Tracer effects

[mongoose]

I am getting a bit frustrated with having square tracer effects using various cannons. Now in ETO_Huri_Mk2C I have "avhistory_gb_gun_hispano_mk2" gun with "AvHistory_gb_round_hispano_mk2" having xdp effects; all of which are in my effects file. So what gives?

<Weapon WeaponType="shell" ImpactDice="1" ImpactDieSize="1" ImpactOffset="65.39" BlastDice="1" BlastDieSize="1" BlastOffset="63.19" BlastRadius="1.3" FireDice="1" FireDieSize="1" FireOffset="11.6" ExplodeEffect="fx_grndexpl_t" GroundEffect="fx_bltgnd_m" AirEffect="fx_bltpln_m" WaterEffect="fx_bltwtr_m" TracerEffect="tracer_yellow_smoke20"/>

[mongoose]

So my search revealed past posts such as http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...square+tracers and all the other threads mentioned in there, including about

Hi All,

it is the yellow and blue tracer fx textures, in the fx texture folder you will see the files with _orig in the name,

tracerend5yellow_orig.dds
tracerend5blue_orig.dds
tracerside5blue_orig.dds
tracerside5yellow_orig.dds

change these to the correct names and the problem will go away, and as far as I can see no discernable impact on the effect is noticable

Now
1. I am not sure what "the correct names" means

2. I note in my fxtextures I have (all associated with blue or yellow)
tracerxxx_orig
tracerxxx_geko
tracerxxx-copy
tracerxxx_xxxx


Now I deleted all but the tracerxxx.dds such as tracerend5yellow.dds which relates to effect but still square tracers!

<tracer_yellow_smoke20 ClassName="TracerEffect" TracerLength="2.0" TracerWidth="2.0" TracerRorationSpeed="500" TracerBlendMode="Add" TracerSideTexture="tracerside5yellow.dds" TracerEndTexture="tracerend5yellow.dds" SmokeLength="1600" SmokeWidth=".9" SmokeRorationSpeed="1200" SmokeBlendMode="QuadSprite" SmokeSideTexture="tracerSmoke4.dds" SmokeEndTexture="black.DDS"/>

[mongoose]

Further, I have tried 5 aircraft in3 installs using AvHistory_gb_gun_hispano_mk2 cannons, all with the same issue!

Also same issue with SJ_gb_gun_hispano_mk2

[Daiwilletti]

In the tracer effect from memory, there are two different tracerblendmode entries. One is additive. Depending on how the dds texture is made, one or other blend modes is applicable. This is just recall as I'm sitting with an IV lure in well away from cfs computer. Wasn't there a recent thread summarising this? Was it in knowledge base?

[MajorMagee]

Some of the dds files have alpha layers, and some don't. The parameters listed for each line in effects.xml define which type of dds it wants. (BlendMode="Add" or BlendMode="QuadSprite") A mismatch in type (e.g. no alpha layer when it's looking for one) will lead to square tracers.

[mongoose]

So my effects are
<tracer_yellow_smoke20 ClassName="TracerEffect" TracerLength="2.0" TracerWidth="2.0" TracerRorationSpeed="500" TracerBlendMode="Add" TracerSideTexture="tracerside5yellow.dds" TracerEndTexture="tracerend5yellow.dds" SmokeLength="1600" SmokeWidth=".9" SmokeRorationSpeed="1200" SmokeBlendMode="QuadSprite" SmokeSideTexture="tracerSmoke4.dds" SmokeEndTexture="black.DDS"/>

1. I note all tracerxxxsmoke have SmokeBlendMode="QuadSprite" while TracerBlendMode="Add"

I changed the latter to TracerBlendMode="QuadSprite" but that made no difference.

I suppose if i knew which referred to a dds with an alpha and without, it would help.

[mongoose]

Further above. Using DXTBmp it seems tracerend5yellow_geko.dds, tracerend5yellow.dds are the same with alpha, tracerend5yellow_orig.dds is different with alpha, and one I have called tracerend5yellow - Copy.dds has no alpha; or it's all white(?)

The same with the tracerside5yellowXXX dds files

But with other tracer ends and sides some do or some ? no alpha (just a white blank in DXTBmp)

[mongoose]

Well; interesting. Since no forthcoming ideas, I deleted all the tracerXXyellowXX,dds files and replaced them with basically the same dds files from my Daiwilletti CFS3 upgrade CFS3 standard install; lo and behold the cannon tracers worked on all aircraft that I tested in 3 different installs. As to why........

[Daiwilletti]

That's interesting. One related thing I found a while ago is a stock tracer entry, where a tracerend texture is called for in a tracerside entry in a tracer effect. Correcting this to use a tracerside texture made a big difference in some stock tracer rounds. That is IIRC used in my modified stock upgrade install.