have it.

Forgive me for quoting myself but no one seems to know the answer to this simple question. How can a clientside mod effect serverside AI?

[maturin 12]

Wow, those are the best mortar impact FX ArmA has ever seen! For once, a modern warfare game has them looking as good as WWII games. MLRS and howitzers also have me jumping for joy. (I only wish that plume of dust from the howitzer impact could last a few more seconds. Is there a big performance hit otherwise?)

As for the AT weapon smoke trails, the RPG and Titan AT are suddenly perfect! I'll leave this video as regards the PCML. It shows a slight smoke trail during the first stage, and includes an incredibly rare scoped-in view, which shows how little the view should be obscured after launch.

As for those RPG backblasts, they're even better than ACE's! Just a heads up, because the dust kick-up that was clearly designed to come out the back of the launcher is actually spawning a few feet in front of the muzzle. Watch a distant RPG gunner from the side and you'll see what I mean.

There's also a few odd smoke colors. Almost every weapon kicks up dust that fits Altis perfectly, but the frag grenades are pure white like WP, and the cluster rounds are jet black like burning oil fumes.

Another bug/WIP is that KE and HE tank ammo have the same FX. And sometimes exploding cars seem to send out more flying doors and engine hood covers than they even have on them.

Aside from those tweak recommendations, the only criticism I have is that large explosions give off particles that are visible in the daytime. Up close (when your tank explodes next to you, for instance), they are basically just transparent yellow snowballs that bounce around looks extremely fake. Is there any way to make them invisible entirely during the day, sort of like A2 muzzle flashes for suppressed weapons?

All in all, though, I'm a new convert. Wouldn't want to play without it.

Edit: One last suggestion I thought off. Your tank smoke launcher effects are perfect. It would be awesome if mortar smoke could work the same way, bursting all over the place instantly. This is more dramatic, realistic and tactically important, as we don't have to wait for it to build up. It would also obscure against plunging fire better.

Edited January 7, 2014 by maturin

[kklownboy 43]

It should block as much as a default Smoke grenade will. All the extra smoke isnt a view hindrance to the AI.

As for interactions of AI through Client mod, I believe you can with certain stuff... but thats a question for a different thread.

[CyclonicTuna 87]

Damn, i will next get them sorted for next release sorry boys, i will verify them before i release the update. I am back at work now and bit busy working on my motorbike so it will be a few days till i update the mod again, i plan to tone down the amount of sparks and fix a few things.

Sparks are a very tricky thing. They fall in line with flares when it comes to how much, and how visible. When an arty shell or a bomb drops during the day you might not se a whole lot of sparks, but when watched at night with low light conditions, maybe thrue a pair of nvg's, you might see a whole lot of them. Because the sun always cancels out a certain amount during the day, you will never see many unless you're maybe really close. The same goes for flares, during the night they might seem a whole lot bigger and brighter because there's such little sunlight the cancel out the glow.

I doubt wether this is possible to simulate in Arma because its a very dynamic effect, dynamic features being something arma doesn't really seem to like. Let alone the fact that more variables include what surface is impacted, temperature, wind etc. You've done a good job with the sparks so far, I guess its only a matter of trimming and tuning.

Jdam during twilight:

[spanishsurfer 58]

This is the only mod that won't work on my server. I've tried everything and I still get kicked for trying to connect with this mod on. All other server keys for every mod work fine except for this one. Is there something special I should be doing to get this to work? Help please, I run a full warfare server and the players/beasts are hungry for this!

[-Apples- 10]

Pretty sure he didn't make the signatures correct.. I think the sig's in arma 3 are different then in arma 2.. Been waiting for the right sig's since release so we can run WarFx on our server.. It's hard to go back to stock. Please update!!

[Redfield-77 10]

It should block as much as a default Smoke grenade will. All the extra smoke isnt a view hindrance to the AI.

As for interactions of AI through Client mod, I believe you can with certain stuff... but thats a question for a different thread.

How is my question for a different thread? It is specific to THIS mod. I'll try to ask again a different way. How does this clientside visual mod block the AI view? It does not add new smoke grenades. It is the same old Smoke grenades just rendered differently on the clients machine. You say all the extra smoke isnt a view hinderance for AI and it only block as much as default but that doesnt make sense because if I was running default then I wouldnt have AI view block anyway.

[Nikoteen 24]

Thanks for R2 OS !

One feedback I would say is to tone down a little bit the explosion effect. Maybe to keep the actual fireball, but a lot more subtle with smoke and a perhaps a little less debris too...

The white smoke for grenade explosion effect could be tweaked too as already said.

Otherwise, it's a very good and mature release, keep it up! :) and thanks again.

[Tonci87 163]

Damn, i will next get them sorted for next release sorry boys, i will verify them before i release the update. I am back at work now and bit busy working on my motorbike so it will be a few days till i update the mod again, i plan to tone down the amount of sparks and fix a few things.

Hey OS,

currently your smoke grenades have one little problem (the new ones are awesome BTW). The little "clouds" you create are not affected by rotor downwash. Is it somehow possible to get this in?

[lt_ryan 12]

AA Tank now ejects to less 4 shoots = 2 shells

It is possible that missile starts with a big amount of smoke and reduce this smoke trail over the next seconds?

MRLS: starts with a huge smoke and dirt cloud followed by the missiles engine smoke trail, that reduce the amount the smoke over the time until it dissapear complete.

[spookygnu 563]

Thanks for R2 OS !

One feedback I would say is to tone down a little bit the explosion effect. Maybe to keep the actual fireball, but a lot more subtle with smoke and a perhaps a little less debris too...

unless you are talking about seeing it at night time?

I don't know why you would want to make the smoke more subtle in the explosions. From what I've seen of the countless bombdrop videos on Youtube, the fireball is probably on 10% of the effect at the very start of the blast. Some you don't even see the fireball because of the the amount of dust and debris thrown up into the air??

[CyclonicTuna 87]

unless you are talking about seeing it at night time?

I don't know why you would want to make the smoke more subtle in the explosions. From what I've seen of the countless bombdrop videos on Youtube, the fireball is probably on 10% of the effect at the very start of the blast. Some you don't even see the fireball because of the the amount of dust and debris thrown up into the air??

+1 What he said.

[Nikoteen 24]

unless you are talking about seeing it at night time?

I don't know why you would want to make the smoke more subtle in the explosions.

Hmm. I think you misunderstood my sentence. I talked about to keep the actual HUGE fireball, but to shrink it to something more subtle - with smoke (keep it as it is) and less debris.

[Opticalsnare 12]

How is my question for a different thread? It is specific to THIS mod. I'll try to ask again a different way. How does this clientside visual mod block the AI view? It does not add new smoke grenades. It is the same old Smoke grenades just rendered differently on the clients machine. You say all the extra smoke isnt a view hinderance for AI and it only block as much as default but that doesnt make sense because if I was running default then I wouldnt have AI view block anyway.

Its blocked via the config in the particle effects, any extra smoke particles or sprites generated has the option to block the AI view.

    blockAIVisibility = true;                //sets if particles are in the AI visibility tests (default true) - false for better performance but AI is able to see through particles

As for the rotor down wash, im not really sure how that works exactly, i can have a look when ive got a bit of spare time.

Like i said before i will be only focasing on priority issues like keys not working, optimizing the effects, atm sparks are currently eating too much so they will be reduced in the next update. Need to finish the remaining effects off for like most of the demo charges,mines,grenades which are all very wip atm.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Opticalsnare

[CrazeDawg 10]

Hey Opticalsnare, first off would like to thank you for the release on the mod :D

I had a question, I play on a EUTW servers, and they allow usage of blastcore, but now I understood from admins of the server that since update the keys are not correct. Therefore it kicks you out of the game. Do you have any solution for that, or shall we all wait for next update?

Thanks in advance.

[Opticalsnare 12]

Wait till the next update, keys are on top of the todo list so and i will check them before i release the update to verify they actually work.

Ive been using the A2 cmd tools so i think thats proberly why its been going to pot. When i try using the Pbo tools or addon builder for A3 it crashes when i pack the mod.

- ok think i got this, i got a test build for anyone interested

can someone test this and tell me if the keys are working properly?

http://www.gamefront.com/files/23968501/%40Blastcore-A3-TestBuild.rar

This is only for testing and not a update.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Opticalsnare

[spookygnu 563]

Hmm. I think you misunderstood my sentence. I talked about to keep the actual HUGE fireball, but to shrink it to something more subtle - with smoke (keep it as it is) and less debris.

You gotta admit there is nothing more majestic in the battlefield than a huge column of smoke from bomb dropped at 10000ft.

@Optical: is there a way to increase the smoke columns to how they are in that video I posted at all. I know they are JDAM's, I'm not sure what the equivalent is in A3.

[Grumpy Old Man 3540]

I know they are JDAM's, I'm not sure what the equivalent is in A3.

The Mk82 is the only JDAM in Arma3 that I know of.

It's in the files but currently not used by any aircraft.

Both the Mk82 and the GBU12 are 500pound bombs.

[Opticalsnare 12]

Tbh i messed about with the bomb effects for ages think it was something like 2-3 weeks in A3, more considering it was based on the A2 version so it was one of the most time invested effects in the mod. It was very hard to balance the effect to allow it to be used more than once, with everything included its just under the limit on being effective, you can have any effect to have huge amounts of details and be very nice but at a huge cost like if you have other effects like burning vehicles and smoke grenades going off soon as a bomb hit and the effect was emitted everything alround you would get erased so it needs to be practical on the battlefield.

Like dropping 3-4 ok dropping 8 with other shit and it just starts wiping out other effects which anit good, imagine lobbing a smoke grenade and someone drops a few bombs which eat up all the particle counts and your smoke grenade gets erased be pretty poo. This is why theres not so much lifetime in the effects as prev in a2 anything hanging about is costing so it needs to be limited. This is why theres still particles getting cutoff because too much mostly the sparks are eating up the count.

Anyway wats the word on this test build i posted, i did the keys differntly this time.

[spookygnu 563]

ok no worries! least that gives a good insight for the complainers then about other things not looking how they should. Might shut them up abit! I can appreciate it must have been a ball ache trying to get the balance on the particles right

[CyclonicTuna 87]

Its a shame that we have to pay for BIS incompitence to do a particle fx overhaul earlier. The RV engine is just horribly optimized for particles and the rendering hasn't really changed since Arma 1. Nowadays we have such powerfull hardware and Arma could be so much more if just more time was invested in optimizing the code and more advanced rendering techniques. Maybe its just that the ambition of the project doesn't reflect the size of the team but there's something being horribly overlooked in their production process because it can't be that a game like this runs this bad on top tier machine's.

[spookygnu 563]

yeah I agree I know of someone who has forked out a tonne of cash to upgrade his machine and he still has issues due to the optimization of it. I'm happy so far, I don't really see that much into the optimization aspect of the game, I just set the settings suitable for a comfortable FPS, draw distance and texture quality.

[lt_ryan 12]

The Mk82 is the only JDAM in Arma3 that I know of.

It's in the files but currently not used by any aircraft.

Both the Mk82 and the GBU12 are 500pound bombs.

Sadly there is no JDAM. ATM there is only a GBU-12 available.

[spookygnu 563]

something for the mod requests then lol!

[Opticalsnare 12]

Its a shame that we have to pay for BIS incompitence to do a particle fx overhaul earlier. The RV engine is just horribly optimized for particles and the rendering hasn't really changed since Arma 1. Nowadays we have such powerfull hardware and Arma could be so much more if just more time was invested in optimizing the code and more advanced rendering techniques. Maybe its just that the ambition of the project doesn't reflect the size of the team but there's something being horribly overlooked in their production process because it can't be that a game like this runs this bad on top tier machine's.

For the effects i don't really blame BIS because i have spent like 7 years now working on effects for this game series and i was complete noob when i started i knew nothing about VFX as i was doing sound effects before and thought id have a pop at doing some VFX insted. The particle engine is still basicly the same as when i first started, A3 is a major upgrade tho but its still based on the same foundation. Its a good engine don't get me wrong, but its based on a old engine which to me are really starting to take its toll on my enthusiasm. I did'nt want to end on just a give up attitude so i decided to make a final attempt at A3.

So knowing what i know now i got no faults at BIS for not investing a huge amount of time or persons into the VFX design imo its a very hard dept to work in if your not familiar with the way its designed or how the engine works for that matter, its not very friendly its crude and a very inefficient way of doing it. I know that over the years ive kinda exhausted my modding spirit with this and i know its now time to bring it to a end and move on. Perhaps someone else will take a interest in VFX who knows i don't mind helping them out with what i know, but like i said its a very hard thing to get into considering how other games manage the VFX with built in real-time editors which make it a much more simpler place to work. I expect i will still be about making some minor changes and updates but as for major stuff its definitely over for me.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Opticalsnare