Wolfbane´s tracerfx script addon

[FerretFangs 0]

I agree, an elongated egg-shape would be more realistic, and they should probably be just a little smaller.

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Quote[/b] ]I haven't tested it, but I would imagine that DXDLL would produce the elongation.

Nope... it doesn't.

Did you try tweaking the DXDLL settings, because I set mine to Kegetys recommened settings and I've got video of either the default B.I. tracers or somebody else's tracer mod burning their image into the screen.

Even if they are orbs (decrease the size if you don't like 'em), their speed would burn in a tail when using DXDLL properly tweaked. I am sure of it.

And those of us who have actually been on night-fire ranges are all giving this one the thumbs-up, but if you want Hollywood, by all means...

[Cam51 0]

Quote[/b] ]And those of us who have actually been on night-fire ranges are all giving this one the thumbs-up, but if you want Hollywood, by all means...

Dude, Ive been to more night firing ranges than I can remember. Bradley Linebacker Crewmember is my job in the Army, so I think Ive seen a tracer or two.

The tracer up close is what needs improvment. The ricochet is realisitic and accurate looking.

Hollywood has more accurate looking tracers than these. A big colored ball flying threw the air? I didnt know this was star trek.

[wolfbane 0]

Yes i know that it would be a bit more realistic to have somewhat more elongated tracers rather than the perfectly sphere shaped tracers that are in the addon now. But it seems like some of you think it´s very easy to change that. I just want to tell you that it´s not.

To create elongated tracers i need to create custom models for the tracer objects, a config file to go along with the new tracers objects and pretty much rewrite all of the script code as it is now. I´ve been working on just that for some time now on and off but i´ve had some major problems to get it to work right and to little time to fix it.

Then bn880 said he´s working on some tracers too with a similar concept to what i had in mind and i pretty much lost my motivation. His work will probably be so much better than anything i can do so i dunno if i will be releasing anything at all. Maybe i will, but please don´t hold your breath waiting for it.

[miles teg 1]

Quote[/b] ]And those of us who have actually been on night-fire ranges are all giving this one the thumbs-up, but if you want Hollywood, by all means...

Dude, Ive been to more night firing ranges than I can remember.  Bradley Linebacker Crewmember is my job in the Army, so I think Ive seen a tracer or two.

The tracer up close is what needs improvment.  The ricochet is realisitic and accurate looking.

Hollywood has more accurate looking tracers than these.  A big colored ball flying threw the air? I didnt know this was star trek.

Dude, give the guy a break for crying out loud.  This tracer addon is VASTLY improved over the BIS tracers. If you don't like it, don't use it.  But don't insult him for trying his best by calling his work "Star Trek".   I'd love to see you try to do better.  If you want him to improve it try encouraging him to do so rather then insulting him.  That kind of talk is the same reason why my team is reluctant to release our Arab civilian/militant pack.  We know it has problems but we pretty much hit the limit of what we can do to improve without help from others.   We know that when we release it people like yourself are going to insult our work.  Hell, people cut our work down even for the screenshots I posted of the pack.  But if we waited until the pack was perfect (which might be never) it could be years before we released anything.   In fact several people have told me that my mod shouldn't release stuff until they're top knotch quality.  I find that attitude very elitist.  Better to have something then nothing at all is my motto.   Philcommando is an example of this attitude and I think alot of people appreciate him for his effort and patience with people who put down his work.

I've seen plenty of tracers also as I was a M60 gunner and later a M249 gunner in my old unit. I would be the first to admit that this addon is not perfect, but Wolfsbane's tracers also looks VASTLY more realistic then the BIS tracers and you will not find any other first person shooter with ricocheting tracers.

So geeze, show a little appreciation by at last not making fun of his hard work. Constructive criticism is good, but posts like yours really take the wind out of the sails for addonmakers.

Anyway to Wolfsbane, I'm pretty happy with your tracers are they are. They are quite an achievement and you updated them in record time. I can't think anyone can really ask for more and its quite understandable if you're burnt out on it.

Right now I'm updating lots of my old missions and current missions with your tracer addon. Missions just aren't the same anymore without your tracers in them.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[bn880 5]

To create elongated tracers i need to create custom models for the tracer objects, a config file to go along with the new tracers objects and pretty much rewrite all of the script code as it is now. I´ve been working on just that for some time now on and off but i´ve had some major problems to get it to work right and to little time to fix it.

Then bn880 said he´s working on some tracers too with a similar concept to what i had in mind and i pretty much lost my motivation. His work will probably be so much better than anything i can do so i dunno if i will be releasing anything at all. Maybe i will, but please don´t hold your breath waiting for it.

Hi,

well I have got that addon based tracer thing working already, but it won't totally replace your features in this set. Also they are not going to be 100% realistic looking as I have to take into consideration that the framerate in OFP drops below 30 or even 20, meaning I am making these things much longer than IRL so that they are seen.

Anyway, I have the technology working not necessairly the great looks. We'll see how it goes, it will be a very small addon with limited features, and definately not some big CoC project. I'm just doing this for fun after I realized the problems with the drop method, not to compete with you.

Take care and keep the motivation

[Cpt. FrostBite 0]

There ya go

Keep it up Wolfsbane.

Don't change the chape of the tracers as that would take way to much work and will only create a small effect.

The shape right now can hardly be seen when in a good firefight (the tracers fly fast) and when you keep their size small (0.2, 0.1), you won't even notice that they are orbs.

I did try it with a size four and I almost thought I was looking at some very bad Star Wars clone

I keep getting this error message and CTD discribed earlier in this thread. It happened when I killed a guy who used tracers. Don't know what caused it.

[miles teg 1]

Captain, do you remember what unit it was you killed?  It may have something to do with the specific ammo or weapon type used by that unit perhaps.  Luckly I haven't had any problems with it on many different mods, but if you know exactly what unit it was I can try it out on that unit and see if I can repeat that CTD on my computer. Also try and note the init box tracer settings used on him. Could be some wierd combination of factors causing it or one particular tracer setting that freaks out.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Cpt. FrostBite 0]

I'll try and create an other CTD and write a full report about in this thread. It won't be fun, but I want to help.

[Cpt. FrostBite 0]

ok here it is;

using the latest DL from the first post;

I placed a JAM PKM HD soldier in the editor wth this init line;

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[this,1,1,0,"green",3,0.3]exec "\wbe_tracerfx\wbe_tracerfx.sqs"

This is from the readme, so should work correctly.

When killing this guy with missiles from an OH-58 (with me as pilot) I get this error message;

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">'WBE_TRACERFX_UNIT_ARRAY set [_index,WBE_TRACERFX_UNIT_ARRAY slect (_size-1)|#|': Error Zero divisor

AFAIK this happenes all the time when I kill the PKM guy with missiles/bombs from any airplane. Haven't checked tanks ect, but that's because it takes a lot of times to go trough a number of CTD's all the time

[miles teg 1]

Ok...yeah I got the same bug doing the exact same thing.  How wierd.  On another rmission however, I had BAS Little Birds attacking Egyptian positions (my mod's Egyptian troops use JAM weapons) and didn't get any errors.  But I'll test it out a little more to see if I can narrow the bug down to see if its with all aircraft and with all MG's or just PK JAM HD units.

Edit-

Ouch...I spoke to soon... I just tried our Egyptian PKM HD guys and had our IAF  MD-500's rocket  them and yeah...got the error and CTD.  

Now to see if its something to do with the rockets or its all air weapons.  Fire from infantry don't seem to cause any problems.

Edit 2nd time-   Ok... looks like it only happens if I am piloting the helicopter.  As a soldier on the ground nothing happens when a OH-58 or a Little Bird rockets the JAM PK HD gunners.

I also tried flying an A4 with rocketpods and didn't get an error.  It seems that only the small helicopters firing that type of rocket cause the errors and CTD.  I'll try an Apache next...

... ok looks like Apaches firing rockets does it also.  But only if you are flying the Apache.  So I guess it has something to do with the rockets used on helicopters.  

I'll now try non-JAM ammo with the tracers.

3rd edit-

Ok, it looks like even with regular Russian BIS troops with regular Ak's using this tracer script, that the helicopter rockets cause a crash.  I want to try one more thing just to make sure its the helicopter rockets...

4th edit-

Oh interesting... ok... its not the rockets... it happens with using the Apache cannons also.  So now I gotta narrow it down to either the heli pilot causing it, or just the helicopter class when you fly it.  The wierd thing is that shooting up the guys with TOWs or hellfires didn't seem to cause it.  I'm going to have to retest those to make sure I waited long enough cuz sometimes it takes a little while for the crash to happen.

5th edit-

Ack... bad news. I just tried being a West infantryman shooting at a BIS Russian soldier armed with an Ak and the tracers. Crash..

Damn. Ok...now to see if its just that particular tracer setting. I think that if you adjust the tracer setting that this crash won't happen because I never had it happen to me on the settings I use.. of coarse mine are set much slower.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[miles teg 1]

Ok, while I haven't figured out whats causing the crash, I did figure out how to fix it temporarily until Wolfsbane or someone figures out whats causing the error. Simply stick the tracer script on the player/s. So even if you're flying a helicopter stick the tracer script on him. If you do that, you should not get any CTD or error.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[wolfbane 0]

New version is up, you find a download link in the first post.

"Changelog

1.06

bugfix - a bug in the file wbe_tracerfx_cleanup.sqs was causing ctd. i couldn´t recreate the actual bug myself but i think i have found the cause of it and changed the code so it shouldn´t occure anymore (fingers crossed).

fix - slightly increased the pause in a loop in the wbe_tracerfx_ricochet.sqs file so it´s not as cpu intensive as in the previous version."

I hope the nasty CTD bug is fixed in this version but since i havn´t been able to recreate it myself i can´t be sure. Please try the new version and see if it works. If it doesn´t work i´ll try to fix it asap.

[Cpt. FrostBite 0]

Too late for me now (and watching a good movie, posting this during the break; I'm addicted to the internet ). I'll test it tommorow and see if I can let it crash

[TDogg 0]

This is a very nice tracer script, I like how realistic it looks when the rounds ricochet off vehicles and stuff. This goes perfect with JAM. Thanks a lot

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

I'll give it a try, ASAP, Wolfbane.

Any chance you can put that fertile mind to work seeing if you can integrate jamming/stoppages/malfunctioning as a toggeable parameter, allowing an on/off toggle and another parameter that sets the number of rounds typically fired before a stoppage, on average? (e.g., 10000 would mean that on average you would have 1 jam for every 10000 rounds.) I would set the ceiling at 999,999. I dunno if anything is THAT reliable.

[Pappy Boyington 0]

before total conversion modders go thru the trouble to re-integrate it with thier mods.. can someone thoroughly test it and make sure the CTD is non exsistant?

[nubbin77 0]

Quote[/b] ]before total conversion modders go thru the trouble to re-integrate it with thier mods.. can someone thoroughly test it and make sure the CTD is non exsistant?

I havent' had a CTD with it integrated into my mod, but I didn't with the last version either. The only recurring problem I have is that when I load up some MP missions, the tracers start firing on every bullet as opposed to every 3rd bullet. Its almost as if the script is executing multple times per person. The reason I say that is sometimes I'll get 2 or 3 ricochets per shot. Seems to be isolated to MP, but I'm not certain. May have something to do with the other scripts running in specific missions. I'm going to try to see if there is a pattern.

Also if I start a mission with a character w/o a gun, I get a script error at the top. There doesnt' seem to be any harmful long term effects from that though.

[Nemesis6 0]

Wolfbane - I love that you fixed the tracer trajectory in 1.6. I'd still like to see the tracers' shape to be changed to a light particle - it just simply looks better. But this doesn't really matter that much, I'm already about 75 % done adding the tracer scripts to my mod.

Once again, great work!

[Pappy Boyington 0]

_vehicle = _this select 0

;only build on server

?!local _vehicle: exit

an exerpt from hawks nimitz fix that builds the carrier only once... a simaler integration into the tracer script should fix that for this too (if its a problem for some of you)

ive integrated it into Y2K3 (not offical.. but a how to posted in Y2K3 topic) and been messin wit it all night and ive not had any CTDs

[skypine27 0]

Could anyone post a link to a E-ECP config.bin file that has these new tracers incorporated?

I play Flashpoint w/ EECP, and usually am not smart/proficient enough to modify a config.cpp file and then turn it into a bin.

Someone who has allready done this with EECP, it would be great if you could post or email the .bin file so we can test it out.

Thanks!

[seminara 4]

As I'm a Newbie to this sort of thing, can somebody explain how to get this addon or addons like FlashRam to work? (or point me to a relevant page)

I had thought it was simply a matter of putting them in an addon folder but doesn't seem to be the case.

Apologies for the lame query!

[Silent N Deadly 0]

You place the PBO in the addons folder and then you add this syntax to the unit:

[this,1,1,0,"green",1]exec "\wbe_tracerfx\wbe_tracerfx.sqs";

Also look at the previous pages for various "commands".

[Thunderbird 0]

I've a small council to give, it's better not to use script for the

helicopters, one can see luminous balls

leaving behind rockets , the ideal would be to apply this script only for the tanks and the infantry, moreover it's what I'll do for my "realistic config"

[seminara 4]

You place the PBO in the addons folder and then you add this syntax to the unit:

[this,1,1,0,"green",1]exec "\wbe_tracerfx\wbe_tracerfx.sqs";

Also look at the previous pages for various "commands".

Thanks Wolfbane, but I'm afraid I don't even know where to place this script in the first place (I meant newbie when I said newbie).

Is it the main 'config' file that I need to do this in? If it is, will this cause conflicts with new addons down the line?