[WIP] Speed controlled sub exhaust smoke

[TheDarkWraith]

I originally started off with an idea to make a dual exhaust VIIb sub modelled after Privateer's 9d2 sub mod. I was successful in making this and while I was in development of this I thought it would be neat to make a sub who a) had exhaust smoke and 2) that smoke was controllable (linked to something). After many hours of CTD's, lockups, freezes, head banging and all I was aobut to give up on the idea. I sent out a message to Privateer asking a question not really related to this and he gave me something to look at for the question posed. Upon investing this 'new ground' I fiddled with some settings and discovered how to make the bow and stern wakes appear underwater. Now with my curiosity peaked I wondered if the ship's wake could be duplicated as smoke......:hmm: I whipped out my hex editor and began coding. The result? I made a successful smoke texture on top of the water that WAS speed dependant. The bad part is that did no good because it only appeared on the surface of the water, it wasn't 3D. The good part is I discovered speed controlled items for the sub. I quickly opened up VISIO and began building hierarchy trees of the file to learn what was going on. After learning the file structure and what it contained I set out to change the ship's wake to smoke. Wasn't as easy as I thought. I was successful though and that opened the door to the linker objects that allow this mod to 'work'. The game thinks the new sub exhaust smoke is just another object created from the 'ship'. The magic lies in the objects that link to this exhaust smoke. They control it's scalability, opacity, life, weight, etc.
Special thanks to Privateer for giving me the suggestion to track down a certain file and analyze it.
Another special thanks to DivingDuck for putting up with my questions about file structures, coordinates, etc.
And thanks to MushMartin for putting me in contact with Privateer.
The first sub I set out to tackle was the VIIb.
I was successful in doing so but it currently is only a single exhaust smoke. The VIIb has exhaust ports on both sides so naturally we need two exhaust smokes. I'll continue working on this, I don't give up easily. I will expand this speed controlled sub exhaust smoke to all subs eventually. I even have ideas to add this to..........

What this mod is: it adds an exhaust smoke to the sub who's output is dependant upon the speed of the sub. Key point here is speed of the sub.
It's still a WIP and I hope to have a BETA release for testing here soon on the VIIb sub.

As this mod matured and grew inside my dual exhausts for subs thread I decided to start this new thread for it. Here are links to previous posts about it:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...0&postcount=36

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...5&postcount=39

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...0&postcount=48

Please use this thread for all posts about this from now on. Thanks!

[RM2(SS)]

sounds really good! i will definetely be looking forward to seeing the finished product!

[TarJak]

Great work Racerboy! You got real talent

[Mush Martin]

I cant believe I missed posting here

congrats and thanks for all the work so far
hopefull to see you succeed with your goals
regarding this mod.
MM

[nikbear]

An amazing adancment with this mod,congratulationsI had a real fear that when privateer was keelhauled that this would die a death,thankfully you have risen to the challenge,really looking forward to this develop in the future:hmm:

[TheDarkWraith]

I found the bug in my speed controlled dual exhaust sub smoke mod and thus it is fully operational (needs BETA testers to ensure no problems). Wow, that's all I can say about it.
Pics to come here soon..................