[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..................

[TheDarkWraith]

As promised here are the pics of the speed controlled dual exhaust smoke mod. Currently I have done this only for the VIIb sub. These are taken at ahead flank bell. Things to note:

• how smoke hugs the water (important for surface air disturbance modeling!), fading out behind sub
• the smoke exits each port AT THE SIZE of the port and expands out
• each side's smoke is completely independant of each other (I'll expand on this)

There are some other features (depicted in the pics but hard to see unless you're playing the game):

• By making each side's smoke completely independant of each other we should be able to use SH3 commander to 'age' the diesels over time thus producing blacker smoke (or bluer, or whiter,etc.). SH3 commander's random features could also cause an engine 'failure' and thus a pouring of black (or blue for oil burning?) smoke from that engine. There are many possibilities here. I have to incorporate some new smoke textures for this first to make it work.
• the smoke is affected by wind - if you have a strong port or stbd wind then the exhausts will swing to the direction of the wind (wind has less effect the faster you are going - surface air disturbances from your sub take over here!)
• If you have high waves and it covers the exhaust port then the smoke will cease and then burp out a nice puff and resume smoking once the wave has uncovered the port
• stops smoking when you submerge and resumes when you surface - but until your sub settles down from the up and down pitching due to surfacing the waves can cover the exhaust ports thus causing them to stop and restart once uncovered (this also applies to heavy seas)
• surface air disturbances from you sub (which get worse the faster you go) are modeled in this. The faster you go the more you will see each exhaust randomly change motion from side to side behind the sub if you are not heading directly into the wind. The more you turn perpendicular to the wind the more pronounced the effect becomes. This air disturbance model can be made to produce different results for different subs (after all they have different curves, angles, sizes of conning towers, etc.). The key point here is each exhaust port has it's own air disturbance model.
• the size, opacity, life, and density are modeled also (in relation to speed). The faster you go the thicker, darker, and longer the exhaust is and hangs around
• The key thing to remember is the smoke is related to speed. Thus if you are going ahead flank and order all stop the smoke will continue but decrease as the speed decreases eventually coming to hardly anything at all stop (no way around this sorry!)
• Will be added for all subs (will need some help here on this in regards to exhaust port locations - PM me if you want to help)
• I'll update as I learn more and add more features to it

Racerboy











Racerboy

EDIT: I just noticed in my pics that the exhaust generators z position is wrong on both! Still a BETA so will fix and correct.

[Mush Martin]

Another Breakthrough. Well done again Racerboy.

[Captain Strangelove]

With all this smoke the type VII looks like an early WWI submarine!

Very cool nevertheless!

Keep going!

[Konovalov]

Wow. What a nice little addition. Well done.

[Hitman]

Cool

Only pity we must choose just one colour and density for all situations. In RL a big acceleration of the engine would cause a huge dark smoke cloud then lower considerably as the engine runs a little at high speed. In fact a sub running all ahead flank would not cause that much smoke, and much less than acclerating. So we will need to find a compromise, but of course this is miles ahead of not having anything. Well done Racerboy

[CapZap1970]

Very nice, Racerboy!!
Looks like you are giving it the final strokes ???
Just in case, please don't forget us the IX Kaleuns
CapZap

[WilhelmSchulz.]

Nice but there is too much smoke in my opinon.

[Hartmann]

Wow, very nice

for my taste is too dark,i like more white or grey smoke, more light, but its a great work

could be tweaked the colour and smoke density

[Mush Martin]

What it needs is to have the properties of fog so when you turn
tail and step on the gas the enemy cant see you with visual ai
anymore.
M