tracer mod problems*Now with screenshots*

tracer mod problems*Now with screenshots* - Printable Version

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tracer mod problems*Now with screenshots* - Jaypack44 - 13.04.2008

Hi all. I'm working on a mod to change all of the tracer colors (i.e. get rid of the russian "laser beams"), but I've run into a problem. I can change the "up-close" textures just fine, but they're still the original colors when seen from a distance. (i.e. the old red .50 cal tracers are now yellow up close, but then they change to red when they are a certain distance away. Is there any way to change this?

And one more thing, does anyone know if the colors in-game are historically correct (red, blue, green, pink, and purple?) I've changed most of them to just plain yellow, but I'm not sure if that's right.

- Spidermonkey - 14.04.2008

Jay, good luck with this.

From guncam footage, I can say that the P-47 tracer is awful. It needs to be be white/yellow for sure, but also about 3x brighter. Is this a possibility with the work you are doing to actually make the tracer as bright as the Tempest tracer. That is prbably closer to how it should look, but with 8 streams of tracer all as bright as the Tempest?

I can't speak for the other countries, but the 47 is certainly wrong and too dull!

Good luck, cheers SM

- Slow - 14.04.2008

German tracers were correct, if I remember...correctly Tongue

- Username - 14.04.2008

I remember tracer colours being discussed years ago on the Ubi board, back in the early days when Oleg still posted there. He maintained that the colours were all historically correct - to general disbelief. But then someone posted a copy of a report analysing the chemicals used in different countries' tracers at that time and it confirmed what Oleg had said. Some German tracers really were blue (or white), Russians green etc.

- Spidermonkey - 14.04.2008

Here's guncamera footage showing what I mean about brightness and colour:

http://raincoaster.com/2006/06/25/p47-g ... in-colour/

Way brighter than the game.

Cheers, SM

- zaelu - 14.04.2008

Gun-camera footage is not a valid source, is a film that gets impresioned and the results depends on the exposure, type of chemicals used at developing it and then the age and "digitizing" technique... it simply is irrelevant. Nice looking but not history recording in the true sense... or complete sense rather.

Simply putting it, the eyes of the pilots must have seen something different than the camera film from their gun-cams.

And the "shape" of the tracers is unreal too and is due to the vibrations in the camera mostly.

- Alex T. - 14.04.2008

to get a more "reliable" source for tracers looks have a look at more recent wartime footage on youtube. The tracer bullets haven't changed much in the years, so what you see on recent footage is just like what they used to see 60 years ago. My opinion is that they shouldn't look "solid", maybe the textures should have some alpha applied, in order to give it a semi-transparent look. A feature that we really miss though (but I guess this is a code thing) is the bullet ricochet. It was a common view to see the machinegun bullets, being FMJ, ricocheting on hard paved road, railroads, tanks and so on, and this is easily visible on wartime footage.

Cheers

Alex

- MICHOO - 14.04.2008

Alex T. Wrote:A feature that we really miss though (but I guess this is a code thing) is the bullet ricochet. It was a common view to see the machinegun bullets, being FMJ, ricocheting on hard paved road, railroads, tanks and so on, and this is easily visible on wartime footage.

Cheers

Alex

Maybe ricochet effect could be adopted from IL2 damage model .

- Alex T. - 14.04.2008

I also thought about it, but it's not very realistic. It's something that should be implemented in the code I think.

- Jaypack44 - 14.04.2008

HI all, thanks for the replies! I decided to keep some of the original colors, but I will tone down the saturation on all of them. So now, instead of green and purple "lasers", They'll be more realistic colors. I'll try to get some screenies up sometime this week.

- zaelu - 14.04.2008

The game is trying to imitate a humans view not a guncam's one.

Sure you can add some nice "touche" with some squiggles like tracers and "sepia" or "Vietnam footage" like colors but that is not what the eye see. A human eye (the MK1 Smile

) is a bit more advanced in image stabilisation and when it's data gets processed by the mind all imperfections you see in the movies are gone. Maybe in some occasions we might see some trails... but if you see them... you better have a fast shutter for your camera or you will record... squiggles... long and not pretty Smile

.

This realism sometimes goes off tracks sometimes because it's based on "the movies", which cannot technically tell the same story like the eye. That's why we call it... "film like".

For example what I don't like in IL-2 (but in other games you see same thing)... when you lower your gear you have a tremendous "camera" shake... We know the plane vibrates in stuff... but the eye compensates it and the brain is cropping it. Is exactly the opposite process of making "camera shake" in a video editor. Clamp a camera on the headrest of the passenger seat in a car... drive on a normal road... maybe a country road while recording, then look at the camera. I bet it will not be exactly what you saw and I am not referring at the angle Wink

- Jaypack44 - 14.04.2008

I know about all of that I agree that much of the film stuff is different than IRL- this mod is just to change the colors to slightly less garish colors, though, as I have always thought that they were too bright. They will still have colors, just not quite as bright.

- Jaws2002 - 14.04.2008

That's what you get when people that never fired a weapon, never saw real world tracers, or never bother to document the historical data, start to "fix " the game based on a movie with Steven Segal or their gut feeling.

:roll:

Why don't you go to the library first do some research and then when you have a clue what you are doing start "fixing"?

I'm not sure if all of them are exactly right but most of them are.

"That evening, two Japanese tanks charge the 10th Battalion. "The men were quiet," records the official history, "the silence was broken by a strange sound coming from the east...when a light was seen through the jungle, an angry voice yelled 'Put out that bloody light!' It was thought to be one of the battalion's Bren carriers." Instead the Japanese open fire. The Australians have no anti-tank weapons, and take heavy casualties. The night battle is brilliantly lit by red, green, and blue tracers, as both sides open up with everything they have, amid pouring rain and stinking jungle. "

"Left) Figure 25: A sample of two paper labels to be found on both the side and the end of the ammunition boxes and ammunition containers. All ammunition boxes and containers, no matter what calibre, had these paper labels attached on the outside to identify the contents. The paper labels normally measured 7x10cm Some of them could have a green, blue, yellow or red 3cm-wide bar running across them or in the middle of the label from top to bottom to identify what colour of tracer/fuse there was within. In addition, triangles in the corners of the label in the colours of the tracers are also visible "

[Image: flakarticle_dmouritzsen26.jpg]

http://www.missing-lynx.com/library/german/flak2_dmourtizsen.html

Historical acounts about Russian green tracers:
"Tracers came in two forms. One version burned for green five seconds and covered 1200 meters (although it was required to reach 1500 meters). An anti-aircraft tracer was also created. It was unique in that it burned red for 800 meters as it ascended, then burned green as it fell back to earth. This version was soon discarded, but the first model was kept to the present day."
http://www.russianwarrior.com/STMMain.htm?1890Ammo76254R.htm&1

- Jaypack44 - 14.04.2008

Jaws2002 Wrote:That's what you get when people that never fired a weapon, never saw real world tracers, or never bother to document the historical data, start to "fix " the game based on a movie with Steven Segal or their gut feeling.

:roll:

Why don't you go to the library first do some research and then when you have a clue what you are doing start "fixing"?

I'm not sure if all of them are exactly right but most of them are.

"That evening, two Japanese tanks charge the 10th Battalion. "The men were quiet," records the official history, "the silence was broken by a strange sound coming from the east...when a light was seen through the jungle, an angry voice yelled 'Put out that bloody light!' It was thought to be one of the battalion's Bren carriers." Instead the Japanese open fire. The Australians have no anti-tank weapons, and take heavy casualties. The night battle is brilliantly lit by red, green, and blue tracers, as both sides open up with everything they have, amid pouring rain and stinking jungle. "

"Left) Figure 25: A sample of two paper labels to be found on both the side and the end of the ammunition boxes and ammunition containers. All ammunition boxes and containers, no matter what calibre, had these paper labels attached on the outside to identify the contents. The paper labels normally measured 7x10cm Some of them could have a green, blue, yellow or red 3cm-wide bar running across them or in the middle of the label from top to bottom to identify what colour of tracer/fuse there was within. In addition, triangles in the corners of the label in the colours of the tracers are also visible "

http://www.missing-lynx.com/library/german/flak2_dmourtizsen.html

Historical acounts about Russian green tracers:
"Tracers came in two forms. One version burned for green five seconds and covered 1200 meters (although it was required to reach 1500 meters). An anti-aircraft tracer was also created. It was unique in that it burned red for 800 meters as it ascended, then burned green as it fell back to earth. This version was soon discarded, but the first model was kept to the present day."
http://www.russianwarrior.com/STMMain.htm?1890Ammo76254R.htm&1

Ok, Ok, I looked some stuff up, and I guess you're right. The USAAF did use red tracers, so I'll change that back. However, I'm not changing the basic colors (red will still be red, green will still be green), I'm just slightly altering the hues so that dogfights don't look as much like 4th of July fireworks displays. (or for you non-americans, new year's?).

But I'm still looking for a way to make it so that the tracers don't change colors after a certain distance- i.e. go from light green back to the original "laser"...