Spawns for Ground TIs and Sky Markers

[mongoose]

Spawns tend to fox me. 1. Can one make spawns of weapons only? 2. can these be spawned on the ground when one is 6K m or 20Kft above them? 3. Could sky markers be spaned in the are over the target upon player arrival??

[Daiwilletti]

Spawns tend to fox me. 1. Can one make spawns of weapons only? 2. can these be spawned on the ground when one is 6K m or 20Kft above them? 3. Could sky markers be spaned in the are over the target upon player arrival??

hi Mongoose, do you mean a weapon or a gun? It may be worth taking a look at how the mines work (in ETO IIRC) - I think they are a gun with a very short range and only 1 round of ammo. The approach might be adapted for your purposes.

Spawns can be referenced to facilities (eg. railyard, ports, factories, airbases) as I have done with coastal shipping.

[mongoose]

All these items are basically bombs. I suppose I could do a spawn with bombers but I am trying to avoid that.

[gecko]

You need to copy a flak gun vehicle, and have its xdp call a gun from the guns folder that shoots a flak round that has the desired effect used in place of the flak burst effect. Then you can have that flak gun vehicle spawn in the desired location.

[mongoose]

1. So looking at 'vehicle' "LBS_red_flare_marker" (also a gun). How can I change the color? I assume through the m3d which doesn't even show up on the m3d view. I suspect gmax

2. BTW what does the prefix "LBS" in spawns and facilities mean?

3. I am trying to get "B-17_wesel_Skymarker" and "LBS_air_RAF_bmb_heavy_8" to work to see what they do.. The ? is what type of facility should I use? mission_target_facility? The the spawn in the spawn table.

4. I am also not sure what all the file endings in the spawn folder mean; i.e. ETOAL, A40AX, A40AL, NOAIR, PWAL, etc.

[gecko]

I can only speak for #1. In all likelihood the model is intentionally not visible, it's probably just a node to get a gun working since no visual is required. This is ideal for your purposes. To change the effect, you have to start in the xdp. It calls for a gun in the gunstations section. The xdp for the gun called for is in the guns folder. That xdp with in turn call for a round, and you can find that round's xdp in the weapons folder. The round's xdp calls for the visual effect. You will need to change it to call for the desired flare effect from the effects.xml.

[mongoose]

Thanks. I'll give it a go.

[mongoose]

1. So looking at 'vehicle' "LBS_red_flare_marker" (also a gun). How can I change the color? I assume through the m3d which doesn't even show up on the m3d view. I suspect gmax

2. BTW what does the prefix "LBS" in spawns and facilities mean?

3. I am trying to get "B-17_wesel_Skymarker" and "LBS_air_RAF_bmb_heavy_8" to work to see what they do.. The ? is what type of facility should I use? mission_target_facility? The the spawn in the spawn table.

4. I am also not sure what all the file endings in the spawn folder mean; i.e. ETOAL, A40AX, A40AL, NOAIR, PWAL, etc.

So anyone know about #2-4?

[mongoose]

I can only speak for #1. In all likelihood the model is intentionally not visible, it's probably just a node to get a gun working since no visual is required. This is ideal for your purposes. To change the effect, you have to start in the xdp. It calls for a gun in the gunstations section. The xdp for the gun called for is in the guns folder. That xdp with in turn call for a round, and you can find that round's xdp in the weapons folder. The round's xdp calls for the visual effect. You will need to change it to call for the desired flare effect from the effects.xml.

So there is only a red in fx_candle_flare_*** effect. No green or other fx_candle_flare colors. Could I just change the effect to another one from yours or other's TIs?

[Daiwilletti]

1. So looking at 'vehicle' "LBS_red_flare_marker" (also a gun). How can I change the color? I assume through the m3d which doesn't even show up on the m3d view. I suspect gmax

2. BTW what does the prefix "LBS" in spawns and facilities mean?

3. I am trying to get "B-17_wesel_Skymarker" and "LBS_air_RAF_bmb_heavy_8" to work to see what they do.. The ? is what type of facility should I use? mission_target_facility? The the spawn in the spawn table.

4. I am also not sure what all the file endings in the spawn folder mean; i.e. ETOAL, A40AX, A40AL, NOAIR, PWAL, etc.

2. - Loic's work (Led Zeppelin)

4. - These are spawn files which, when selected are renamed to stock spawn file names by a bat file. So these are the era specific spawn files eg ETOAL would be spawn files for 1943 era, flying for the allied side. A40AX is a spawn file for the Axis side, flyng the 1940 era (Phony War IIRC?)

Hopefully a mission writer will help you out for 3.

BTW have you run a search for flare in the effects xml? You might be able to find an effect with the colour you want - a lot of different colours are mentioned.

[mongoose]

I looked in the effects xml and only saw red. Of course different effects have different colors also but not a fx_candle_flare_***
Thanks for sorting out #2 and 4.

[mongoose]

I can only speak for #1. In all likelihood the model is intentionally not visible, it's probably just a node to get a gun working since no visual is required. This is ideal for your purposes. To change the effect, you have to start in the xdp. It calls for a gun in the gunstations section. The xdp for the gun called for is in the guns folder. That xdp with in turn call for a round, and you can find that round's xdp in the weapons folder. The round's xdp calls for the visual effect. You will need to change it to call for the desired flare effect from the effects.xml.

I am still having issues with this. Take vehicle "red_marker_flare"
It's xdp says
<GunStations>
<GunStation UpLimit="90" DownLimit="0" LeftLimit="180" RightLimit="180" RateLimit="45" SystemID="engine_one" Tracer="75" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="20mm_gun" Name="20mm Flak" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="0"/>
</GunStations>

But there is no "20mm_gun" or "20mm Flak" under "guns"

Also the xdp has it's own effects

<Effects>
<Effect Type="Track" EffectName="fx_candle_flare_red" PosX="0" PosZ="0" PosY="4.5" MinVel="-1" MaxVel="100" />
</Effects>

Now I have changed the effect name but kept the vehicle names etc., the same, and I get the different color effect. But then if I simply rename the vehicle, xdp, m3d, etc. names (AFIK all of them), it doesn't work. I looked at the m3d file and only saw "gun" mentioned a couple of times but no other key words.( there are a couple about "emitter light'?)

So what is the answer??

[gecko]

It sounds like you can safely ignore the gun stations portion, it has nothing to to do with the candle flare effect, since it is called in the effects section and not triggered by a gun.

I'm not sure why you're having trouble with renaming. I assume you've left your red flare, and you just want to make a copy of it so you can have another color to choose from as well. All that should be required is a copy with a renamed folder name, which should match the name of the m3d and xdp, and the xdp should call for the name of the m3d in the model name value near the beginning. Then of course you need to change the name of the effect called for in the effects section as you already discovered.

[mongoose]

Whatever was wrong is now OK as done over 10 different ones now!