Hi guys,

EAW is about bombers and escorts, mainly bomber interdiction and so on. So, a good bomb hit effect, with more fire/smoke/debris clouds should be very good eyecandy addition to the game.

Is this possible to be mod?
Any idea on where to start to look in?

Hi,

Come to mind .. some works of VB :
http://www.sandbagger.uk.com/vbadd2.html
Must be certainly more mods availables .. just search on Tally Ho

OFF

Rubini,

it's not adviced to import anything from Sandbagger's to be added to a 1.28 version or JIM unless compattabillaty with it is specifically mentioned.
These mods only work with the 1.2 versions or the FXEXE and allthough nice they are a bit obsolete by now.
Yes it's possible to have more impressive and larger explosions, that's what the FXEXE was initially all about and still is. All effects were totally redone with longer animations in 4 times higher resolution, and it's still constantly improved.
Nowadays it's additional goal is to maintain compattabillaty with the 1000ds of mods available from Sandbaggers and allow such improved effects on lower end computers but on high end machines too.
If not there in the 1.28 version you will just have to wait untill it's creators come up with a simmilar improvement.

VonBeerhofen

VB, that's not really accurate advice. Virtually any MOD at Sandbagger's will work with the 1.28 series of exe files, with the exception, I think, of your files created specifically for the FXEXE. It is the campaigns and scenarios that may give you trouble due to the inclusion of various exe files, flight files, damage files, and target data - but these are specific to the campaign, and are not really "mods" as such.

Mods on the other hand, like this explosion and flame mod from Pobs:

http://www.sandbagger.uk.com/pobs/Pobsflames.zip

Or this one from VonBeerhofen:

http://www.sandbagger.uk.com/vonbeerhofen/EFFECTS.zip

should still work. The code group has taken great pains to ensure backward compatibility as much as possible for the thousands of mods (as opposed to campaigns) available so you can download all the terrains, buildings, aircraft, figures, ground targets, special effects (except VB's FXEXE stuff), audio and so on. If you find one that doesn't work, be sure to bring it up at this forum so we can find out why.

As for campaigns, there are usually only a few changes that need to be made to work with the 1.28 series of exe files. I have done Great Shot II, and Jel has made a number of others available. Check his sig for links, or post a thread inquiring...

As for the "default" explosions in 1.28 series, they have been enhanced as well by adding duration to the fire and smoke, as well as other adjustments. So the above mods should look even better.

I also encourage you to try VB's FXEXE, it has some really great stuff. It is available here:

http://www.sandbagger.uk.com/vonbeerhofen/FXEXE/FXEXEv0.5.zip

Not sure if that is the latest??

Cheers!

CJ

In addition, the external TMOD.dat file and TMOD editor make it pretty easy to change the size of the explosions.

If you play SPAW you'll notice there are markedly different explosions, for example, between a tent and an Ammo ship.

Sorry about that Sydbod, it's an impression I got from the changes needed to make the campaigns work. Ofcourse I don't know much about JIM or the 1.28 versions as I haven't really experimented with it. Care must be taken anyway due to the different type of videocards the mods were created for and not many are aware of the problems these mods can cause. Perhaps better advice is to find expert help before you try and use copies of a working install incase things screw up.

The last released version of the FXEXE is available here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rabartel/LPDLindexE.html

at the bottom of the page.

VonBeerhofen

Crashin Jack isnt Sydbod and although you say you dont know much about EAW1.28a/b/c/d you dont stop to spead rumor about it.

There are way more incompatibilitys between the FX exe and default EAW addons then between EAW1.28 and default EAW addons.

All incompatibilitys are only related to some files of the world setup. Graphics etc are fully compatible.

Congratulations VBH- seriously!

You have posted a link so readers here can get the last released FXExe.

Just curious about as I cannot see a post by him.

Anyhow, aomeone with OAW128 who wants to try any of the stuff from Sandbagger's could put the files in a G folder such as "G TestStuff01" in the OAW128 folder. Then it can ne loaded with the OAWSelector. If there are any problems then it can be unloaded next time the user runs OAW.

Jel

Im not sure if you already took notice, EAW1.28c/d have much improoved bomb impacts, with much fire, dust, spreading debris and long smoke trail when a target got hit.

The size of the effect depends to the explosition power of the bomb and to a litte random influence.

If you want "stronger" colours for the fire, or different smoke colours, you can try different "effect" packs(best known is Max188´s effect pack, i think, though i like it less extreme).

Greetings,

Knege

Hi Rubini,

the explosion and smoke effects in EAW are sprites rather than the more modern 'particle effects' in more recent games but the height, spread and obviously the 'skin' used in the sprites can be changed. The sprites characteristics are defined in a table in the exe so it needs either hacking or re-coding to change them, but they take their 'skins' from a couple of image files that are readily accessible. My advice in this as in other mods is to find a similar mod to the one you want, downlaod it and look at the files it has in it to see what needs changing, that is how I learned a lot of how to mod items in this game... if you look at Max188 or my flanmes mods you will see the files used and how we changed them to get the effects, just get picpac from sandbaggers and gpmwpl's tpctopcx converter and you are away... if you have problems ask here and you will get all the help you need

here is an example of the effect of changing the characteristics of one of the smoke types in the table by hacking the original 1.2...





cheers,


Pobs

Here are 1.28 impacts:

Thanks by the replies mates!

@Von:
I yesterday took a look at yours old effects mods, I liked the big explosions (worked ok using 1.28D)...and thanks by the link for the last fxexe...I tried to find it somedays ago and had no luck. I will post my impressions about it some days ahead in this thread. Thanks!

@Crashin Jack;
Thanks by the tips i will try the mods that you suggest too and will post some comments later.

@Knegel, Mr Jelly, Rotton50, Pobs:
I noticed that 1.28x have a lot of new and good effects...but in this bomb hits issue I yet think that any mod that i saw until now yet don't have what i should like (even knowing the EAW tech limitations). And I'm not saying that I can made it better, no, i even not knows nothing about EAW file structures yet...what I'm thinking is something like we see in real movies from real wwII combats: A bomb hit needs to have much more impact sounds and dusty clouds, also lot of smoke and some fire too. This is what i have hope that could be done even using just sprites. Well, just a wish and an idea.

@Rotton50,Pobs: I yet knows nothing about EAW files, but if you, or someone more, yet have fire power to look at this type of mod for EAW I can help working on historical goals explosions, working on the files/sprite, testing it, etc. Just contact me if needed.

And to finish; I have a dream: Wings of Prey graphical engine into EAW style of simgame!!! This could be really a blockbuster!!! Sad that devs don't think this way, no?

Also, can someone point me a link to meatwater sound pack? (all them are dead)

"Also can someone point me a link to meatwater sound pack? (all then are dead) "

http://www.sandbagger.uk.com/meatwater.html

Ughhh! I can asure you that i looked for it a lot these last past days...and was not able to find it even at Sandbagger...

Sandbagger have so much mods, infos and pages and sometimes is just difficult to find some specific one...i even tried his search engine...

Many thanks!

I also downloaded the 24bit multiskins from you, there on Sandbagger. Are they the last ones? I can be wrong (so much look at so many places for so many EAW stuff last days lol)but seems that we yet don't have 24/8bits multiskin for all stock planes on stock EAW campaign, is this correct?

Hi Rubin.

In short, no.

But, Mike is doing a great work, of what is a mammoth job. just to do the entire set he will need to skin 480 models! And don't forget he needs to have 16 skins from each squadron he does, which if you look on the Internet, and in books, and try and research even 16, you'll get an idea of how long it will take to do just one set!

Rubin, click on the link I just posted. It is at Talley-Ho under EAW Community, Meatwater. It IS There!

I understood at first and already download it, thanks!

I have a poor english so I probably not wrote a clear reply above!

Don't worry, I speak English and bad English.

When multi-skins were first proposed I stated about 2- 2 1/2 years to get through them all. There is still a great deal of work to do.

Sure, will be a lot of work. Iron mike reallys need a passion for EAW to make all this to the end. But thte multiskins are just the best of best! Keep up the good work Iron Mike!

Muchas gracias senior.

Sorry Rubini, It should be muito obrigado!

Here's one from the latest FXEXE, a direct bomb hit which oblitterated the entire convoy:





VonBeerhofen

Nice VB....

Nice one as well

btw, a normal Bomb explosition dont show much fire, if its not Napalm.

Only when a target like a Truck or something else with fuel or oil loaded get hit you will see big flames, otherwise there is mainly dust and debris.

Many people seems to be much influenced by the often badly overdone hollywood action-films, they need big flames to feel good. But if there is nothing to burn, there wont be flames.

Hi Ralf.

That still does not get away from the fact, VB's, FXEXE's effects use bigger textures, which certainly do look better than 1.28's, even if they are a little OTT.

Dont know anything about sprites, i think it just look correct like we have it.
Like all graphics in EAW, it look most good in a moving sequence and not so good on a close distance screenshot.

I think i have realy good eye´s, but while playing the game, i wouldnt take notice and i realy dont care much about improoving graphics, where i can see a different only in a screenshot. No mater how much we improve the graphics to get more nice screenshots, it always will look poor in comparison to IL-2 or one of the other more modern games.
EAW only shine when you see the game running, then the graphics are good enough, cause we seldom get close enough to the objects to enjoy better graphics and if we get close, it in 99% only for a few millisec.

My opinion is: Who want to move around to enjoy a paused game or extreme close distance graphics simply should use IL-2.

Who want to play a Simulation will be happy with what we have.
Who still want better graphics, need to work on it.

Greetings,

Knegel

The effects in the FXEXE can easily be swapped between every other effect by renaming the two files to be swapped. Smoke can be turned into fire and vice versa, there's even a partial fire turning into smoke animation. This just happens to be one of the dozens possible configurations not even mentioning what the .LDR's can do with it and it only shows the initial impact of a single bomb and the simultaneous explosion of an entire truck convoy (whatever they were carrying). The smoke, fires and sand comes in the seconds following this explosion. By now there are dozens of complete sets which are fully or partially interchangeable, depending on what people like best.
The textures for the animations conform to the original game, 256*256 for all textures as UHR textures won't work for most. All players use these on their crappy old systems and videocards and still high FPS, and that goes for everything visible in my screenshots, no tricks with UHR.
I think the Launchpad players won't really agree with Ralph's opinion as each explosion, bombdrop, planecrash, rockethit, watersplash is pure delight and a visual extravaganza, especially when you fly through it and filling your entire screen without any signs of pixellation.
The people running around everywhere are a hoot when they raise their arms and appear to beg for mercy or sometimes just running in front of your plane as if to say, if you don't stop I'll throw my body between those propellors and make you stop that way,

VonBeerhofen

Hi Ralf.

From your reply, 24bit skins and multi skins are a waste of time then, because you only see them for "99% only for a few millisec"?

Naaah, not really, I see em app. 1/2 an hour and they make for a great desktop screensaver. However flying them is quite impossible. Ooooops, sorry, couldn't resist.
I kind of agree with that observation though but using the Glidewrapper turns everything into a fuzzy, blurry hazy kind of thingy and I can't read any markings, not even with HR planes, not even mentioning the railroads shining through on the opposite of the hills .
Perhaps there's something wrong with the Glide.ini which doesn't work very well with my monitor but to be honoust, nothing really beats the graphics I get with D3D in 1920*1080 and planeskins in that resolution go by real fast unless they fly directly in front of me and in the same direction.
HR planes are a slowdown on my system but then again the weight of the graphics is more on the terrain, objects and effects. You can't win em all but I'm very happy inspite of not being able to run 24 bit skins or HR skins in 8 bit. I still do like the oldfashioned planes because they look so dirty and worn and shot at and have no r/s problems like most or perhaps all HR planes.
But hey, we're all free to choose the options we want most or? At least that's how it's allways been right?

VonBeerhofen

You shold enable "anisotropy 16x" in the glidewrapper config, then you should get extreme sharp graphics.


Hi John,

yes, 24 bit skins are somewhat a waste of time, cause the only advantage is a wider range of colours, i think it would have been better to give every slot its own 256 colour pallet(or isnt that already possible??). Then there would be a even smaler visible different between 24bit and 8 bit.

The multiskins are very good visible while gaming, specialy without icons they turn to be very usefull.

Hi Ralf.

Only on TNT were 256 slot pallets available. Currently the slots are stuck with the EAW default pallets. 24bit will come into it's own when we go to 512 or 1024 textures. At that resolution 256 colours would look horrible, because of the limited colours.

I'm going tonight get my compiler up and running and look at the sprite code. From what I remember it was a question of changing the animation calls from reading 4 points on a texture in sequence, to reading a sequence of textures, either 128 or 256.

But, that would be a waste of time too then?

16 times anisotropic filtering slows the game down to unplayable in hardware accellerated D3D mode, do you think this works better in a software emulator? How should we deal with the distortions the wrapper creates on widescreen monitors? I mean the reticules are flattened ovals and planes and objects look like an elephant sat on em.
I don't understand why you're telling them that the Glidewrapper is cool. I guess you're still on one of those old fashioned type of monitors running 1024*768. No wonder you have decent framerates.
Technology has allready moved on Ralph and it seems to me that your advice doesn't take that into account. It also doesn't take into account what low end machines are only capable off.
I'm a bit saddened to see this game reverting to the same old problematic approach which led to so many difficulties for modders as well as for players in the past. Glide and D3D.
I expect the same questions, why does my plane have such weird colors or there are black spots in my sky or terrain and my game has blocky propellors.
There's just not an easy way out is there? One which works for all and solves all problems all at once for everyone and maintains online compattabillaty inspite of hardware differences. Ah well, perhaps something for the future.

VonBeerhofen

Hm, one second, its you telling us that all the LP players use very old systems??

I run a flat screen here and once again its only you who claim that the glide wrapper cause strange things.

Of course if you, or someone else, run a old system, the glidewrapper is not that a good solution, but on a new system it must work, or you have messed up something.

If the glidewrapper show black spots, the system must be very old, but this again dont fit to your statement regarding new monitors and time is marching on etc.

For now i dont saw ANY bad results with the glide wrapper. The pictures are exact the same like in 3d, only a little more smooth in many cases.

Strange that its ONLY you who experience such things.

Only you cant run EAW1.28 same good as EAW1.2.
Only you did destroy your PC by using OAW.
Only you get disorted pitures using the glidewrapper.

Slowly i think you dont know what you are doing and what you are talking about.

Well, lets try to leave the fights aside...

I think that any eye candy for any game will be always wellcome even if it is sometimes that small or just saw for few seconds...the idea is that EAW or any other game only will stay for long time if it have both: good playablity and good/reasonable eye candy. I like very much all the work that all modders did for this game: it's now better in playability with all the community fix and also looking much better, IMHO. Obviously we have different taste and habilities, then some modders will like more to work on playability and others will make the same for eye candy stuff. Both are essential.

Now, back to the topic:

After some days testing a lot of EAW community stuff, I'm playing EAW using 1.28D, ETO terrain, 24 bitmultiskin, d3d in WS aspect (awesome!!!), etc. So, my explosions are from 1.28d. Then some questions/suggestions (as I don't have the knowledge to make mods for eaw):

1. Is't possible to make the bomb dusty cloud (present on 1.28x) with more mix colors - I mean from all brown to some brown/grey mix to seem more real mix of dusty and smoke?

2. Is't possible to make the bomb dusty cloud stay for more time as in real life?

3. And to finish, the sound of the explosions is in truth ok, what is not good is that EAW only plays the bomb explosions IF you are at some bomb camera (f11,f12), I mean, if you are very near but the camera is the cockpit or any plane external you will not listem bombs even if you are very near them. Is't possible to fix this?

Cheers!

Hello,

1. yes, you need to edit or replace the "HITGRD.SPT". Maybe there is one that you like in one of the effect packs.

2. Thats hardcoded, so not realy. You need to be aware that as longer the smoke stay with same quality, as more the PC performece will suffer. One possibility to get longer standing smoke is to adjust the weapons in the weapons.dat. By giving them a higher explosive power, the explosition and dust will be bigger and so the dust will stay longer.

3. Cofigure game-> sound -> increase the external sound volume.
I can hear the sound from inside the cockpit when i throttle back. I doubt that you would hear anything else than your engine apart from maybe a nosemounted cannon between your legs. The combat planes miss any sound absorber and the exhaust in most cases points right to the cockpit. Even when throttle back, this is very loud. Not to talk about the wind sound.

Another possibility might be a louder "bomb" sound.

Greetings,

Knegel

I seem to recall, we wanted to add ambient sounds, for the f12 button, near the ground, but we could not agree on the bird songs. Others wanted people screaming, air raid sirens for the cities, chuffing trains, and lots of other cool stuff, which might have blown the valves in the EAW, 78rpm sound system.

1. Thanks!I will look for it, seems easy.
2. Uhnnn...ok, I have no idea where to look, then I will left this as a suggestion.
3. I already tried to raise the sound but don't work, also the same with external sounds...seems that some type of ambient sound needs to be added or at least some adjust on the bomb sound properties...but again i don't know if this can be done in EAW, then i left it as a suggestion too.

@Knegel and Col. Gibbon,
Perhaps the above could be added on the next 1.28x if doable, anyway EAW is already so good. Thanks!

I'm sorry to be the one with a different computer Ralph, but then again there's also the people with Voodoo cards which can't run D3D or the way their textures are created. And then you have the people who have a 7217 error and those who're on very old computers and old operating systems and if I remember correctly RAF_Roy who could only run this game in software mode and new cases show up regularly, remember the guy with his 7217 error on Win98, running 1.28d?
Why can't you accept that there are so many different systems out there, each one with it's own perks?
Yes most people in LP do have very old machines and we have pretty old members also (72 is currently our most senior member and if Tosh is still alive then it's 73), but I allready told you I have more then one computer, in fact I have 5, ranging from PI to Quadcore. I also have different monbitors.
I'm not the only one who mentioned this, as you keep suggesting time and time again, a very recent post also mentioned the flattened view with the Glidewrapper in widescreen mode. Once again, I'm only telling you what happens here and once again your only reaction is to turn me into an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing. I think the pictures I show tell a different story though.
Black spots are caused by wrongly created textures which use the zero index as a color. This index is reserved for transparency on most videocards but when used show black pixels. I guess that tells me that you have no idea what you're doing because this information dates back to around the year 2000 when these problems first started showing up and has long been explained through the research I did on different videocards and the differences between Glide and D3D textures.

VonBeerhofen

Geforce FX/ ATI Radeon9600 and newer dont suffer black spots anymore, they all support Tier2.
Older cards, but even the early cards that support Tier2, run EAW better in 3dmode(faster fps), so there is no need for glide at all, as long as the fog work in 3d mode.

If you encounter black spots and disorted graphics with a newer card, you made some sort of mistake in the glidewrapper config.

Otherwise i only can repeat myself:

Strange that its ONLY you who experience such things.

Only you cant run EAW1.28 same good as EAW1.2.
Only you did destroy your PC by using OAW.
Only you get disorted pitures using the glidewrapper.

You don't really seem to be interested in others people's problems as long you don't have it. Here's Rubini's thread on the subject, I guess you didn't read it. It's exactly the same observation as I'm having.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2947080/1/D3d_is_really_more_slow_FPS_th.html

Yes my preferred card is an oldie, FX5500 256MB in my old machine. Just lets make things clear here,
there are many people still flying this game with old setups and very likely simmilar problems.
You just don't care about their problems, or mine. Yes, I may be the only one posting about this as I think these people allready found it's not working on their machines and as usual that's normally end of story, let's go do something else then.
If you don't read about other people's problems then ofcourse I will be the only one who reports this, in your eyes. But I've seen about 5 of these posts in the past allready, you just didn't read em.
Ah well, for me it's more important that I know and keep notes, so I can take these problems into account, as you obviously will not.

VonBeerhofen

lol , now i see what you are talking about, when you talk about disortion.

One solution is to reduce dissable the wide screen mode, so that only 1024x768 get used. Of couse thats not how it should be(you did play the whole screen), but better then stumbling around with below 10 fps.
On the other hand, now the 1024x768 wideview work.

As i always wrote: The glidewrapper is only needed for people who dont get fog or when the system show bad fps losses(often below 10), but you turn this suggestion around to: "You suggest glidewrapper to all and dont care that it dont work or less good then 3d mode".


btw, what is your solution for people who suffer the bad fps losses with dual core PC´s??

Have you a better solution or dont you care for them??

Hi Rubin.

I'd just like to thank you for bringing a fresh pair of eyes to the game, and making realistic creative suggestions. So many people ask for things which are totally impossible, buy you have been asking for minor changes which will improve the game without being ridiculous.

Please continue to make suggestions.

Ralph,

I'd probably have to say to em 'use 8 bit graphics and less textures' but I understand for 7217 victims this wouldn't work. However a lot can be done through turning down graphics, use 128*128 drawings, less colors and less textures for the aircraft and or terrain/objects.
I know that's not an option for you guys as just like me about 5 years ago, you're striving to find the limmitations of your own systems.
I tried that too, starting with UHR and then by increasing Max view distance settings. I learned the game slowed down too much so I dropped it, inspite of the awesome graphics.
I can't say how it would behave on these systems, if a lower resolution alternative would cure these problems. Sometimes I think the game starts using disc cache when it can't cope or perhaps the videocard itself is a bottleneck for the ammount of graphics you're trying to give it, or the system is just too slow to quickly find the graphics in the huge tables of texture pointers.
I can't say much more then that without being able to work on it myself and test with simmilar hardware and a simmilar system, but I don't have one. I just never experienced anything like this before and the only thing it reminds me of are my own early experiments with higher resolutions.
Perhaps you can try something there, there must be plenty of possibillaties with what you now have to turn graphics down. Have you ever tried low or medium detail settings? Do they still work as they're supposed to?

VonBeerhofen

How shal someone tune the graphics down with a clean EAW1.2 installation??

If someone suffer the "bad 3d fps slowdown", even in EAW1.2, without groundobjects and with only 12 4mot´s in sight, the fps smelt down to an unplayable fps(below 10).

Of course, we can erase all 4mot´s or tell this guy he shal only make sweeps, but i still think to suggest the glidewrapper is by far more sencefull.

I doubt you have a better solution for the people who have the bad slotdowns, so please dont blame me when i suggest the glidewrapper.

Many thanks by the words mate! I guess that i learned a lot how to behave on a community forum after 5 years of hard mod work on subsim.com SH3 forums. I even learn english almost totally in that forum! lol And don´t worry, i like to ask!

And just for curiosity I guess that i was the first here, lot of years ago, (yes, here in SimHQ EAW forum) to bring the Glide wrapper to the EAW and Total Air War community, showing for us the first pics of EAW/TAW in 1600x1200 with big fonts! (just 640x480 default EAW doubled by the wrapper) - was a big success thread that time. IIRC SimHQ have had a big lost of arquives from more or less 8 years ago, no?

But really, as for the above i know well how hard is to dedicate all your free time to the mod work and for a game's passion...so thanks again by the work of all you guys to make EAW a live game even after 12 years. I´m enjoying it as the first time!

Edited: I found my post showing the Glide wrapper for the first time, and was in jan/2005, not so far behind then. Here, in the arquives:
http://simhq.net/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/530188/1.html

Well, after read that old thread again, well...not so success one and not the first to use a wrapper but the first to discovery the hi-res using the glide wrapper.