JTD Fire And Smoke

[tcp 10]

Players that do not even have this mod, on servers that are also not running it are being thrown this error:

Warning Message: Script JTD_FireAndSmoke\Scripts\SmokeMain.sqf not found

It shows up in a confirmation dialog, interrupting gameplay, when a player who has the mod joins. It could be caused by using a CBA call that is broadcast to all players. I'm not sure, but could you please prevent this?

[Richard Bruce Cheney 10]

I, for one, am heartily disappointed that this mod was not included in the Community Awards list at BIS.

I can't argue with most of the other options for Addons/Mods, but this Fire And Smoke should have been included. Actually, there are a couple on the list that I think are inferior for various reasons, but I won't name them.

Just color me disappointed.

I voted for it!

[Tankbuster 1733]

Have you given GameBooster a try?

Mmmm yeah. Try snakeoil too.

[-Total- 0]

Players that do not even have this mod, on servers that are also not running it are being thrown this error:

Warning Message: Script JTD_FireAndSmoke\Scripts\SmokeMain.sqf not found

It shows up in a confirmation dialog, interrupting gameplay, when a player who has the mod joins. It could be caused by using a CBA call that is broadcast to all players. I'm not sure, but could you please prevent this?

de-pbo the mission being played and see if it was edited by someone running the mod. It could be from the mission (aka when a player who has it installed joins).

[Tankbuster 1733]

de-pbo the mission being played and see if it was edited by someone running the mod. It could be from the mission (aka when a player who has it installed joins).

Oh.... Are you saying mission makers should not have this installed when creating? Would a manual removal of all references from the SQM be sufficient?

[jasonnoguchi 11]

...mm.... this is wierd... JTD fire really spread fast and furiously but they don't burn people, is that right? I made a huge forest fire and then ran right into the fire unhurt....

[fincuan 0]

Players that do not even have this mod, on servers that are also not running it are being thrown this error:

Warning Message: Script JTD_FireAndSmoke\Scripts\SmokeMain.sqf not found?

A common issue with this mod. When certain things happen ingame a player who has the mod initiates calls to a few scripts script via CBA_fnc_globalExecute, and those not running the mod obviously don't have said script so they'll get an error dialog telling they're missing it. Not much you can do about it except for hope the behaviour is fixed by the author, or as a temporary solution place and empty script file at the end of that path if you don't want to use the mod.

[Tankbuster 1733]

...mm.... this is wierd... JTD fire really spread fast and furiously but they don't burn people, is that right? I made a huge forest fire and then ran right into the fire unhurt....

They do burn people, it's just that you don't see it. There's no graphic for a bloke alight.:)

[jasonnoguchi 11]

They do burn people, it's just that you don't see it. There's no graphic for a bloke alight.:)

oh! so do those who are burnt at least die or just injured?

[Tankbuster 1733]

oh! so do those who are burnt at least die or just injured?

Very much so. If it's your player that's being burnt, there's no real indication that it's actually happening. The player makes those silly I'm wounded noises, and oddly, starts to swear in an East European accent. :D

[jasonnoguchi 11]

hahahaha got it! :) one tactic I am exploring is to rain HE rounds into a forest full of enemy infantries and let JTD fire kill them all in one big forest fire, can that happen? :)

[TRexian 0]

Yes.

It has happened to me, actually, where a crashing aircraft set an area of forest on fire through which I was trying to escape.

[Tankbuster 1733]

Only an exploding vehicle can start a fire, HE don't. It was something we discussed during pre beta testing which mostly involved us intentionally crashing C130s into forests. It's harder than you might think!

You are right though, you can use the fire tactically. AI aren't afraid of it though, so they don't run from it, even when their mate gets a bit toasty. :)

[jasonnoguchi 11]

I see...well, at least the possibility of tactical use of fire is there. :)

[dmarkwick 261]

@Markwick

Are you working on the blocky black squares that appear from far when the smoke comes out?

Is there a chance to improve the performance (FPS) even more?

With all the mods now (ACE, GL4, ZEUS, VFAI, JTD) every single frame more is gold-worth.

I haven't ever seen this problem. Maybe it's a graphics setting?

---------- Post added at 04:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:23 PM ----------

Anyone else not able to use this along with WarFX Particles Mod?

I cant. Its either one or the other and I prefer the awesome particle mod but I do love the smoke in this mod...I wish there was a way to use both.:(

There's no reason why JTD Fire & Smoke shouldn't work with any other mod, it's designed to be independent from any outside effects editing. As mentioned, it layers new effects over the default effects, it doesn't change or edit anything.

---------- Post added at 04:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:25 PM ----------

I have @JTD after @WarFXParticles.

I've uninstalled JTD since it didnt work. I'll try using it again and seeing if it works.

I really appreciate your hard work and I would love to use this mod. I had it working when it was first released and then WarFX came out and it didnt work then suddenly It worked but JTD smoke doesnt...So weird.

It sounds like your problem is probably something simple that you've overlooked or just done wrong and haven't realised. Does it work alone?

---------- Post added at 04:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:26 PM ----------

Players that do not even have this mod, on servers that are also not running it are being thrown this error:

Warning Message: Script JTD_FireAndSmoke\Scripts\SmokeMain.sqf not found

It shows up in a confirmation dialog, interrupting gameplay, when a player who has the mod joins. It could be caused by using a CBA call that is broadcast to all players. I'm not sure, but could you please prevent this?

Fincuan has kindly supplied a fix for this which will be implemented in the next release :)

---------- Post added at 04:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:28 PM ----------

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this before, but there is a huge amount of bloat that happens to savegames. At least it seems that way. The savegame files are filled with bird code, so I am trying it again without birds enabled. Has anyone else had this happen to them, or are 100mb savegames routine after a long play session?

I tried to play the game without the JTD Fire and Smoke mod, but it's very hard to go back to vanilla smoke and no fires. Not only is all of the smoke beautiful to watch, but you lose the gameplay of an obscured battlefield and markings of heated battles. Add fire to this and you can see just how much this mod adds.

I cannot reason why JTD FAS would bloat up a save game file, however I have never tested this aspect (as I cannot see why it would happen ;)). I'll try it, but I don't think that spawning & deleting the bird objects would bloat up savegame files so much. Things are spawned & deleted all the time in ArmA2 after all.

---------- Post added at 04:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:30 PM ----------

de-pbo the mission being played and see if it was edited by someone running the mod. It could be from the mission (aka when a player who has it installed joins).

There is indeed a readme reference to manually pruning away JTD FAS references from mission files. Like any other addon, it writes references to itself when used in the editor, however JTD FAS is very unusual in that it's necessarily spawning and deleting stuff in order for the effects logic to work without actually needing an ingame presence like an editor placed object. Just one of those things :)

---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:33 PM ----------

...mm.... this is wierd... JTD fire really spread fast and furiously but they don't burn people, is that right? I made a huge forest fire and then ran right into the fire unhurt....

There's possibly two reasons you're seeing this:

1. Script lag. ArmA2 has a strict time limit per frame for scripts to run, 3ms. If any script is not executed within that time it's simply disregarded until the next cycle. When you have a lot of stuff going on, and you have a few addons doing their business, some scripts can fall behind. As the fire damage triggers trigger each 5 seconds then if it's missed out, it doesn't affect you.

2. The fire damage logic works like this: when you start to be burned, your current health is saved and new damage is added on every 5 seconds, giving you time to save yourself. If you manage to escape the fire, you "recover" and your initial damage value is reapplied. This seems to work fine when it's not subject to reason #1 above, as it's still pretty easy to be killed in a fire if you don't take quick action.

[tcp 10]

Thanks.

[andersson 285]

Fincuan has kindly supplied a fix for this which will be implemented in the next release :)

Good news!! I so want to use it but people complained.

About dependecy. When making missions its best to use no addons (except the things you need to place in the editor ofcourse).

[enad 11]

@DMarkwick. Yes it works if I dont use WarFX. Together they dont seem to work. I dont think its ACE2. I'll try DLing it right now and seeing if it works.

[Richard Bruce Cheney 10]

After removing the birds, JTD doesn't seem to bloat savegame files anymore, but I see errors in Arma2.rpt, although the mod seems to run just peachy:

ERRORS ON INIT:

LODShape::Preload: shape 'ca\data\particleeffects\fireandsmokeanim\fireanim.p3d' not found

Warning Message: Cannot open object ca\data\particleeffects\fireandsmokeanim\fireanim.p3d

THIS LAST ERROR REPEATS HUNDREDS OF TIMES:

Error: Model ca\data\particleeffects\fireandsmokeanim\fireanim.p3d cannot be used as a sprite - it has not just one LOD level

[dmarkwick 261]

After removing the birds, JTD doesn't seem to bloat savegame files anymore, but I see errors in Arma2.rpt, although the mod seems to run just peachy:

ERRORS ON INIT:

LODShape::Preload: shape 'ca\data\particleeffects\fireandsmokeanim\fireanim.p3d' not found

Warning Message: Cannot open object ca\data\particleeffects\fireandsmokeanim\fireanim.p3d

THIS LAST ERROR REPEATS HUNDREDS OF TIMES:

Error: Model ca\data\particleeffects\fireandsmokeanim\fireanim.p3d cannot be used as a sprite - it has not just one LOD level

Those look like BIS objects not JTD objects. JTD doesn't reference any of those.

[jasonnoguchi 11]

@Dmarkwick, Thank you so much for the detailed explanation! That explains why dashing through fire didn't seem to hurt me! In fact, I think this "lag" thing is pretty realistic as fire takes time to do its work on people and if you get through it fast enough, it usually doesn't hurt at all. :)

Just one question buddy, will house fires spread too? any intention to make HE rounds catch fire too? heheheh yeah, I know its not realistic as HE rounds in RL does not set things on fire either...ok, forget it. ;-)

[dmarkwick 261]

Just one question buddy, will house fires spread too? any intention to make HE rounds catch fire too? heheheh yeah, I know its not realistic as HE rounds in RL does not set things on fire either...ok, forget it. ;-)

I vastly reduced buildings' ability to set fire to each other as every time a house fire started, all the houses burned down. So now houses have only a small chance of spreading. It's all a balance between realism, gameplay, and performance. :)

[jasonnoguchi 11]

got it! :)

[Sam75 0]

is it possible to have smoke casting shadows ?

[dmarkwick 261]

is it possible to have smoke casting shadows ?

I experimanted with this in ArmA1 but the results were disappointing. I applied shadow LoDs to invisible objects and spawned them similar to how the old viewblocks were spawned, but the ingame shadow logic made them invisible after a few meters in any case, so it seemed to be wasted effort and lost performance.

It takes a lot of performance away to constantly spawn & delete these shadow objects, as smoke moves about I had to constantly lose & recreate new shadow objects to match the shadows with the smoke.

I did briefly toy with the idea of moving negative light sources along the shadow area, "sucking" light out of the scene, but again engine limitations made this rather flaky. Only a limited number of lights can be processed by ArmA2 at any given time so again most of the effort was never realised in anything but lost performance.

Edited January 7, 2010 by DMarkwick