Oooooo-kay :rotfl: :doh: :rotfl:

Having made three smokes, it's not all that more difficult (:huh: :doh: ) to make four, or even five. Soooo . . .

Here's da current plan:

1) light warships: corvettes, frigates, DDs, DEs -- lightest smoke
2) heavy warships: cruisers, battleships, aircraft carriers -- a bit darker, more blue-grey than modern merchants, and a bit shorter but denser
3) modern (diesel) merchants: medium smoke
4) old (coal) merchants: long, thick black smoke

By the way, in case I forget to say so in the release notes and readme, anyone that would like to incorporate these smokes in their ship models may do so.

What files are altered to give a ship a particular type of smoke? I'd like to understand the process so I can use it for my own mod (thanks for giving permission).

In the .sim file for each ship will be the controller obj_Funnel (for ships that use funnels, anyway). One of the properties for the funnel is called 'smoke'; that deternines the smoke effect for that funnel.

The standard funnel smoke effect used is located in particles.dat, and is called #funnel_smoke. I've created a new .dat file called particles_funnelsmoke.dat that contains the different funnel smoke effects. You just substitute the appropriate one, replacing the original one in the ship's .sim file.

Good, except as mentioned before the older ones (four-pipers, V&W and some others) should be darker
Probably good. I have hundreds of pictures in my files, and in one the ship is at speed with no smoke, and in another the same ship is moving slowly and making lots of smoke. That's backwards from what it should be, and there's no set rule about how much smoke they're making
Look at u-boats. Diesels make very little smoke, except under heavy acceleration or when uncared for.
Very much so. There is a famous picture of HMS Invincible working up to speed at the Falklands in 1914, and she's making so much smoke the fire control people wouldn't have been able to see to shoot the guns!

For (3), PM me a list of the ships you're doing. From me research on names I can probably tell you which were steam and which were diesel.

Very impressive
Now if only someone knows how to make the damn stuff go higher :x

BUT
Within the limitations at the moment i will defo be adding that smoke into my install
Those coal burners look the part alright

That's pretty good info! Thanks! :)

As to the ships I'm doing, that's pretty easy: anything in the Sea folder of the GWX 2.0 mod that has a funnel. :rotfl:

I already have a Word doc of all the ships, listing folder name, ship name and class name. I was planning on going through each folder and (based on BBW's suggestion) deciding what to classify them based on their silhouette. Merchants would be coal burning if they had tall stacks, or diesel if they had short stacks. With the warships I was going to classify them as light (DDs, DEs, corvettes, etc) or heavy (BBs and carriers).

The older DDs (like the 4-stackers) I wasn't sure what to do with them (like as not, now, I'll be making a fifth smoke just for them! :doh: ).

I agree about the no set rule. I've seen photos of WWII merchant convoys at sea making no smoke at all, and warships either with no smoke or horrendous smoke. So while I can't be totally historic/realistic in that regards I can at least try and make their funnel smokes look different and (hopefully) apropo.

Here is a short vid of the four types of funnel smoke I have so far. Comments are appreciated!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBJFgKsfNFU

Actually higher shouldn't be hard: just decrease the particle weight and increase the velocity.

Well, it seems to me like the stokers on that cargo steamer still don't care very much about the environment. Come to think of it, I guess they also don't care about advertising their position to every U-Boat within 30 miles.

It's always interesting to go on U-Boat.net and compare the number of steamships hit, as opposed to motor vessels. I think steamers suffered heavy casualties, even accounting for how common they were back then. Plus, you have to keep in mind that some of the motorships lost were in convoy with coal-burners, and would probably have survived if they had been sailing independently.

I agree that the smoke should go higher, especially with the thicker plumes - it looks very nice but IMO the coal-burner smoke should be in a slightly taller column.

The various U-boat documentaries I've seen, especially the Grey Wolves series, do mention one significant fact about coal burners.

They belched huge clouds of thick, sooty black smoke that could easily be seen a dozen miles away. The video footage I saw of one coal fired cargo vessel showed smoke so dense and the plume was so large I at first thought the ship was on fire after being hit by a torpedo but she was simply cruising at five knots in convoy!

I suppose this was because the top speed of some of those old coalers was around 4-6 kts so they naturally produced a lot of smoke with their engines working hard.

If anything, you've got the heavy black part of the smoke right, AvH, but the plume needs to be more full and around two shiplengths long.

This is awesome work! With people using 16 km view it means you can actually ID a ship's general type by her smoke. I can hardly wait! :D

You're far too modest AvH! Be it blind luck or pure skill, you still rock! :rock:

@Sailor Steve: Is there a way I can send you the Word doc I have? I appreciate the offer, and I could use the help sorting these lil' buggers.

@iambecomelife: fixed; the plume now rises more than before. (Just to give you an idea what I'm going through though --wry grin-- I have four single scripted missions: one with ships at 1 knot and no wind, another with them at half speed and no wind, a third at half speed and 10 m/s wind, and a forth with them at full speed. With every change I make I rerun all four, to compare how that changed characteristic effects the smoke effects.)

@Graf Paper: Thanks!!

@Albrecht.....I've just noticed your multiple visits on the GWX TS server log. My apologies for having missed you mate. Is there something your after ? http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/181...kbigsw1yo4.gif

Question.....will this work be made to comply with JSGME ? http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif

Yes, and yes. :D

I had a quick question to ask someone on the GWX team, which is why I've been popping in.

And yes, the enhanced funnel smoke mod will be useable with JSGME.


And now I'm up to five smokes, for the Clemsons and similar. :damn: :p

I'm over on there now (for the next 30 mins or so) with TarJak. http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

Hunter ICX and Kratos are also there (flying)

Ok . . . unless anyone has any real complaints and/or observations :D ;) this should be how the funnel smokes will appear when released.

There are now 5 different kinds: 1) coal burning merchants, 2) diesel burning merchants, 3) light warships, 4) heavy warships and 5) older (4-stackers, as an example) warships.

Depending on comments I might make minor tweaks, but this should be it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr9Fnn4i7Nk

In the periscope views the ships are between 5.5 and 6.5 kilometers distant. In the first, they are doing 1 knot, in calm weather, with 5 m/s wind. In the second, they are moving between 12 and 20 knots, with the wind at 10 m/s.

Very effective and much better

~ salute ~

Nice job :up: