VC10 smoke in FSX (Accelleration)

[davem]

Hello all,

this is a first post, so apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere.

When using the rather stunning DM VC10 in FSX with Accelleration, the Conway's smoke comes out of the end of the port wing at 90 degrees to what it should be at . Is there a known 'smoke source' coordinates fix for this, or if not can someone give a brief guide as to what to change and which numbers change what?

Very many thanks!

Dave.

[DaveB]

Hi Dave and Welcome ;-)

There IS a cure for this but sadly, I don't have it as I rarely use FSX. Hopefully, DanKH, Ben or one of the other FSX regulars will be able to put you right in a jiff ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Tako_Kichi]

This is a known problem when porting a FS9 aircraft over to FSX due to ACES (the creators of FSX) switching two of the axes around for the smoke configuration data. Have a look at this thread for more info on smoke.....

http://www.cbfsim.org/cbfsim/cbfsBB/vie ... t=14798&st

It's a fairly simple fix as you just have to change the order of two numbers in the aircraft.cfg file, the problem comes in knowing which two. ;-)

If you open up the aircraft.cfg file and scroll down to the [SMOKESYSTEM] section you should see several lines that look something like this:

• smoke.0= -25.70, -1.50, 11.0, fx_XYZ

Where...

• smoke.0 = the line identifier
  -25.70 = the distance in feet from the model origin point on the fore/aft axis
  -1.50 = the distance in feet from the model origin point on the up/down axis
  11.0 = the distance in feet from the model origin point on the left/right axis
  fx_XYZ = the name of the smoke effect used

The data above is an example of the settings for FS9 so for FSX you have to make a change as follows:

• FS9 line: smoke.0= -25.70, -1.50, 11.0, fx_XYZ
  
  FSX line: smoke.0= -25.70, 11.0, -1.50, fx_XYZ

Note how the positions of the two coloured values have been switched in the data order.

If you switch the data values in your FSX aircraft.cfg as shown above it 'should' put the smoke back in the correct place (unless there is something else going on of course ;-) ).

[speedbird591]

Hello Davem, welcome to the forum. A while back I had a dabble with FSX and encountered the same problem with the VC10. DanKH who is a bit of an expert on FSX and VC10s gave me these co-ordinates which worked just fine. I was using the Standard VC10 but it shouldn't make any difference with the Super as the engines are in the same place

[SMOKESYSTEM]
Smoke.0=-57.70, -9.60, 2.50, DM_VC10_SMOKE_R
Smoke.1=-57.70, -15.10, 2.50, DM_VC10_SMOKE_R
Smoke.2=-57.70, 9.60, 2.50, DM_VC10_SMOKE_L
Smoke.3=-57.70, 15.10, 2.50, DM_VC10_SMOKE_L

Good luck

Ian

[davem]

Dave, Ian, Larry,

thank you all very much for the help and welcome! CHEERS

I've had a quick play with the smoke coordinates and found that the following little tweak to those given puts the the smoke bang in the middle of the engines...

[SMOKESYSTEM]
Smoke.0=-57.70, -9.60, -0.50, DM_VC10_SMOKE_R
Smoke.1=-57.70, -15.10, -0.50, DM_VC10_SMOKE_R
Smoke.2=-57.70, 9.60, -0.50, DM_VC10_SMOKE_L
Smoke.3=-57.70, 15.10, -0.50, DM_VC10_SMOKE_L

I may look for a slightly darker smoke effect as the '10s I see on a regular basis can create a really good amount of black muck on a full power takeoff... :flying:

Cheers!

Dave.

[Garry Russell]

GHi Dave

Welcome aboard

One quick fix to darken the smoke

Copy those entries and paste below and re number the entries to follow on in sequence

Each engine will have the smoke applied twice one on top of the other...

Garry

[Tako_Kichi]

Glad you got it sorted Dave.

As you have probably realized you can change the effect called by simply changing the last field of the data line.

Here's a tip for positioning the smoke too if you ever decide to add smoke to another aircraft (you can add it to any aircraft even if it didn't have a smoke effect originally). Instead of trying to fix the position using a smoke effect (which can be difficult due to the nature of the effect) change the last item in the data line to something like 'fx_navred', then you will have a red nav light in the centre of the smoke source which is much easier to place. Once you have it in the correct position you can change it back to a smoke effect. I use that trick all the time when placing A2A 3D lights especially the landing/taxi lights as it is much easier to accurately place a nav light than the bright landing/taxi lights.

[davem]

Thanks again guys, managed to darken the smoke with that easy tip!

Is there any factor that can be added or changed in the cfg so the smoke does not disperse quite so easily and stays behind the a/c in trails for longer rather than seemingly blowing away only a few metres behind the a/c really quickly as though in a gale-force wind??

[speedbird591]

I was reading that post of Larry's and thinking 'why on earth would anybody want a red light in the smoke effect?'

Luckily, I carried on reading to the end :roll: That's a great tip, Larry. Thanks.

Ian

[Tako_Kichi]

Is there any factor that can be added or changed in the cfg so the smoke does not disperse quite so easily and stays behind the a/c in trails for longer rather than seemingly blowing away only a few metres behind the a/c really quickly as though in a gale-force wind??

Sure there is but you have to feel comfortable editing the effects files rather than the aircraft.cfg file. ;-)

What you need to to do is open up the effects file you want to edit in a text editor like 'Notepad' (they are only text files saved with a .fx extension anyway). Of course it is always wise to make a copy first and edit the original file keeping the copy as a backup in case things go wrong.

Scroll down the list until you get to the [Particle.0] section and then look for the line that starts 'Lifetime='. The lifetime value is measured in seconds so you just need to increase the value(s) to make the smoke effect last longer before it disappears. If it is a complex effect it may well have more than one [Particle.x] entry so adjust all entries to suit.

You can even change the colour/shade of the smoke effect if you want while you are editing the effects file. To do this scroll down until you find the [ParticleAttributes.x] section and then look for the lines that start 'Color Start=' and 'Color End='. There are four number groups following the equals sign and the first three are the RGB values for the smoke colour and the last group is the amount of alpha transparency (00-255). You can even make the smoke change colour/shade as it ages by using different values for 'Color Start' and 'Color End'. Like the example above there may well be more than one [ParticleAttributes.x] entry in a complex effect so you will have to adjust all of them.

Once you have finished editing the file save as either the same name or with a new name to create a whole new effect such as 'fx_smoke_long.fx'. Note the use of the .fx suffix, DO NOT save it as a .txt file. If you saved with the same name then you do not need to change the aircraft.cfg file of the aircraft you want to use it with, if you changed the name then you will need to edit the aircraft.cfg file and change the effect called to 'fx_smoke_long' (without the quotes and also note the extension for the effect file is NOT used in the callout).

Hope that helps.