DMSmokeEffects Beta 4

[Mehmehmeh 0]

Amazing, simply amazing.

[[GLT] Legislator 66]

When I was playing alone online with the latest Smoke Effect release I had several entries in the action menu *getting wind infos* How can this happen?

[dmarkwick 261]

When I was playing alone online with the latest Smoke Effect release I had several entries in the action menu *getting wind infos* How can this happen?

Hmm, I don't know, but it sounds like something I need to know about.

Thanks for reporting it

[paragraphic l 2]

I noticed this when standing near another unit

But the smoke works great now in SLX mod the tanks also use smoke and I have way longer urban tank vs tank battles now

[dmarkwick 261]

I noticed this when standing near another unit

But the smoke works great now in SLX mod the tanks also use smoke and I have way longer urban tank vs tank battles now

Standing near another unit gives you that unit's Actions?

How come that doesn't happen for all Actions then I wonder, if that's what's happening.

[Maddmatt 1]

I noticed this when standing near another unit

But the smoke works great now in SLX mod the tanks also use smoke and I have way longer urban tank vs tank battles now

Standing near another unit gives you that unit's Actions?

How come that doesn't happen for all Actions then I wonder, if that's what's happening.

It's a weird issue, was in OFP too. I don't know how you could prevent it. I haven't seen any custom actions without that problem.

Maybe if you add them through the config instead of a script, and set the radius low enough (0 maybe)

You can only set a radius if you add the action in the config. 'Class useractions' or something added to the units.

[dmarkwick 261]

I noticed this when standing near another unit

But the smoke works great now in SLX mod the tanks also use smoke and I have way longer urban tank vs tank battles now

Standing near another unit gives you that unit's Actions?

How come that doesn't happen for all Actions then I wonder, if that's what's happening.

It's a weird issue, was in OFP too. I don't know how you could prevent it. I haven't seen any custom actions without that problem.

Maybe if you add them through the config instead of a script, and set the radius low enough (0 maybe)

You can only set a radius if you add the action in the config. 'Class useractions' or something added to the units.

At the moment it's added in the config via the Extended Init Event Handler method.

[Maddmatt 1]

At the moment it's added in the config via the Extended Init Event Handler method.

Well then you're adding it through scripting. By adding it through the config I mean using 'class useractions', instead of scripting commands. Then you could experiment with the radius setting.

Not really a major issue though, and I'm not sure if the radius setting would help.

Maybe someone else knows more about the issue.

[dmarkwick 261]

I guess I will remove the "Wind info" action, unless people find it actually useful.

But anyways, the next version of DMSmokeEffects may well, as well as having a separate Smoke grenade addon, have a separate Hide addon.

The thinking behind it is this: when the "Hide" action is performed, an invisible doughnut shaped viewblock rises up from the ground over the course of a minute or so. Small plants & grasses spawn around him also to visually represent hiding. The player will be hidden from AI, unless the AI gets too close.

If the player fires, moves too fast, or changes stance AND the AI < 50m away the VB will disappear. If the player fires AND AI > 50m away the VB will drop in height by 50%. This activity will allow snipers to snipe from far away and remain hidden, as long as they do not fire too rapidly. The doughnut shape will ensure that the sniper still needs to think about NOT lying in a downward slope to the AI.

This action is quite powerful, and so restrictions will need to be in place. Making it take a long time to hide is one restriction, having firing penalties to it's usefulness is another, and it's doughnut shape is a shape that solves a few other problems automatically. There will be others. This idea came about when a friend of mine (TRexian) said to me that when lying about for minutes waiting for convoys to approach, in RL he'd be hiding himself with surrounding material. I also made this in anticipation of DAC and it's search abilities

Anyway, like the smoke grenade addon it will be separate, so players can decide to use it or not.

[Rg 0]

I guess I will remove the "Wind info" action, unless people find it actually useful.

But anyways, the next version of DMSmokeEffects may well, as well as having a separate Smoke grenade addon, have a separate Hide addon.

The thinking behind it is this: when the "Hide" action is performed, an invisible doughnut shaped viewblock rises up from the ground over the course of a minute or so. Small plants & grasses spawn around him also to visually represent hiding. The player will be hidden from AI, unless the AI gets too close.

If the player fires, moves too fast, or changes stance AND the AI < 50m away the VB will disappear. If the player fires AND AI > 50m away the VB will drop in height by 50%. This activity will allow snipers to snipe from far away and remain hidden, as long as they do not fire too rapidly. The doughnut shape will ensure that the sniper still needs to think about NOT lying in a downward slope to the AI.

This action is quite powerful, and so restrictions will need to be in place. Making it take a long time to hide is one restriction, having firing penalties to it's usefulness is another, and it's doughnut shape is a shape that solves a few other problems automatically. There will be others. This idea came about when a friend of mine (TRexian) said to me that when lying about for minutes waiting for convoys to approach, in RL he'd be hiding himself with surrounding material. I also made this in anticipation of DAC and it's search abilities

Anyway, like the smoke grenade addon it will be separate, so players can decide to use it or not.

About the "Hide functionality",

I'm not sure what to think about that right now, but it's definitely an interesting idea. My only quick impression is that the VB's should only be as high as the grass.

-------------------------------------------------

About the smoke grenades (Absolutely awesome btw! A must have for everyone),

I am not a huge fan of the specific wind info. Instead of getting rid of it as you said above, just simplify it. The wind info serves an important purpose. Just keep it simple and realistic.

- Delete wind direction degrees.

- Keep rough wind direction, but not quite as accurate (ex."North-East", instead of "East-North-East")

- Keep wind speed, but make it simplistic (ex.Light/Medium/Strong)

- Change priority for wind info action, so its at the bottom of the list.

So, for example. When you press "Wind?" action. You get "Light North-East Wind" or "Strong South Wind". Simple and realistic

Anyways, thanks again for the awesome smoke mod!

[dmarkwick 261]

About the "Hide functionality",

I'm not sure what to think about that right now, but it's definitely an interesting idea. My only quick impression is that the VB's should only be as high as the grass.

Well as an explanation, the hide functionality is for those occasions when AI enhancers (like UPS and the upcoming DAC) are capable of searching an area for players. I always remember in OFP when I saw a helo drop troops on the other side of a forest, for them to come through the forest & search for me, that I wish I had a method of hiding. Not a foolproof one, that would be against good gameplay, but a chance, even a small one, of successfully hiding.

Tests I've done last night show me that a patrol searching in your area will almost always find you eventually. However, if they are searching some way off, you stand a chance. As long as you resist firing, moving around too fast or standing up. Also, for those AI enhancers that can communicate between groups, a helicopter might spot you and send troops over to search for you closer. (This means that this hiding mechanism works well with the new tree VB addon.)

I'm thinking of adding in various random factors like speed of hiding, height of VB object etc, just to throw in some amount of tension when hiding. Remember that the VB object will itself be invisible to the player.

About the smoke grenades (Absolutely awesome btw! A must have for everyone),

I am not a huge fan of the specific wind info. Instead of getting rid of it as you said above, just simplify it. The wind info serves an important purpose. Just keep it simple and realistic.

- Delete wind direction degrees.

- Keep rough wind direction, but not quite as accurate (ex."North-East", instead of "East-North-East")

- Keep wind speed, but make it simplistic (ex.Light/Medium/Strong)

- Change priority for wind info action, so its at the bottom of the list.

So, for example. When you press "Wind?" action. You get "Light North-East Wind" or "Strong South Wind". Simple and realistic

Anyways, thanks again for the awesome smoke mod!

That's actually a pretty good idea. Thanks for the tip

[dmarkwick 261]

General wind question:

If you hear that the wind is "east", do you imagine that the wind is blowing FROM the east, or TO the east?

As I understand it, if you hear that the wind is "easterly" then it's coming FROM the east. In my addon however I deliberately make the distinction that the wind direction is where the wind is blowing TO.

[Dwarden 1125]

like was said the hide should take in mind type of grass (e.g. less on dunes)

should be also bit better in forest

night and daytime / bad weather should improve it again a bit

-

sadly i guess take in mind type of camo is impossible in Arma (detect values for ground/surrounding color and camo color)

and most likely same it's with shadows (in shadow again bit higher hide chance)

-

also there should be 'focus' and 'group' factor

more units in small area = higher chance to be detected by AI

and AI focusing Your direction (e.g. at another player) should decrease the hide too

[KeyCat 131]

I guess I will remove the "Wind info" action, unless people find it actually useful.

Instead of adding the "wind info" to all units action menu by init another approach could be to leave the script/s in the PBO-file and then document how to call them with a example in the readme file.

This way people can use it as needed and it can be added to the action menu for a specific unit/object and/or be called from the radio menu. You can include as many wind scripts you want to (i.e simplified as above and in-depth). Just a tought...

Quote[/b] ]But anyways, the next version of DMSmokeEffects may well, as well as having a separate Smoke grenade addon, have a separate Hide addon.

Looking forward to next version and really like you separated the Smoke grenade addon and made it independant from the "heavier" DMSmokeEffects addon.

Regarding the hide thing I'm unsure but since I haven't tried it yet I save my comments for now.

Keep it up and thanks for your efforts!

/KC

[TRexian 0]

Quote[/b] ]This idea came about when a friend of mine (TRexian) said to me that when lying about for minutes waiting for convoys to approach, in RL he'd be hiding himself with surrounding material.

Ouch - that guy's one big bad idea waiting to happen.

Regarding the different environments - I've hunted in different kinds of locations (admittedly, not the desert) and it seems to me that there are always things that can be done to at least minimally hide. In fact, I think it would be somewhat easier in the desert, since sand is pretty easy to move around. (Too easy on occasion!

The idea is that all sorts of items found in an area can be used to break up a soldier's outline, even going so far as creating a minimal "blind" in not much time at all.

Of course, it would require some testing and tweaking to get a good balance, but I have every confidence in DM's judgment on that. (Besides, if he gets it wrong, we can all make fun of him!

[dmarkwick 261]

Quote[/b] ]This idea came about when a friend of mine (TRexian) said to me that when lying about for minutes waiting for convoys to approach, in RL he'd be hiding himself with surrounding material.

Ouch - that guy's one big bad idea waiting to happen.

Regarding the different environments - I've hunted in different kinds of locations (admittedly, not the desert) and it seems to me that there are always things that can be done to at least minimally hide. In fact, I think it would be somewhat easier in the desert, since sand is pretty easy to move around. (Too easy on occasion!

The idea is that all sorts of items found in an area can be used to break up a soldier's outline, even going so far as creating a minimal "blind" in not much time at all.

I might work in some nearestObject code to see if there's any nearby foliage. If not, then the hide should be less effective (lower).

Of course, it would require some testing and tweaking to get a good balance, but I have every confidence in DM's judgment on that. (Besides, if he gets it wrong, we can all make fun of him!

Water off a duck's back

[TRexian 0]

Quote[/b] ]I might work in some nearestObject code to see if there's any nearby foliage. If not, then the hide should be less effective (lower).

Great idea! I knew you'd come up with something!

Quote[/b] ]Water off a duck's back

I had a different "-uck" description in mind, but yours works, too.

:thumbs:

[TRACY 0]

i'm likeing the new 4.3b but the wind info thing i really could do with out it. what can i do to have it gone??

[dmarkwick 261]

i'm likeing the new 4.3b but the wind info thing i really could do with out it. what can i do to have it gone??

Wait for the next version I'll lose it.

[TRACY 0]

ok cool no more out of me for that

[Dwarden 1125]

maybe it would be nicer if Wind Info is moved onto map screen ...

(not sure if you can add additional page into notepad)

what about sorta like PDA display with this info

or

like compass visual with 'direction' strenght etc.

[OKO 0]

Your addon is fabulous, we use it for our MPmissions @ OFCRA (http://www.ofcra.org).

everything is great ... except one thing : the smoke from the smoke grenades, the real smoke grenades, not the standard grenade, doesn't mask the LOS of the IA

we will be very happy to have real smoke grenades, very usefull to assault a very defended position or to get out of a nasty situation.

So, we hope you will give to standard smoke grenades the same blocking LOS feature for IA you gave to all other smokes you configured.

keep up your excellent and beautifull work.

thanx for it.

really appreciated.

[kroky 1]

Same here. The smoke grenade's smoke does not block the view of AI.

Maybe it's a addon conflict or something.

I'm playing heavy moded ArmA.

[dmarkwick 261]

The problem is that ArmA has a bug - in that although the "fired" event is a global event, "throw" for some reason is only a local event. This is a big problem for my addon.

This means that a client on an MP game who throws a smoke grenade won't make a viewblock object.

However, a client who launches a smokeshell from a weapon will, as it's being fired not thrown.

I'm not too sure how I can fix this, the only thing I can recommend for MP play is that more use is made of Spectre's GrenadierPack addon. It's a really nice little tweak that not only brings the grenadier loadout to a realistic level, but allows the unit to have a number of useful smokeshells in MP. I can only suggest you add more Spectre Grenadier units into your missions at this time, until either the bug is fixed, or I fudge a fix through.

I've taken a week or so out of making anything, so I'll get back onto this problem.

[kroky 1]

I was talking about single player.

But what you said explains, why when tanks make a smoke screen (using XAM 1.3:05) I see on the map blue symbols named DMViewBlock, but when anybody in the game throws a smoke grenade there is no ViewBlock object generated, so the LOS of the human player is blocked but not the AI's.