Hey Ivan,

Sorry it took so long for someone to respond!

I just spent a considerable amount of time messing with the system for my 727, to no avail.

You might try posting under "fs2002" or "fs2004," depending on what you are using.

Erik

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Sorry, only just saw this

You pay me too big a compliment - I'm still learning just like the rest of us....but maybe I fiddle about a bit more than most

Erik's dead right. You have to switch the smoke system on and off (press I key) and there's no way you can set this permanently 'on' for an AI.

Effects are separate from the smoke system and happen outside of the user's control. There's no engine smoke effect as such except for startup smoke for piston engines only.

All other effects work on single 'events' - like touchdown - so you can't have a permanently smokey engine. Pity M$ didn't foresee this as it would have been a nice one.

There are scenery chimney smoke effects (eg New York smoke, Chicago smoke) which are worth getting if you haven't got em already - fun to fly through - but the designers have used fixed scenery bgl files to make em work - impossible with a moving aircraft.

I would have thought that as startup smoke can be done, a good VB programmmer could probably do continuous engine smoke but afraid it's beyond me.

Roger

Hi all:

not sure how this topic ended up at the top of the list again but I hadn't seen it before.

There is a workaround for getting smoke effects to show up, though it does have some side effects - always read the fine print

As Roger pointed out, the only smoke/TD effects that get used by AI (aside from the auto-contrails) are the ones triggered on touchdown. While I was trying to get nice touchdown effects for my AI choppers project I ended up with settings where an effect would get triggered but never stop again. In other words, the chopper would keep on smoking or sparking while at the airport and after taking off again. So, it looks a bit silly on the ground, depending on the effect used but it allows AI to fly around with smoke/water/spark effects on.

It's been six months since I found this out so I'd have to look into the specific effects settings again (and I haven't tried this in FS9 yet either). I'll do this if anyone is interested in the details. Let me know.

Cheers, Holger

There is actually already a gauge called SHOP_FX by Jan Rosenberg, aka "JR" and "I.Candymaker" that does exactly that but based on N1 value

It works great with aircraft flown manually (eg 737) but when I tried it with a 737 AI the effect didn't appear

I've emailed the authors and if I get a reply I'll let you know.

So near but still so far......

This effect is really good as you can see here



But obviously AI don't behave in the sim like 'real' aircraft. I tried changing the effect to work on altitude rather than N1 power as I thought that this might be more relevant (te pic is taken from my test - so it works for ordinary planes). But it still didn't work for the same plane flying as an AI

Have heard from the author folks and it's bad news I'm afraid.

Even if as with the default 737 the aircraft has a panel installed, when it flies as an AI, the system never bothers to look for a panel. This means that any effect that relies on a panel gauge cannot work for AI. This explains why the smoke effect works for a flyable aircraft but not for the same aircarft when it is used as an AI.

The good news is that for fans of the effect (1) there is also one for turboprops and (2) both work in FS9

Don't think we're gonna have any luck here.. unless Holger can do anything with the settings he mentioned earlier.

Roger

Hi all:

okay then, I'll dig into the effects settings - please give me a couple of days. Meanwhile, here are two screenshots from my 'archives' to prove that cool effects work with AI choppers or aircraft. The second one is an example of a permanent smoke+spark effect triggered by the first landing

Cheers, Holger

Howdy:

finally got around to going back to my effects files and do some more trials. So here's what I know about how to make AI aircraft emit smoke or water effects:

Technically, it's quite simple. In each aircraft.cfg the default effects settings look something like this:

[EFFECTS]
wake=fx_wake
water=fx_spray
dirt=fx_tchdrt
concrete=fx_sparks
touchdown=fx_tchdwn_s, 1

I tried many different combinations and it seems that for AI the two important settings are "concrete" and "touchdown" (whereas the first three keys don't seem to have any effect at all). Both trigger an effect at touchdown, with the difference that the "touchdown" key seems to require those kinds of effects that only run once, such as the standard 'rubber on tarmac' effect. If one chooses an effect that does not have a scripted ending it will stay on, even with the "1" flag (i.e., run once) set.

The tricky part is to find out which effect works well in general (some smoke effects completely envelop the aircraft when parked) and for which aircraft. Since smoke and exhaust effects are usually placed with the coordinate parameters in the [smokesystem] section they are often coded as a single trail. That works well on something like the single-engine Hawk 51 or even the Tomcat but will look strange on a 707 or 747. It often pays to hunt in your effects folder for aircraft-specific effects. For example, the white 'smoke' of the AI Dash-7 came with the original aircraft and seems to work fine (that image is an example of the engine-off effect visuals).

It is quite likely that, with a bit of help from the Effects SDK documents, one should be able to program aircraft-specific (e.g., 4-engine) exhaust effects for various AI.

Again, these effects will only get triggered on completion of the first flight. You don't have to be at that particular airport but it works only for AI in the active zone around your aircraft. Also, any reloading (with time change) will reset the AI and you'll lose the active effects.

I haven't tried these effects in FS9 yet but it looks like the effects engine hasn't changed.

A final note: other than the funny ground effects during parking you'll have to keep in mind that effects are frame rate eaters; if you have many AI with effects running you better have a fast rig - I don't ;-( 


For the three examples in the images, here are the two parameters in each aircraft.cfg file:

Hawk51 (by KARI VIRTANEN and MIKKO MALINIEMI)
concrete=fx_dustcloud_s, 1
touchdown=fx_smoke_rx

F-14b Tomcat VF-154 CFG GMax (by Jeff Dobbing)
concrete=fx_sparks
touchdown=fx_smoke_w_DH

De Havilland Dash 7-100 (by Milton Shupe)
concrete=fx_tchdwn, 1
touchdown=D7rfxa

So, anyone who's interested, dive into your effects folder and go wild; you can trigger water effects on land, sparks in the water, or fireworks and bombs. It's quite fun to experiment with this...

Cheers, Holger

hey everyone... nice effects for the dash 7!!!!

i have one little problem regarding effects..... it seems that my contrails effects have been altered in someway... when the contrails start, they seem normal but after a few seconds, it starts to divide in two... a normal contrail keeps its original position while a new contrail is formed and it drops starit down....

it is very wired when seeing an a/c with a falling contrail.... could someoe please give me the congiguration for the normail .cfg for the contrails??

thx
AE

Steve, you just beat me to the same comment 

Hi Steve

Just saw your comment (wow - this was an old thread)

Will have to take a look when I get a moment - gotta work now (pain in the butt - need to put food on the table for the family and all that stuff  )

Quote:


Hey - that's no way to talk about my wife...

If she sees this I'll be the one heading for the bacon slicer

here this will do exactly what you would like it to do
http://63.217.28.218/files/1misc/NicksAIjetExhaust.zip
here are some shots this make a big difference compared to the black cloud that hangs over the wings

WARNING!!!! I would not go to the link above. I just got hit with spyware from it and then some popups warning that I may be infected

Quote:

I've never had a problem, but if there is one, it must be the popups that cause the problem, I'll send a complaint to the hosting service. I'll upload it here in a few days anyway.
It is possible that the spyware came from another site, and you didn't notice, I've had a simmilar problem with flightsim.com, but that turned out to be a  virus that had been in my system for days.
The popups that say you have spyware on your PC are lying, and if you click on them, then they probably put it on then. DON'T CLICK ON THEM.