Opticalsnare

Well the clouds disappear, you fly thru them but they just disappear and then look strange.. I dunno what im doing tbh im starting to think its a bad idea...

It breaks something else. Thats the problem :(

Well i keep breaking things... I can't get the aircraft to fly thru the clouds without disappearing.

Mine does, i got both high, medium and low cloud cover, based on depending on what the weather is like. Btw my clouds also do not change shape when you rotate yourself? You know like when you turned round and the clouds sortaa morphed is it, they no longer do that.

Its not really possible like that i don't think.

Yus tracers will be updated, and yus they are more like orbish than streaks, colours have been fixed also. Still working on clouds, but getting some very interesting scenes...

Yea they have been done. The dust kickup is much faster so the impacts appear more intense, rather than where it just spurted a slow dust upwards, they are nothing like before.

Just a heads up don't repack vanilla .pbos with edited files otherwise it will break the game. You need to make your own mod addon with the modfied config...

The effects for smallarms and almost every other effect for the game are located in the Addons\Data_F\ParticleEffects\Config search for "ImpactEffectsSmall" there will be a number of classes listed, in each of those classes there is part that says type="xxxxx" which will link to the actual effect which will be called something like "dustimpact1" search for that in the config and you will find the effects which controls how that effect is emitted. Read this https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Particle_Effects for more information about what does what.

Yea i am aware of the tool, but when i tried similar settings it completely broke the cloud system ingame. And as for the smaller sprites method which yes this is how the engine generates the particles and this is generally how i make my effects, but its really not as simple as you think it is. Its also far too late now to redevelop existing effects or attempt to because i know just how hard and time consuming it can get. The effects are not final btw there are still many changes to be made with the colour variations and mixture. The Artillery WIP video showcases some of these changes.

These are WORK IN PROGRESS. The clouds range from scattered formations to enormous cloud banks and sometimes have nice red sunsets. These have a much more softer appearance than the vanilla ones. The anomalies with excessive colour variations during stormy weather is also fixed with clouds appearing grey and slightly darker grey in appearance and generally looks more natural cloud cover. The cloud transitions thruout the time period are completely different than vanilla ones with light cloud cover providing small cloud formations which will then transform into more larger cloud formations which will move in to provide mostly cloudly weather, when storms are approaching massive cloud banks move in and appear quite gloomy in the distance, you know when your about to have bad weather because your see it coming now. Will post a video when ive finished the rest of the weather changes and cloud formations in a day cycle to showcase how it all goes. - -

Can't really have animated textures that size, it causes issues with the camera direction. Working on the ArmA 3 Clouds atm, made some really nice looking skies. :p

Just a suggestion Lordy if you can't get this working, when i made the original distant effects script for gunfire, i was also faced with the same problem for distant sounds for explosions. I managed to get them working by adding a script activated thru a fake particle effect it was a bit of bodge. But basicly when the particle effect was generated it also ran a script which created the sound effect thru its "onTimerScript". It wasnt perfect but i got it working in the end, you could try the same method if all else fails. Just that all my modwork is tightly connected together, the soundmod,AI settings and Particle Effects all worked together to work as one package you see, this is why i never released a soundmod myself or some of the other mods i personally use, apart from the particle effects and some others which can be edited quickly for others to use. Another thing is im not sure how this would work for you, as you would need to setup your own dummy particle effects which could end up conflicting with my effects. :( Edit: I no longer work on the soundmod that much and ended up disabling pretty much all script activated effects, when A3 was released i began using the built-in effects which change the actual sound itself. Have you tried playing with those settings? you can get some pretty interesting results.

Yeh man the good ole days.

I can understand some peoples frustration. BI really need to sort their QA out because sometimes its just unacceptable. The bugs can be really horrific sometimes and can cause an entire mission to fail or makes you want to ask the question what on earth is actually going on. Things that are brought up by the community time and time again are mostly ignored, which is a shame because BI were really good at listening to the community in tackling issues and resolving them but over the past few years this relationship has deteriorated severely. I have to admit that i no longer actually play the game for what it is, i just use it for my mods and other peoples mods these days. I think they made a terrible mistake with ArmA 3 going towards the future style which lets be honest its not future at all because the weapons systems and vehicles are a step backwards to what weapon systems we have today. The setting itself i honestly feel no immersion in it whatsoever or interest with the overall style of the units. I liked it when i saw units i could recognize like a BMP2 rushing into a hot zone and Russian/Soviet troops jumping out the back or a Hind gunship hunting you down in some large forest at dusk when the rain is starting to come down. I get none of that with ArmA 3 the units appear all the same to me. I did not buy A3 somebody donated a copy to me and asked that i continue making my mod and others have made donations for my efforts and i am very thankful for that support, but if BI did release another game id be a bit cautious and proberly wait a year to see how things turned out. When i play other games i get the sense that the ArmA series is stuck in some kind of a rut, a cycle that keeps repeating itself, the same thing over again just slightly different in appearance. Sorry guys. Its a "maybe"

Optimization dude. Theses effects are a bit more detailed and complex than previous effects, so they use slightly more resources when being generated. Some new Battledust effects which have not yet been shown are currently under testing, these will begin after the initial blast has dissipated and will hang about the battlefield after major engagements, this is a more optimized method than before so will hopfully will cater for what you mentioned and not be so demanding as before. Lighting on dust particles? Do you mean how to make the particles be emissive without a light source? If so then this option no longer functions in A3, there is some emissive settings for nightime effects but this does not work during the daytime.

Its only the muzzlesmoke thats been modded, the flashes are still the same as before. But it does improve your framerate some during full-auto firing in the first-person view. Not really tested so much in large scale engagements yet, i think it made it slightly better gave like a few extra frames, but you can definitely see an improvement in the FP view.

Well you have to set a limit somewhere. The amount of particles that are generated atm is by far more than enough. The limits can be increased via the config but im trying to keep things under this limit at the moment, i don't want to make things too demanding eating up frames and making unoptimized effect. The particle limit is more like saftey net rather than a brickwall. If you hit it then you know you have gone too far and need to ease off some. Its all about finding the right balance.

The Mk82 effects have a much higher particle count than these, and so are by far more detailed in its fire and smoke creation. Most of the attention on these, are on the dirt and debris. If they were the same as the mk82 as in the same amount, then the amount of particles being generated will consume far too much, it would not take long before the particles start getting cutoff because theres too many being generated. The effects for these are more catered for quantity rather than quailty, as you can have a massive barrage of artillery fire without the risk of causing a system meltdown. All effects in the update are based on what they are for, common effects such as general explosions, bulletimpacts etc wont be as detailed as say an epic explosion like the mk82/laser guided bomb. Hope this makes sense.

Heres some WIP of the Artillery Effects. Mostly showcasing the smoke,dirt & velocity of the effect. Its also using a some edited animated smoke from the vanilla game which is i am testing out. The scene is very intensive but is still playable, this is about as close as you can get so the amount of particles being generated is at full, but its still within the threshold of particle generation. There are still some effects to add like a groundblast effect which will kickup dust after the impact but its not yet implemented, its designed to spread outwards from the blast along the ground like a shockwave. The sun penetrates the effects which is bit funky sometimes see what i can do. Not much smoke when your really upclose, but if you are this close you wont see much of anything cause you get blown away and end up watching dirt and smoke blast past your dead body ha. No night-time scenes yet as the lighting is still under going some changes. http://youtu.be/K6VH7265vVc

Im not saying that if there is some major issue that will cause serious conflict for those who do and those who dont will be ignored, but there will be a line on how far that will go. Smoke Grenades and Ground Based vehicle counter-measures for example are no longer part of the mod and are now independent so they should no longer cause major issues as members have reported in the past.

Ok first lets get this straight. I don't play MP, and if people dont want to run my mod thats up to them, but i will not restrict the mod for other people who do. If the server admins does not allow my mod to be used because X don't have this and B has that then thats the way its going to be and it won't change because of the nature and scope of the mod. The mod is designed for the client and is primarily for the solo aspect of the game not the MP.

I think one time BI did try and approach me before A3, i was contacted via PM to get on Skype but it got left at that after i asked why, no offence intended. And if it was what i thought it was at the time then i proberly woundnt have been interested because at the time i was running my own business but who knows. As other people have already pointed out the offer would have to be pretty decent enough for me to uproot and move to a foreign country and work in a office with someone else directing the ideas. It would appeal to someone half my age whos not so planted, but i am already 30 and own a house, car & friends. Ive worked in modding for proberly 15yrs now, i worked on Insurgency mod during its development stages for a few years as one of the lead designers, and a few of the members i worked with then moved onto some gaming studios and from what i heard it wasnt all that super it was made out to be. I have worked as a contractor for a few game studios after i left the mod for a couple of years but most of which were just hot air and piss. Its really remarkable how some people manage to get the support they need for these games from some publisher because they did some college course and got a degree or whatever in video game design they may have good idea but they are total fffking assholes when it comes to working for them and alot of the time they again want you to move so they can rape ya face off in person when you anit doing what they want even the impossible. Ive got a few stories, like one designer i knew who was a really nice bloke from Germany was asked to fly to the US for a chat about going full-time they said they would pay for his flight over, so he went and it wasnt for him so he declined the offer and then they just left him in the US apparently just got up and walked out the fucking restaurant and he had to pay for his flight back and ended his contract the next day whilst he was still flying back and he had a big legal battle for ages. All they want is monies and everybody else including their employees is just someone to shit on. So yea after that i was kinda was turned off by the whole thing and moved back into modding and went a different direction keeping my hobby as a hobby and job as a job, sometimes turning your hobby into a job is good if you find the right people but i did not. If Valve themselves phoned up and said want a job then i would move my ass cause from what i hear they are pretty cool to work for, but most of the time its like a generation of EA bosses had kids and gave them the keys to the game bus. But im sure there are some decent people to work for out there im sure BI is one.

Yea the regular options. Where it says low, med and high will control how much smoke, fire and other details is generated. Btw the only changes made to the muzzle effects is that the smoke has been edited to be more optimized during full-auto where i saved 15fps. Other than that theres no more changes planned. Animated textures are supported, but should only be used in as a smoke particle or small minor effects. Anything rather large like an entire explosion causes issues relating to the camera position and will look the same everytime more or less.

thats cool man, will make the explosions alot more tense. :)