Fire created with drop script as a light source?

[Poet 0]

I've used the Firedrop script to add more realistic looking flames and smoke to the fire.

The problem with using that is that the fire no longer acts as a lightsource.

And as you can see from the picture, if I light the fire the normal way as well, then the smoke effect from "this inflame true" just doesnt go with the rest of the fire and smoke, and plus I dont like the yellow/green light coming off it.

Is there a way to have the Firedrop act as a lightsource, or add a realistic orangey lightsource to it?

I tried using a flare, but its light is too stark, and I can't get a flare close to the ground without it going out.

I searched and saw some links to a "spotlight" add-on but they were all busted. Though it didnt say if I'd be able to change the colour of the lightsource...

Is it possible to have the fire lit normally ( inflame true etc ) and NOT give out smoke AND change the colour of the lightsource?

All help warmly appreciated.  

( oh, and yes, that is Major Halliday and Geronimo    )

EDIT - sorry bout the oversized pic, I resized it and reuploaded it, but it hasnt updated yet.

[GAMEER_77 0]

If you make fires with the drop command, it does give out light.

Though, in my opinion, it's a little dark.

Gameer

[Poet 0]

Hmm, I didnt notice any light coming from the dropped fire.

If there is a way to boost the light source ... if it is weak like you say ... that might solve the problem.

[GAMEER_77 0]

Hmm...you're right Don't know why I thought that.

Try putting another fire a few feet under, just enough to cover up the smoke.

Gameer

[Guest jacobaby]

Short answer;

Dropped particles have no light source attached. They are brightly coloured which shows up in the dark, but there is no radiated light.

For the BAS Kiowas and MH47E I included a few little glow effects that I use in conjunction with the dropped fire particles. If you have those addons you could try them.

Or if it is just for you, you could modify your fire details in your config.bin to suit you.

TJ

[uiox 0]

I have script a drop tool :

In a sample mission the player have one action : start drop

When he starts the drop generator (a fire drop effect), he has a second action for call a dialog.

In the dialog you have:

- Sliders for change : daytime, overcast,rain and fog

- Slider for manage the loop of creation of drop (0 to 1 second)

- Combo with cl_basic,fire,water,fireD (white fire),halfLight (nice light effects), sun, and halo.

- Combo for change spaceobject or billboard

- Sliders for lifetime,weight, volume,sizestart,sizeEnd

- Combo for select one of 4 colours (thefirst,second,3 and fourth)

- 4 sliders for colours

And last in bottom a text fieild with drop parameters update with values you select (the position not placing, only a sentence for easily placing the position of your particule)

With this you can understand how drop effects works, and create new one very easily.

Drop engine :download here

In my home page you can download a flak script, its a simulation of flak with drop command, in it you can see how use the scirpt relate to particule. It's a little bit more advanced, but you can see the powerfull of this command.

Amazing OFP!

[Poet 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (jacobaby @ 11 May 2003,13:02)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">For the BAS Kiowas and MH47E I included a few little glow effects that I use in conjunction with the dropped fire particles. If you have those addons you could try them.

Or if it is just for you, you could modify your fire details in your config.bin to suit you.

TJ<span id='postcolor'>

TJ?

If I modify the config.bin would that not just affect the effect on my machine locally?

Others downloading the Mission I'm making would just see the normal fire effect, or would they?

As the mission I'm making includes the BAS MH47e, how would I go about using the glow effect you mentioned in your addon?

How did you create it? Is it simple?

Cheers,

Poet.

[Poet 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (uiox @ 11 May 2003,13:38)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Drop engine :download here<span id='postcolor'>

Another cool looking bunch of scripts without a readme. ( happens far too much in Flashpoint, we're not all Script Wizards you know )

And the .sqs files dont even have any hint lines which might help.

I wouldnt know where to begin with a set of scripts like that.

[uiox 0]

drop ["halfLight" , "" , "SpaceObject" , 120 , 2.02261 , _The pos is here  , [0,0,0] , 0 , 40 , 30 , 0 , [0.1,0.250001] ,[[0.62,0.72,0.81,0.75],[0.62,0.72,0.81,0.75],[0.62,0.72,0.81,0.75],[0,0,0,0.1]] , [0] , 0 , 0 , "" , "" , ""]

It's not a script it's a tool the line of parameters above is only copy paste from the edit field. Note if you put it on the ground you will have nice lights effects.

For use it :

1) start the mission

2) do action "drop generator"

3) do action "drop manager" for openning the dialog.

After you adjust the parameters with sliders and combo boxes for having what you want. When the effect is good, you copy (ctrl c) the drop command with all parameters exactly identical to the last change you have done.

Last replace _The pos is here with your own position of the drop creation.

You are right I will write a little tutorial, if you think it's a script and not tool you can't understand immediatly how to use it.

[Poet 0]

Is that the Grand Unified Theory of Everything?

Or Coca Cola's Secret Recipe?

I wasn't having a pop, uiox. I know that you set up a sample mission to show the user how to use it.

But it just puzzles me that a lot of people in OFP seem happy to spend hours, days even weeks working on a killer script or add-on, but then don't bother with the 5 minutes it takes to write a readme.

The first thing I look for when I download just about anything is a readme. ( you'll never catch me asking BAS how to load a Jeep onto their Chinook )

And I've come across some scripts where the sample mission was so complicated I just had to give up ( I think it was an AI respawn script someone had done, with dozens of triggers and waypoints, and no simple instructions for us poor noobs ).

[uiox 0]

copy paste from readme

It's a tool make with OFP for the drop command, with it you can make test on effect with the drop command.

How to use it:

1) start the mission

2) do action "drop generator"

3) do action "drop manager" for openning the dialog.

After you adjust the parameters with sliders and combo boxes for having what you want. When the effect is good, you copy (ctrl c) the drop command with all parameters exactly identical to the last change you have done.

Last replace _The pos is here with your own position of the drop creation.

In the dialog you have:

- Sliders for change : daytime, overcast,rain and fog

- Slider for manage the loop of creation of drop (0 to 1 second)

- Combo with cl_basic,fire,water,fireD (white fire),halfLight (nice light effects), sun, and halo.

- Combo for change spaceobject or billboard

- Sliders for lifetime,weight, volume,sizestart,sizeEnd

- Combo for select one of 4 colours (thefirst,second,3 and fourth)

- 4 sliders for colours

And last in bottom a text fieild with drop parameters update with values you select (the position not placing, only a sentence for easily placing the position of your particule)

With this you can understand how drop effects works, and create new one very easily.

For recreate it you have to build a loop with a minimum pause of 0.001 for not overload CPU and OFP engine, and a condition (if you want) for exit the loop.

Like this

_fireplaceOne = _this select 0

_PositionOfFire = getpos _fireplaceOne

#Loop

drop ["halfLight" , "" , "SpaceObject" , 120 , 120 , _PositionOfFire , [0,0,0] , 0 , 40 , 30 , 0 , [0.05,0.05] ,[[0.62,0.72,0.81,0.75],[0.62,0.72,0.81,0.75],[0.62,0.72,0.81,0.75],[0,0,0,0.1]] , [0] , 0 , 0 , "" , "" , ""]

If (inflamed _fireplaceOne) then {goto "Loop"}

[Poet 0]

Doh!

Guess my head was fried yesterday ( I'd spent 7 solid hours cleaning and bug spraying my flat after a Carpet Beetle infestation - Mild Winters and Woolen carpets do not make for a pleasant experience )

Anyway, I found the Glow effects from the BAS vehicles under Objects.

Just had to fiddle around and find a good spot to place it to get just the right effect.

Works great though! Thanks TJ.

[toadeater 0]

About the light question... is it possible to make models emit light like the streetlights? If so, what about making an invisible or transparent model so only the emitted light is seen? If it's possible I think that would be a pretty useful addon.

[Guest jacobaby]

Whether or not a model has light ability is tied up within its simulation.

You can use switchlight "on" for a fire and you will get a white light from it, and also a CTD when you try and save.

So yes you can attach a light to an empty model, in effect that is what I did for the glow effects, although I decided to use a small model after to make it look like something was there.

The lighting in OFP is very poor though I think, projected lighting especially.

TJ

[bn880 5]

Poet, one thing you have to remember is some scripts are not for noobs.

I created the EnemyStack set of scripts, and a very detailed instruction manual, and it is not for the scripting novice. No matter how you cut it, some sets of scripts allow so many options and need a detailed cofiguration, making it hard to implement at first.

[Poet 0]

I agree bn880.

I saw a script for Satellite imaging and tracking that looked really cool, and though it had fairly clear instructions, I knew that the time it would have taken me to work out how to use it properly just meant it wasnt worth me bothering with.

And I've come across loads of other examples where I know the work involved is simply beyond my ability ( at least right now ).

But at least you DID create a manual, giving the user a starting place to start understanding the script.

I'm not whingeing, I love the community, and the game and all the cool tools and toys that people have made.

It just dissappoints me when I see something I want to download and use, and there's no instructions at all.

I understand why it happens though.

In my old job as IT Admin for 400+ users, I used to lose my patience too quickly with all the dumb questions I'd get bombarded with constantly.

But it wasnt because the people were stupid.

Its just that I'd totally forgotten how little I knew when I first started working with PC's.

[bn880 5]

Yes I agree,

and it's also that in some cases the documentation will take 3 times as long as making the scripts if you want to teach scripting beginners how to use them (in the mean time giving a complete scripting lesson). I undestand there need to be some basic starting instructions on how to use anything made for the community, but the legwork on anything other than basic usage such as how a script does what it does should be done by the person using it, not through absolute documentation.

Well that's why on OFPEC you will see script difficulty ratings. Yeah I've done a similar IT job to yours, so I know, but it can give another example:

What if your client is trying to be an IT Admin himself, and keeps going around asking questions on how you solved every single problem. It doesn't lead anywhere to the person other than the current situation, since they have to learn how to solve new problems in the future to work as Admins.

Heh, summary: If it's meant to be an easy tool for mission designers or regular Players, then you sohuld make it easy by explaining in detail. If it's meant for scripters who want to script bigger and better things, they have to do some of their own work.

[uiox 0]

Agree with you

I have 2 folders : the first with comref of BIS, second with scripts of Snypir, Kegetys, Bn880, Spinor, Dinger, Prospero, Karrillon, author of battlefield, Denoir, Zayfod, Todeater, benreeper, Sui, Doolitle, TJ, ColKlink, VektorBoson, etc....

List not close update each day.

It's my read me.

The problem of scripters, like musicians, you read a script, a basic script, pascal, C, C++, Fortran, Cobol or OFP.

You ear what it does, and sometime it's marvellous (remember a part of code of Suma about something relates to sky)

I say that coz your pseudo is poet, I was a poet.

I was.

[Guest jacobaby]

I find it hard to have time for the more ridiculous of the questions.

I probably went about things the hard way, because instead of reading the ofpec tutes and stuff, I decided to figure for myself what everything did. It took longer, but at the end of the day the things I picked up are much clearer to me because I know HOW and WHY they work. The drop command is a case in point of that. The BIS Comref is cryptic to say the least, but its a start, the rest is legwork, but worth it in the end.

TJ

[uiox 0]

Only a tool don't like it put it in the trash.

For help.

Don't want it?

trash no problem and the life goes on...

PS: de temps en temps je suis a coté de la plaque car je ne comprend pas bien l'anglais

[toadeater 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (uiox @ 12 May 2003,17:04)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Agree with you

I have 2 folders : the first with comref of BIS, second with scripts of Snypir, Kegetys, Bn880, Spinor, Dinger, Prospero, Karrillon, author of battlefield, Denoir, Zayfod, Todeater<span id='postcolor'>

Hmm, I don't remember releasing any scripts to the public? You must mean Toadlife.

[uiox 0]

oops sorry you right