JTD Fire And Smoke

[Alex72 1]

Hi DMarkwick,

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm scheduled (annual bonus permitting) to get a new computer (PC) in February so hopefully I'll be able to run your mod properly, but in the meantime, it's very cool anyway.

I'll keep an eye on this thread, that's for sure :) All the best, Ryan

Remember you can turn off forestfires for now (not fun to turn off but...) and use the lowest time/particles for vehicle burning. Or even set the forestfires to "1" insead of "50" etc. To me that makes me able to run it without too big impact. ;)

[HyperU2 11]

I think the fire looks great, I love the little fireflies of ash that float upward. I shot up a Ural today and for some reason an apartment block beside it burst into flames, but no complaints. :)

A little testing in Domination today, but it's mostly me hotdogging. Solo on the server, I took off from the airport, smashed some tanks on the way to town. Their smoke can still be seen rising as I RTB. Cool stuff, I used them for nav.

KCMO30RqIME

Aforementioned building fire.

g726q3Jevlg

Edited November 3, 2009 by HyperU2

[no use for a name 0]

hi DM; is it possible to make the glowing embers travel and disperse faster then the smoke? right now they don't really look natural and kind of look like UFO's or something lol

still liking the mod though!

[Oleg-Russia 10]

@Oleg-Russia: What's the name of the classical music you used?

Here you go ,uploaded for you :)

http://rapidshare.com/files/302050232/hl2.mp3

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Nice, thx. Knew there was something familiar with it :)

[sandzibar 0]

Noticed that in warfare maps having the main HQ bunker burn down breaks the game somewhat, as the AI still tries to cap it / deliver supplys, even though there is nothing there.

Is there a way to exclude this specific building from being a burnable object?

Other than that, really liking it. Well done.

[dmarkwick 261]

Noticed that in warfare maps having the main HQ bunker burn down breaks the game somewhat, as the AI still tries to cap it / deliver supplys, even though there is nothing there.

Is there a way to exclude this specific building from being a burnable object?

Other than that, really liking it. Well done.

That sounds to me more like a Warfare bug. What happens if the HQ bunker is destroyed by other means?

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I've seen it in Domination too. Some structures are "protected" from damage by mission scripts, but fires will still manage to destroy them (MASH, WALLS). At least I think this is what is going on.

Maybe a way to mark structures as inflamable and/or unharmed by fire?

Some highly personal opinions:

1) The fire noise is extremely loud compared to most other sounds in the game. It sounds like a Californian forest fire, not like there was a couple of trees in flames.

2) It spreads too easily and starts too often. Everytime there is an explosion there is a fire started, it appears. Meaning, too high a "notice this" factor :) If someone made a jammed mags addon, you wouldn't be happy with it if every tenth shot jammed, just to illustrated the effect?

3) I haven't really tested much but it doesn't seem to be influenced by wind speed or direction.

Don't take my input alone for it though. Let others agree or disagree. :)

[Alex72 1]

1. DM knows about the loud sound of forest fires and im fairly sure he works on that. Hearing it in a 50 meter radius or similar feels good to me personally. We also know the more sound playing - the more will be canceled since ARMA's sound engine cuts sounds when too many are played.

2. The spreading. I think i agree there. I have my set to "1" instead of "50" to conserve performance on my shitty pc, and that makes smaller fires. But adding some randomness for spreading would be awesome.

3. I know DM said some things are affected by wind and rain. But havent tested to see if the spreading goes with the wind. But damn that sounds funny to test - so i will right now. :)

Also, in MP it needs to be locked down to some standard i think? If i have forest fires set to 1 and the other players to 50 their whole forests will burn down while to me only 3-4 trees go down. But i dont really know how the addon works in MP regarding this though so i might be wrong.

[Master gamawa 0]

Οh damn! I played with a friend over LAN last night and everything was burning nice until I told my friend "Don't get to close the weapons crate it's on fire" but then I looked over to his screen and there was no fire there.

Is it a mod that only works though special magical stuff I don't know about? Dedicated server? Man I hate this, it happened with the weather addon too! Different fires on each pc, different weather on each pc? Is there an easy way to do this I wonder....

[Tankbuster 1747]

Love this mod, despite its performance cost. Might have to tune down a little :)

I have to admit, I've turned it down a lot. The more I see it in action, the more I think it's a little overdone. Still adore it though.

[dmarkwick 261]

I've seen it in Domination too. Some structures are "protected" from damage by mission scripts, but fires will still manage to destroy them (MASH, WALLS). At least I think this is what is going on.

Maybe a way to mark structures as inflamable and/or unharmed by fire?

I suppose I can do that, I already knock some items out so I can just externalise that list to a section in the HPP config file.

Some highly personal opinions:

1) The fire noise is extremely loud compared to most other sounds in the game. It sounds like a Californian forest fire, not like there was a couple of trees in flames.

Someone else mentioned that the fire noise is too loud, and it turned out he had a problem with his EAX setting, he turned EAX off and sound became normal for him.

2) It spreads too easily and starts too often. Everytime there is an explosion there is a fire started, it appears. Meaning, too high a "notice this" factor :) If someone made a jammed mags addon, you wouldn't be happy with it if every tenth shot jammed, just to illustrated the effect?

I found that AI ingame generally avoid trees so the instance of fires was generally low in my tests. However, I could add in a small random chance instead of an absolute calculation.

3) I haven't really tested much but it doesn't seem to be influenced by wind speed or direction.

The wind & rain definitely do influence propagation, but remember that it's scaled to the strengths. A weak wind will influence propagation in a certain direction, but it is still possible for the fire to propagate against the wind. Just a rather less chance :) Stronger winds make this more apparent.

[eviljoven 11]

I'm getting a lot of errors related to JTD Fire and Smoke. When I don't have it enabled, even if I'm playing on a server that doesn't seem to have the mod installed, I keep getting a lot of popups that read "Warning Message: Script JTD_FireAndSmoke\Scripts\SmokeMain.sqf not found".

I hear that this message can come up if you're playing MP and someone else on the server is using the mod. Is that correct?

Now, when run the mod, I'll quite often get an error when joining a server that reads "Warning Message: You cannot play/edit this mission; it is dependent on downloadable content that has been deleted. jtd_fireandsmoke"

That message I can click OK on and still play without any apparent problems.

Is there a fix out there so I can either not get those popups when not using the mod (as soon as I installed the mod I edited JTD_FireAndSmoke_config.hpp to disable everything, the effects are nice but I can't afford the performance hit) and does that second error actually mean that even though I'm able to play, something weird is going to happen?

[.kju 3245]

Not sure if already posted. From the RPT:

Error in expression <AMB_BirdsFear == 1 >

Error position: <AMB_BirdsFear == 1 >

Error Undefined variable in expression: amb_birdsfear

Been testing new worlds in the editor as infantry. SP/no save/load.

[dmarkwick 261]

Not sure if already posted. From the RPT:

Been testing new worlds in the editor as infantry. SP/no save/load.

The variable "AMB_BirdsFear" doesn't ring any bells with me. Are you sure the error was originated by JTD? There are at least two other birds solutions around, one of which is SLX.

---------- Post added at 07:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:54 PM ----------

I'm getting a lot of errors related to JTD Fire and Smoke. When I don't have it enabled, even if I'm playing on a server that doesn't seem to have the mod installed, I keep getting a lot of popups that read "Warning Message: Script JTD_FireAndSmoke\Scripts\SmokeMain.sqf not found".

I hear that this message can come up if you're playing MP and someone else on the server is using the mod. Is that correct?

Now, when run the mod, I'll quite often get an error when joining a server that reads "Warning Message: You cannot play/edit this mission; it is dependent on downloadable content that has been deleted. jtd_fireandsmoke"

That message I can click OK on and still play without any apparent problems.

Is there a fix out there so I can either not get those popups when not using the mod (as soon as I installed the mod I edited JTD_FireAndSmoke_config.hpp to disable everything, the effects are nice but I can't afford the performance hit) and does that second error actually mean that even though I'm able to play, something weird is going to happen?

The JTD FAS addon is a little odd in that it is ostensibly an eye-candy addon, and therefore it could be argued that it should be client-side only, however it's also designed to be MP compatible, which in the vast majority of other addons means that all participants should have it.

The addon also spawns a couple of custom (invisible) objects, which gives it a mission.sqm presence if the mission designer uses FAS while designing the mission. In this respect it's identical to any other addon that has custom objects in that the mission will insist on players having it. It's an oddity of an addon of this nature that means the mission designer should really manually prune away the mission.sqm dependancy if he doesn't wish to force users to use FAS.

There is no weirdness generated in accepting the error message and continuing play, other than that maybe AI will *seem* to act a little odd sometimes, which might be the result of server controlled AI being subject (or not) to particle viewblock due to FAS particles.

However, Fincuan did post up a fix for some of those messages, which I will incorporate into the addon in time.

[.kju 3245]

Yep sorry, you are right. :)

Found the source: XAM_Environment.pbo.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

An error I often get, while running Arma2 with -showscripterrors, is:

_nearestFire = |#|nearestObjects [_thisObject,["firemarker...'

Error 0 elements provided, 3 expected

File JTD_FireAndSmoke\Scripts\FireDamage.sqf, line 30

I only have onboard soundMax, so I don't think I have any EAX thingy going on.

Another oddity I've noticed, is that if I'm in a missile TV system using Mando Missiles, fire and bird sounds are both played a maximum volume. It sounds like if I'm right on top of the fire when I'm several km away.

Btw, I agree that destroyed vehicles may be removed too early in some missions, but afaik it is a necessity to make the mission run smooth. Therefore I think it could be wise to keep checking if a destroyed vehicle is still there when still continuing to produce smoke. Maybe just as a mission specific setting? I for one find it very odd that "nothing" will continue to produce a lot of smoke :)

[froggyluv 2136]

Would it be possible to add an adjustment parameter for % chance of fire starting?

I love the fire but it occurs so frequently that in a sense it lessens the effect.

[dmarkwick 261]

An error I often get, while running Arma2 with -showscripterrors, is:

_nearestFire = |#|nearestObjects [_thisObject,["firemarker...'

Error 0 elements provided, 3 expected

File JTD_FireAndSmoke\Scripts\FireDamage.sqf, line 30

I sometimes see this too, but I cannot identify what sort of object this is. It might be an ambient effect object like a bee or something.

I only have onboard soundMax, so I don't think I have any EAX thingy going on.

Another oddity I've noticed, is that if I'm in a missile TV system using Mando Missiles, fire and bird sounds are both played a maximum volume. It sounds like if I'm right on top of the fire when I'm several km away.

Btw, I agree that destroyed vehicles may be removed too early in some missions, but afaik it is a necessity to make the mission run smooth. Therefore I think it could be wise to keep checking if a destroyed vehicle is still there when still continuing to produce smoke. Maybe just as a mission specific setting? I for one find it very odd that "nothing" will continue to produce a lot of smoke :)

It's a problem with the custom sounds and an ingame camera. Mandoble has contacted me with a fix that might solve this, I'll incorporate it & see.

---------- Post added at 08:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:46 PM ----------

Would it be possible to add an adjustment parameter for % chance of fire starting?

I love the fire but it occurs so frequently that in a sense it lessens the effect.

Yes I think I can do this :)

[Alex72 1]

Would it be possible to add an adjustment parameter for % chance of fire starting?

I love the fire but it occurs so frequently that in a sense it lessens the effect.

DM said some page back that he is looking into making it more random. :)

[.kju 3245]

DM can you please implement a debug line for this error:

Error in expression <ct;
while {true} do
{
_nearestFire = nearestObjects [_thisObject,["firemarker>
 Error position: <nearestObjects [_thisObject,["firemarker>
 Error 0 elements provided, 3 expected
File JTD_FireAndSmoke\Scripts\FireDamage.sqf, line 30

Like

if ("elements provided" != 3) then { debugLog ["Object is %1", _thisObject]; };

Thanks. :bounce3:

[TRexian 0]

I believe he's relying on the implementation of nearestObjects that allows you to pass an object, rather than a position?

If so, would the correct way be something like if (isNil _thisObject) or something?

[.kju 3245]

hey DMarkwick,

there is an improved version of it:

http://ifile.it/exq25rl/jtd_fireandsmoke.7z

Fixed a couple of config problems and changed it to precomile preInit and spawning

the scripts. That should improve performance.

During a brief test all still worked fine.

Edited November 15, 2009 by kju

[dmarkwick 261]

hey DMarkwick,

there is an improved version of it:

http://ifile.it/exq25rl/jtd_fireandsmoke.7z

Fixed a couple of config problems and changed it to precomile preInit and spawning

the scripts. That should improve performance.

During briefing testing all still worked fine.

Thanks for the attention :)

Is it just the config that's been edited? (Would make it easier for me to simply swap the configs if that's the case, & not lose recent changes etc.)

[.kju 3245]

Use compareIT and winDiff to check.

execVM to spawn needs a changing of _this handling (_this to [_this] in the call).