[FC]

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FC

I wish I had a clue as to what you were doing FC. I'd love to help, or collaborate at least.

For making new effects you don't need to know Java. Simplest way for making new smokes is to take Dry Cargo Ship and make mission with it. That one doesn't have guns and it can be destroyed with rockets, that's good for testing.

Smoke effects for ships are in filesSFS/Effects/smokes & filesSFS/Effects/materials. For testing effects you need to create new mod, let's say ShipEffects and than you need to copy extracted files from SFS to mod folder.

So you should have
Il2/Mods/ShipEffects/smokes & Il2/Mods/ShipEffects/Materials folders with all of the files in it.

As you should test effects with Dry Cargo Carrier you can delete all files from smokes folder except
SmokeShipMedium.eff and SmokeShipTiny.eff.

Smoke Ship Medium looks like this

Code:

[ClassInfo]
  ClassName TSmokeSpiralParams
  BasedOn   SmokeShipTiny.eff
[General]
  Size 20.0 60.0

In this file you should only change Size parameters. As you can see this file class for SmokeShipTiny.eff

Code:

[ClassInfo]
  ClassName TSmokeSpiralParams
[General]
  MatName ..\Materials\WhiteSmokeFar.mat
  Color0 0.10 0.05 0.05 0.8
  Color1 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.0
  nParticles 128
  FinishTime -1.0
  MaxR 30
  PhiN 4.0
  PsiN 2.0
  LiveTime 20.0
  TranspTransitionTime 1.0f
  EmitVelocity 1.0 2.5
  EmitFrq 2.5
  Wind 10.0
  Size 5.0 10.0
  GasResist 0.05
  VertAccel 10.0
  Rnd 0.5
  EmitTheta 0.0 30.0

This one is more complicated and I don't know what are all of the parameters but that's the beauty of modding, you can experiment and surprise everybody including yourself with final results. :lol:

In this file I was changing colors and format is RGB Alpha(Transparency) range is 0-1

Color0 0.10 0.05 0.05 0.8
Color1 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.0

I experimented with Gas Resistance and Vertical accel too but it's best to try everything.
In this file you can see that it calls for
WhiteSmokeFar.mat and that's why you need Materials folder too. Let's see how WhiteSmokeFar.mat looks.

Code:

[ClassInfo]
  ClassName TMaterial
  BasedOn   whitesmoke.mat
[Layer0]
  VisibleDistanceNear       0.0
  VisibleDistanceFar        3500.0
// eof

This file is simple and you can experiment with Distance here, I'm inclined to double the distance to get more natural look in game. In this file you can see that whitesmoke.mat is needed too. So let's look at that one also.

Code:

[ClassInfo]
  ClassName TMaterial
[General]
  tfDoubleSide              1
  tfShouldSort              1
  tfGameTimer               1
[Layer0]
  TextureName               SmokeA.tga
//  TextureName AlphaSmoke.txa
// SmokeA.tga
  PaletteName
  //WhiteFog.pal
  Frame                     0.0   // Float 0.0 - first, 1.0 - last
  VisibleDistanceNear       0.0   // Float 0.0 - near,  1.0 - far
  VisibleDistanceFar        2500.0   // Float 0.0 - near,  1.0 - far
  TextureCoordScale         0.0 0.0  1.0 1.0 // Uo   Vo   kU   kV
  ColorScale                1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0    // R G B A

  // Wrap Texture Flags (0/1)
  tfWrapX                   1
  tfWrapY                   1
  // Magnification / Minification (nearest on default)
  tfMinLinear               1
  tfMagLinear               1
  tfMipMap                  0
  /// BlendModes
  tfBlend                   1
  tfBlendAdd                0
  tfTestA                   1
  tfTranspBorder            1
  tfTestZ                   1
  tfNoWriteZ                1
  tfUpDateClear             0
  tfModulate                1
  tfNoTexture               0
  tfAnimatePalette          1
  tfAnimateSkippedFrames    0
  tfCompressMajorAlpha      1
  tfNoCompress16Bit         1

// eof

In this file only thing I would recommend for change is texture, I have painting skills of 2 year old child but there are some excellent artist in community who could make new smoke textures and in this file you can change which texture is going to be called although for test purpose it's best to leave texture name as it is and make new texture with appropriate name.

That's it and when new effect is finished copy all of the new files in separate folder and send them to me. This short tutorial is not only for Razor, anybody can try to make new effect and what Ship fans decide is the best will be included in new mod.

FC