Wolfbane´s tracerfx script addon

[Cpt. FrostBite 0]

Trying that out today Locke. Sounds promising.

[Cpt. FrostBite 0]

just tried it and it works perfectly.

The tracers do move fast, but that's realistic.

Note; if you turn of tracers in the options/difficulty menu you also disable tracers like the ones in JAM. I never knew this, but the effect is really nice. No tracers at all and the game becomes much more difficult at night.

With the normal traces disabled I use the tracer script and the effect was amazing. I absolutely love this script!!

The tracer-drop seems to be dead-on with the part that locke added. But I still need to test it with a big sniperrifle to make sure.

[bonko the sane 2]

that shouldnt be a problem, tracer bullets arent usualy used in sniper rifles.

and yeah, the script is better now, tracers are following bullets trajectory much acurately. Txs.

[Cpt. FrostBite 0]

that shouldnt be a problem, tracer bullets arent usualy used in sniper rifles.

and yeah, the script is better now, tracers are following bullets trajectory much acurately. Txs.

hehe, I meant testing it with a sniperrifle, so that I can clearly see if the tracer is actually following the bullet on lang range.

[gunterlund 0]

Hi guys

tried to make the change Locke mentioned with no affect. Not sure what the issue is. Can anyone post a reconfigured pbo to this thread so we can check it out. Thanks.

[Locke@Germany 0]

Hi guys

tried to make the change Locke mentioned with no affect. Not sure what the issue is. Can anyone post a reconfigured pbo to this thread so we can check it out. Thanks.

I've uploaded the wbe_tracerFX_tracer.sqf, just unpbo the the original and replace the file under \wbe_tracerFX\scripts\ then compress it to pbo again and your done.

wbe_tracerFX_tracer.sqf

(right click, save target as ...)

If nothing went wrong the tracers should be as fast as the bullet and also follow the trajectory of it till it has hit something or the lifetime is over.  

[Kin Hil 0]

Still waiting for Wolfbane's Update.

[wolfbane 0]

The update will be available soon. I´m sorry if i´ve kept you waiting but i´ve had a lot of stuff to do irl. Anyhow i´ve made some changes to the addon that i think you may like and i´ll just have to go over the readme and some other stuff before i can release it.

[Kin Hil 0]

Hooray!

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

wolfbane, can you incorporate Locke's code?

And did you get to the root of the problem with v1.03 that was causing the tracers to bounce wayyyyy too early in their trajectory?

[wolfbane 0]

Ok v 1.04 is now available. Chek out the first post for a download link.

"Changelog

v 1.04

fix - the tracers are now only created when a bullet/projectile that is supported by the addon is fired from a weapon. this means that grenades, handguns and other weapons that are not supported no longer fire tracers. this also means that your favorite custom addons weapons may not work with this version of tracerfx. i´ve included support for the standard bis weapons and some of the most popular custom addons weapons for ofp. the custom weapons that are supported in this version of tracerfx in whole or part are those from JAM, LSR, INQ and MTCO. the different bullet/projectile types for all the supported weapons are defined in three files found under the scripts folder. the filenames are wbe_tracerfx_bullets_west.sqf, wbe_tracerfx_bullets_east.sqf and wbe_tracerfx_bullets_res.sqf for west, east and resistance side bullets/projectiles respectively. i´ve included a helper script in the addon so that you can find out what type of bullet/projectile your favourite weapon fires if it´s not allready supported. by using the script and noting the name of the bullet/projectile you can include that name in the wbe_tracerfx_bullets_*.sqf files so that the weapon will be recognized by the addon. to run the helper script add this line to the init field of the unit that has the weapon you want to know the bullet/projectile name of: [this]exec "\wbe_tracerfx\scripts\bullettype.sqs". note that the names of the bullets/projectiles in the wbe_tracerfx_bullets_*.sqf files are case sensitive.

fix - i´ve changed the default speed of the tracers so that it matches the speed of the actual bullet/projectile fired. i´ve also added a new parmameter to the wbe_tracerfx.sqs script that is called speedmod. this parameter modifies the speed of the tracers, default value of the speedmod parameter is 1. setting this parameter to a higher value will decrease the speed of the tracers. if you for example set the speedmod parameter to 4 the speed of the tracers will be ~ 1/4 of the actual bullet/projectile speed. the trajectory of the tracer should now be more accurate over longer ranges even with a value higher than 1 for the speedmod parameter. however if you set the speedmod parameter higher than 4 the trajectory of the tracer will drop and thus not be very accurate so my reccomended maximum value for the speedmod parameter is 4. also note that even if the trajectory of the tracer is fairly accurate with a speedmod value other than 1 (up to a recommended maximum of 4) the tracer will still move slower than the actual bullet/projectile and thus arriving at the target a bit later. for information on how to use the speedmod parameter see the Usage section below in the readme.

fix - tracers should no longer ricochet to early.

fix - some readme updates."

[nubbin77 0]

It appears to be working perfectly. Thanks again Wolfbane

[Kin Hil 0]

Thanks Wolfbane.

[miles teg 1]

Wow. OMG. I'm impressed! I didn't expect you to be able to please everyone and thought that my mod would just have to settle for using your original script, but wow...this new version is wonderful and I am VERY VERY greatful that you put in the option to modify the speed of the tracer for those of us who prefer the slower tracers that are easier to see (since it really doesn't matter whether the tracer hits the body at the same time as the bullet since you have tracers between regular bullets in real life anyways).

You are definitely one of the great innovators in OFP in my book.

Again I am VERY VERY impressed with your hard work.

Hats off to ya Wolfbane!

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Kin Hil 0]

Still have two problems that I notice.

1.

When I hit a soldier, the tracer moves straight through it, and another one appears instantly right in my face, bouncing.

Very weird.

2.

If I have a gun that fires green, and I pick up a gun that fires red, it will then fire green.

Anyone else still have this? If not, it might be a fault on my end.

[Locke@Germany 0]

I've just tried the new version and i'm a little disapointed   ,

the tracers are still NOT matching the trajectory of the bullet.

Infact if i just take the addon in its original form the tracer is a lot faster than the bullet, making the tracer a nice but useless eyecandy.

The values i've posted earlier are matching the trajectory of the bullet exactly .  

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

This has probably been asked, but is there any plans on this being put in the upcomming ecp release or flashFX?

[wolfbane 0]

nubbin77: Thank you, i´m glad you like it.

Miles Teg: Thanks again for your kind words. I hope this little thingy works allright in your mod. Best of luck with the mod work.

Kin Hil: Your first problem seems a bit weird yes, i´ll take a look at that and see if i can do something about it. But the second problem i don´t really understand to be honest. How´s that a problem? I don´t remember saying anything about adding the the color changing when you pick up different weapons thingy to the script. Or I did i? If i did i´m very sorry, i must have forgot about it. I could implement it though in a new version but i can´t say when that will be.

Locke: Yes i know the tracer trajectory is still slightly off the actual bullet trajectory but that was a compromise i had to make. I did see that your version was more accurate and i thank you for the suggestion to use it but it just wouldn´t work with my idea about an option to adjust the tracer speed via a parameter to the script.

[wolfbane 0]

This has probably been asked, but is there any plans on this being put in the upcomming ecp release or flashFX?

I´m sorry but i don´t know anything about that. You have to ask the authors of ecp and/or flashfx. The tracerfx script addon is free to use in any way people like including adding it to their own addons or mods, modified or not, without me approving it or anything like that.

[miles teg 1]

As far as tracer accuracy, I haven't had any problems with that.  The tracers seem to hit generally what I aim at.   Of coarse then again, I'm not using a scope on my weapons... just good ol' iron sights.  

The only small beef I have is that it doesn't work with some ammo types.  For example while my mod does use JAM, our machine gun weapon stations (M2, DShK, and PKM) don't work with this.  Is it easy to add an ammo type to the script?  

At any rate, aside from that its working really well and the glowing tracers look much nicer now.  Night firefights are just amazing now!  I have the slow tracers on some units mixed with fast tracers on other units.  The combination looks fantastic on the battle field.  It really feels much more like real combat now.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Nemesis6 0]

How about removing the RandomTimer and RandomIntensity values, and adding to the weight of the particle? Maybe that would work? Although the particle isn't slowed down, it'd curtainly help, at least I think it would.

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Wait, I haven't tried v1.04. The random intensity sounds good!

[Kin Hil 0]

"I´m working on a fix for the issue with the color staying the same if you switch weapons. This will also fix the problem with tracers being fired when you throw grenades or fire a pistol etc." -Wolfbane

[the_shadow 0]

well, i seam to have a small problem.

im running the script according to the readme (version 1.03)

BUT, it fires a tracer every round (no matter what number i set it to)

and some units dont fire tracers at all when set to do so.

i have double, tripple and even ten times checked it to make sure its activated in the correct way.

any hints to what might be wrong?

example, a west machinegunner (M60)

set to fire a glowing tracer every 5th round.

the units name is w1

in the init field i have written the following: [w1,1,1,1,"red",5,0.2] exec "\wbe_tracerfx\wbe_tracerfx.sqs"

oh, and a final note, the glowing tracers do ricochet for me (same as the non glowing)

[wolfbane 0]

"I´m working on a fix for the issue with the color staying the same if you switch weapons. This will also fix the problem with tracers being fired when you throw grenades or fire a pistol etc." -Wolfbane

Oh, i´m really sorry kin hil i must have forgot about the color issue when i worked on the problem with the tracers being fired when throwing grenades etc. When i say i´m working on a fix for a problem it often means i´m thinking out a strategy to solve the problem. The actual coding is just a small part of the work and is often pretty straight forward once i have a strategy to work with. But sometimes it turns out that what i thought would be a good strategy just won´t work in code and i have to rethink the whole thing again. When that happens i sometimes get a bit carried away with the problem at hand and forget to implement things that i originally had in mind

I will see if i can fix this problem in a new update however. But this problem has also turned out to be more complicated than i first though it would be since i somehow must keep track of each units individual weapon that have tracers enabled. I could create a basic fix for this pretty easily (i think) that would switch the color of the tracers based on just the side of the weapon that is picked up. But this wouldn´t be very good because if you pick up a weapon from say a dead unit that have not had tracers enabled you would still get a weapon that fire tracers just that the color is different. I need some time to work on this problem. I hope i can make it happen but i can´t say for sure.

Again, i´m terribly sorry if i dissapointed you.

/wolfbane