Special effects from SH3 Missing in Sh4??

[William516]

Ok now maybe im wrong about this but so far I have yet to see several simple effects that should be modeled in the game. The effects I'm thinking about were found in Sh3 so i dont know why they took them out.

I have sunk several ships and have yet to see any oil on the water as we had in SH3, is there something wrong with my install or is it simply missing? If it is missing then is there a way to script it into SH4. It was a very immersive effect to see the oil slick form after sinking a tanker.

The second thing i have yet to see is the lightning. Now in SH3 it took awhile and several storms but i would see the lightning lighting up the sky. So far even when building a mission i have yet to see one bolt of lightning or even a flash. Again did i miss something or did they remove this as well. Since IL2 1946 is made by the same developer I wonder if we could take the lightning effects and place them in SH4. I'm sorry im a huge storm buff and loved watching a nasty storm and listening to it over the speakers.

The thrid thing, i miss my dolphin friends lol, im trying to bring them into SH4 so they can randomly appear as i had in Sh3.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a little off topic but i didn't want to start a whole new post over this question. I decided to remove the plankton and distortion effects from the underwater scenes. I just like having the clean pictures i used to have in SH3 and not to mention that the plankton at night looks horrible on my monitor.

I simply moved a few files that were mentioned in an earlier post to a folder called back up. I'm not sure what the EXACT file names were but i know one was impurities.dds , distortion.dds and a third one.

When i started up the game i instantly felt relieved not to see the tons of yellow spots floating by my eyes but then i noticed the when viewing my sub it constantly looked blury and out of focus. I dont have a screen shot but it almost looked like there was an overlay of the sub on itself. Once i placed the files back in the problem went away. Was wondering if anyone has experienced this and what I need to do to make good underwater shots without all the distortion.

Thanks

William

[CaptBackasswards]

I'm not sure about the missing oil slicks and lightening. Maybe they will be enabled with the next patch if there is one.

But lightening from IL 2 imported to SH 4 won't happen. Two totally different developement teams. IL 2 is 1C Maddox out of Moscow, Russia, and the Silent Hunter developement team is out of Romania. They are not associated.

I don't remember Dolphins in SH3.

Rick

[THE_MASK]

Hey CaptBackasswards , best nickname on these forums:rotfl:

[Scoochy]

There are entries for oil slicks and lightning in the data files. Not sure what determines whether or not they occur though.

[Kataki]

I haven't Seen either or.

[CaptBackasswards]

Hey CaptBackasswards , best nickname on these forums:rotfl:

Use to use that name over at the UBI forums too, but after moving and changing internet service I couldn't get my older name over there to work. Probably could have ask the moderators to help but I don't post enough to worry about it. Look at my registration date. Been registered for 2 years here and finally got around to posting.:rotfl:

Rick

[Egan]

I'm pretty sure I've seem lightening once or twice.

[William516]

Thunder sounds are in the main sound folder but i have never heard them play either even after 24 hour real time and no not one instance of lightning

[William516]

Can someone figure out how the sound effects are called in the game. How do you trigger a sound effect. I'm guesing that since lightning is NOT modeled in the game then the sound wont work because the lightning is triggering the sound of the thunder to play.

I know that the pacific ocean had pleanty of bad weather not AS bad as the Atlantic but come on UBI no thunder no lightning.

I'm really getting fed up with having to look online every five minutes to fix a game I paid 50 dollars for. Its not fair to me or the many other million or so people that got jipped, especially not to the modders who are the ONLY ones keeping this game from slipping into the darkness of the depths. (Oh and by the way they dont get paid and honestly SHOULD for solving all YOUR problems)

When making a sequal to a game it should be better content wise not worse.

Ok sorry im done venting but seriously why is it so much content from SH3 is gone but still in the file library. Sh4 is SH3 reskinned anyways so im guessing it shouldn't be to hard to import features or turn them on that were used in SH3.

I'm trying to figure out the sound thing but im not as good as the modders sory

William

[Scoochy]

Why do you think lightning is not modeled in the game?

[EAF274 Johan]

Thunder sounds are definitely in. I have heard them many times already. I haven't seen lightning however, so it is possible that this effect is missing (or I have just missed it).

I actually like the algae/plankton effect :)

[ReallyDedPoet]

I actually like the algae/plankton effect :)

Yeah, this is a nice effect:yep:

RDP

[William516]

I may have a bogus copy of the game then because even on the very first FRESH install with no mods I NEVER heard thunder durring storms and never saw a single flash of lightning.

As said before in the sound folder there is sounds for thunder and they all play very nicely but never here it in the game. I have never tried to run an actual mission yet because of the still many issues with the campains. So all the test i have done are with mission builder.

I set clouds to HEAVY
Rain to Medium (By the way the rain looks horrible and needs to be fixed looks like little white scratches all over the screen)
Wind 12 out of 15
Changes set to min 2hour

I go into the mission and see the heavy seas and hear the wind but never see any lightning streaks and never hear any thunder.

I'm looking into it still

[Beery]

I'm fairly sure I saw lightning - can't remember if I heard thunder or not. What I haven't heard that really bothers me is the water gushing from fractured pipes in the sub - silent water spray really upsets that sense of suspension of disbelief.

[Kataki]

I have definetly heard thunder, but I dont think I've seen lightning (possibly in v1.0).

[zero2005]

heard thunder, but maybe because of the fog i cant see the lightning??, was also wondering where it went.... noticed that i couldnt even see 500m in front of the boat and thought maybe thats why lol

[AVGWarhawk]

I heard the thunder across all patches. Did not see actual lightening as yet.

[Jungman]

No thunder, no lightning. Not yet, some good storms been through.:down:

No sound water pipes breaking, no sound from steam.,,:nope:

SH3 had them.

:88) There is none for some reason.
----------------------------
ENRON: "Ask Why?"

I am selling Stock in the weather! lol

[William516]

Running yet another test tonight with no mods and patched to the newest patch 1.2

I saw somewhere that time of day and cloud cover can effect some things so i will try making a storm in mission builder with the following parameters

Morning Storm


Afternoon Storm


Night Storm

All these with medium rain first and then light rain. There has to be something that is wrong. Has anyone figured out what triggers thunder and lightning in the game. Glad to see im not the only one with these issues.

Is it possible that these effects will only play durring a campain and not a single mission. I haven't been lucky enough to try a campain yet so maybe someone else can test this out for me.

Thanks
William

[William516]

Ran my user created mission, changed the parameters to set time to 9am in the morning. Cloud cover was set at medium, rain fall was set at medium, fog was set to none. Weather changes were all set to max at a minimum of 2 hour.

My mission started and the first thing i noticed was the fog was enabled eventhough it was set to none. The fog was so thick i could not see in front of me 100 feet or more. Rain was falling hard. There was no sun shine at all just cloudy dark skies.

Ran the game sitting in the same spot on surface for 2 hour real time and game time. Not a single sound of thunder and not a single bolt of lightning that i saw while watching the game. Weather also did not change on bit after the two hour mark was reached.

So so far nothing at all again, I did find the one mod that i still have enabled and that is the sky mod. The mod that makes the sky look 110% better. Could this have something to do with it.

Still searching for an answer

William


Update

Ok I ran the game one more time same thing as above but this time decided to stay on the bridge the entire time and I believe I finally saw some lightning. I say believe because im not sure if it was lightning or my video card causing some of the flashing. I do not see any streaks of lightning like SH3 and im possitive i have never heard thunder at all in any test i ran. Even after it appears that i have seen lightning i only see this flash of light from SUB views. If running along side the sub or any outside veiw i no longer see the flash of light. This happens with the stock version of the game and also the Flavor to taste mod. Some very strange things happening with this simple effect here.

[William516]

Still searching through the files to figure this out. Has anyone figured out how to force a sound to play in the game via scripting or any other method. Or anyone figured out how the sound is called to work.

For example i know that if i press the button on my keyboard for "P" it will play the periscope depth sound effect that is in my sound folder. Somewhere there has to be a way to see what actions cause sounds files to play and maybe we can alter them.

I'm still uncertain as to what conditions have to be met in order to play the file for thunder.

Maybe it is my sound card but never caused problems with sh3 or any other game for that matter. FSX plays many more sound files at a time then SH4 so i dont think it is related to a sound card lagging.

Hopefully somone else has had this issue and had it corrected.

William

[William516]

Ok I'm going back to the original game to see if the effects work before i started modding with all the patches.

Still hoping to find the answer to these questions.

[William516]

Ok i can now confirm that the problem has to be the install of the game or my sound card. People are saying they here thunder however I have yet to hear it on any setting.
I uninstalled the game completly erasing all the files and restarting the computer between the install and the reinstall of the game.
Install went fine again no problems, shut off all the outside programs.
Install completed and then I restarted the computer again. I left it at the original vanilla version of the game.
I started the mission builder and created a mission using the mission builder.
Mission parameters as follows
Outside Pearl Harbor by 90 miles or so
Time: 10am
Weather: Heavy clouds, medium rain, no fog, Wind 12kts
Weather change: Heavy on all choices.
I placed myself in the mission in a tambor class sub with a simple escort destroyer next to me. Both of us set at 0 kts.
I then saved the mission and closed the builder. Started up the game and chose my mission. After several minutes of loading time, I found myself in the ocean with heavy seas and heavy fog and rain. I said i didn't want fog if you remember correctly in the original settings.
Rain was pouring, the wind was howling, sounds of the surf also poured through the speakers. I never saw a single flash of the screen that i noticed and never heard a single crack of thunder. I let the game play out in 1x time for several hours. I simply layed down in bed and listened to the rain. I woke the next morning and the game had closed.
As far as i know i still even in the oringinal version of the game do not have the effects that i should see.
The only setting i had turned down in the audio settings were the music options. I had it turned completly down but this should not effect anything else.
As for it being the sound card i dont see the being possible. My sound card is not the best but it can hold up to FSX with all the sounds being played without an issue.
Hopefully somone out there can tell me what wrong with this or what else to test. For now im a little upset and frustrated
Thanks

[Jungman]

I do not hear or see anything either. As posted above earlier.

Look inside the sh.sdl folder inside the Sound folder using hex editor. You will find the the four thunder types and the controls for the volume, Is3D, min and max distance, pitch, Loop, Doppler Factor, etc....other tie in numbers.

Something may be broken here. It could also get the other damage sounds playing again too.
���Category����
���Priority�
���
���Delay�����#

��SoundInfo� ���Name�Particles.P24_@Lightning04����WaveName�Th under_4.wav�
���IsFolder�����Loop�����Play�

���Volume���¼B���VolumeVar�����
���Pitch���€?
���PitchVar��������Is3D�����DopplerFactor������ ��MinRadius��� A���MaxRadius���ÈB
���Category����
���Priority�
���
���Delay����?#

Well, I do not know how to post hex code, but the file that calls the trigger Particles.P24_@Lightning the maximum distance is c8 42 = 100 IIRC is not very far, you may want to change this to c8 44 so if there is lighting in the distance, then you hear it; else it would have to be very close to your boat to hear it. Maybe the lightining visual effect is covered by fog? Your test removed the fog though...

[William516]

Ok well yes your right i did try and remove the fog from the equation, however the key word here is try. As you see when i actually try the mission with the same settings listed above i still saw heavy fog. So bad that sometimes i could barely see the front of my sub.

So the fog was not turned off as it should have been and never changed either. Even after the two hours time. I dont know how to work with hex code so maybe someone could help me out with this problem if i sent them the file your refering to.

I dont know what to do with the file. Has anyone else had this problem? I have had the game installed three times now and im guessing that even after three times the bugs from a bad install would have been worked out by now. I dont see any way that the disk could be bad. If it is a programing error on UBI side then shouldn't it effect everyone?

Thanks again for you help, hopefully someone that is far more tallented then me will pick this up and help me out.


thanks

[William516]

A second thought, I downloaded a program called groovy hex editor or something like that along time ago. I just opened the file using that editor but i dont know how to figure out exactly what line i need to change.

I also remember that in SH3 we were able to play or modify that file using hte mini-tweeker program. I was not able to use the SH3 minitweeker to open that file because it is not a Txt file. Does anyone have the file changed to a TXT file that i can edit with the minitweaker.

Thanks

[Jungman]

Nvdrifter use to make tweak files for Sh4, but he quit the forum.

I think I can do it too...but it is ALOT of work to type out all that text. The file for the sound is much longer. There is as many as there are sound files multiple entries. A real tweak job indead.

Since you want to only play with the certain values, such as thunder04.wav -the format is not that hard to figure out. Same as any other *.sim or *.zon file.

Maybe upload your test mission, let me download and mess with it. I want to test changing the maximum sound range, volumes, etc using my own quick hex editing to see what effects occur in game. the Delay value may be too long, the sounds in this game will not work if the clip + delay > is longer than 15 seconds. They will play once in game, then never again! This others have noted when making a better dive sequence sound or the diesel engine sounds.

It maybe that the Devs disabled the thunder sounds via hardcode, but several claim they heard them in game. I surely have never heard thunder yet, or seen lightning.

[Beery]

I've definitely, 100% certain, heard thunder in the game. In fact I have a test mission in a storm where there's a lot of thunder to be heard. It doesn't have lightning because the fog is so dense, and I can't definitely confirm lightning because I haven't seen it since this issue came up, but I believe I saw it once a few weeks ago.

[Jungman]

You have been around awhile enough I can trust your word on it. :yep:

If there is thunder in the game, I wonder if making some changes to the file will make it more noticed. The range is set for only maximum of 100.

Can you upload a test mission that has thunder in it, so I can try to see what is going on? Thanks.

I do not know how to make a mission yet, never tried.

[Beery]

Can you upload a test mission that has thunder in it, so I can try to see what is going on? Thanks..

I'll see if I can upload it tomorrow (it's 12:30am here so I'm beat). If I can figure out how to upload it it will probably need to be played using RFB though, as it is a campaign patrol.

[Jungman]

OK. So far I did a clean re-install stock game. Maybe I should try make a quick Mission using the editor. I should be able to do it easy enough. Talk to you later.:D

[CaptainCox]

Heard thunder? I heard that plenty of times in game...never saw a flash but.

[Jungman]

OK. I modified the Sub School mission torpedo attack and tried different settings.

As long as you have cloud = 2 you will hear thunder (but saw no lightning). Even if you have medium or heavy rain, or wind from 0 to 15.

So I guess it works...at least in missions. Maybe in game I did not notice the storm cloud state since my computer will not render beyond 1 FPS if I turn on Enivromental Effects -so what I see as true storm state is not always so. I can have partial cloud state (1) with heavy rain (2) and high wind = 15 but not hear any Thunder even though you would thinks so by the looks of things.

The Cloud State must hit (2) before you will hear Thunder. I can hear thunder below with no rain and calm seas. As long as clouds sky is overcast at (2).

[Mission]
MissionType=0
MissionDataType=0
MultiMissionType=0
Year=1943
Month=1
Day=1
Hour=11
Minute=0
Fog=0
FogRand=0
Clouds=2 ---> I hear Thunder only at 2. any state less you hear nothing.
CloudsRand=0
Precip=0 ----> no effect
PrecipRand=0
WindHeading=0
WindSpeed=2.000000 ---> none
WindRand=0
WeatherRndInterval=5
SeaType=0

[William516]

Below is a posting of the mission file in text view that I made to test just this thing. You will see that even with my cloud status or whatever it is called set to 0 i do not get any thunder or lightning. This is still the stock game i tried it in. I will have to try modding a mission file thats already in the game like you did or patching back to the current version. I decided to try it from a fresh install to see if maybe one of the mods of even the patches had caused the issue but it looks like it was this way from the beginning.

------------mission file--------------------

[Mission]
MissionType=0
MissionDataType=0
MultiMissionType=0
Year=1945
Month=1
Day=1
Hour=10
Minute=0
Fog=0
FogRand=2
Clouds=2
CloudsRand=2
Precip=2
PrecipRand=2
WindHeading=0
WindSpeed=12.000000
WindRand=2
WeatherRndInterval=2
SeaType=0
[Unit 1]
Name=_US Gato#1
Class=SSGato
Type=200
Origin=American
Side=1
Commander=1
CargoExt=-1
CargoInt=-1
CfgDate=19411201
DeleteOnLastWaypoint=true
DockedShip=false
GameEntryDate=19450101
GameEntryTime=1000
GameExitDate=19451231
GameExitTime=0
EvolveFromEntryDate=false
Long=-19000100.000000
Lat=2434800.000000
Height=0.000000
Heading=0.000000
Speed=0.000000
CrewRating=3
DelayMin=0
ReportPosMin=-1
ReportPosProbability=100
RandStartRadius=0.000000
NextWP=0
[Unit 2]
Name=_US DE Buckley#1
Class=DEBuckley
Type=3
Origin=American
Side=1
Commander=0
CargoExt=-1
CargoInt=-1
CfgDate=19430101
DeleteOnLastWaypoint=true
DockedShip=false
GameEntryDate=19450101
GameEntryTime=1000
GameExitDate=19451231
GameExitTime=0
EvolveFromEntryDate=false
Long=-19000360.000000
Lat=2434967.000000
Height=0.000000
Heading=0.000000
Speed=20.000000
CrewRating=3
DelayMin=0
ReportPosMin=-1
ReportPosProbability=100
RandStartRadius=0.000000
NextWP=0

----------------------------------------------------------

Thanks again for atleast trying. I'm still trying to figure out that hex mess to see if those settings would help me to force the thunder sound effect so i know it actually works. Is it also possible that weather will not CHANGE under time compression? The randomness of the weather was set to the min. 2hour setting but yet i never see it change even when playing real time.

I will keep digging through this mess.

By the way are there only
3 cloud settings

0,1,2
0 being now
and
2 being overcast

??

[William516]

For some strange reason the developers released a new patch / game made us pay for it but never fixed the things they promised to fix. So yet again it is up to the modders. I have now bought version 1.5 and installed it over a clean copy of SH4. I have no mods enabled or even installed at this time.

Back to square one, with new patch no lightning, no thunder sounds at all.

Created a mission and
placed clouds at value 0f 2 (as figured before)

Dark clouds with rain and high winds, not a single sound of thunder and no signs of lightning. Ran game for 2 hours real time with no advancments in time. Weather does not change at all even with wind, clouds and rain values for change set to 2.

Also still no oil from damaged or sinking ships.

Has anyone figured a work around for any of this, or is it something that is hard coded and we are at the mercy of UBI.

Thanks

Bill

[Fearless]

No problems at my end. Plenty of thunder when I'm in a storm. I'm yet to see lightning though. I'm patched to v1.4 and have RFB 1.4 and PE v3.3 mods installed.

[Go4It]

I hear thunder, but never seen lightning, but I which the devs would of fixed the splash effects when the torpedos, bomb, etc, explode! It looks STUPID when you see ur torpedos explode an no splash. SH3 has it

[William516]

I will have to reinstall the game and try it again. I know in the original game before any of the patches i was able to set clouds to "2" and have a storm. I was able to hear thunder never saw lightning or oil or a vast number of other effects that were in sh3 and left out or forgotten in sh4.

After installing the different patches things that were working did not work anymore.

Now at a full install with only the 1.5 patch i have nothing again. I notice the first few comments are people using version 1.4 and not 1.5.

Has anyone seen these effects using 1.5.

Also since this game is so closed to sh3 (they used the same file structure and everything) would it be possible to imports the sounds missing in sh4. maybe examing the sound files in sh3 and locate the missing parameters.

Be nice if game developers looked into the threads and read what they missed or atleast gave us information as to how to fix these.

Thanks i will try another full reinstall and see if it fixes anything

Bill

[William516]

Ok well i have now confirmed that after a clean install after a full uninstall the original game with no patches does in fact have thunder if your cloud settings are set to "2"

For even when set to "0" will still be heavy at least the three times i tried it.

There is no lightning at all, I'm going to create a backup of all the files that affect sound and the scene.dat file as well. Try and compare them to each of the patches as we go through.

Notice that as the developers fixed some of the noted bugs (SOME) they broke others. Still even at a FORCED patch 1.5 that we had to pay for there is still much that is lacking.

I'm no modder but maybe by comparing some file structers it might lead me to some answers. Does anyone know how to open a .act file extension.

Also noticed that in the scene file there are many refrences to lightning and even what is played for sound after it.

Has anyone figured out all the values and what they stand for when opening these files using the 3d program.
is there anyway to change or add the sounds to the game and have them called up randomly, for example adding more sounds for thunder, currently i think it is only 5-6 sound files that play and they are randomized. Be nice to add some more violent type of thunder and reduce the chance of it playing by decreasing the priority, say randomly once every 30 minutes or so. Seems like everybody is still very confused about how the sound file structures work.

If a developer happens to read this and you have no intentions on ever releasing another "FREE" patch, then please explain how the great team of modders can unlock and fix these issues.

Still trying to get my dolphins back into sh4, no luck but hey im not that good, keeps causing a ctd.

Bill

[Sean142]

Same here. I think I've heard lightning several times but never seen one and I've been with SH since it was released. Oil slicks are visible but you need to have 1.4 + TMO+NSM. I also had PE3 but you should see oil without it. I haven't seen oil in 1.5 but I bought it a few weeks ago so it may as well be there.

Speaking about missing effects, I don't know if somebody noticed that this nice perturbed water after a depth charge or torpedo explosion is gone as well.

[William516]

Ok well here is what i found.

After a full uninstall of SH4 and then putting it back along with the patch to 1.5. I do infact get my thunder back. So something must have gone haywire in my install. I even think i saw some lightning. I'm still toying with the notion.

Things that still are broken sound wise even with 1.5
(feel free to add to this list)

1. officers that repeat and never shut up, or repeat the same order for 5x or more times, examples crashdive, surface the boat, rudder etc
2. No sounds of any damage other then collision, No glass breaking though in the file there are 4 glass break sounds, no pipes bursting, no electrical sparks,
3. Crew doesn't report much of anthing. In SH3 they reported depth, damage, ships, sound contacts etc. In sh4 the writing appears but there is no sound of the crew talking.

This is all with stock 1.5 and no mods at this time. I'm trying to find out what is going on with sounds and how they are called by the sim.

While using silent editor I came across an enviromental file that has a list of sounds that are played, The list is called soundplaylist2. In this sound list are the annoying seagull sounds.

The sound list is set to play the seagull wave in a full shuffel mode. This appears to be the only sound list i have come accross and i still dont understand how it works.

There is also a 3d check box on the sounds in the sh.sdl file. Sometimes the 3d box is checked for some sounds while other sounds it is not.

There is also a play checkbox that i have no clue what it does.

The last thing to reports on that i found funny was the cfg file for the game was set for the following.

***\Program Files\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific\Data\Cfg

[Ubi.Com]
GameName=SILENTHUNTER4
Version=SH4PC1.0 (This is strange it should be 1.5 maybe???)
RememberCDKey=true

[DEVELOPING]
DevDebugEnable=False (these were set to true, i changed them to false)
DevEditEnable=False
MiniDump=Yes (no clue what it does, didn't change it)

I looking for any help that i can get understanding how these files work. There are still several files that end with the extension .act that i can not open with any program on my computer.

Anyone know how to get this to operate?

Bill

[Webster]

well as for #1 the repeated comments are often the result of a bad saved game.

i use stock 1.5 with no mods so i checked my cfg/main file and mine has:

[Ubi.Com]
GameName=SILENTHUNTER4
Version=SH4PC1.0
RememberCDKey=true

[DEVELOPING]
DevDebugEnable=Yes
DevEditEnable=Yes
MiniDump=Yes

and everything with the game works correctly so i would set it the way it was and look elseware for your problems.

are you using vista? vista has issues (not sure why) and you need to install the game somewhere other than the programs folder.