Author Topic: Particle effect testing  (Read 5519 times)

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Offline m!m

  • 211
Re: Particle effect testing
I think I build a reasonably efficient implementation of the "Effects per second" feature that we require. Here are some test builds: http://swc.fs2downloads.com/builds/test/effectsPerSecond/

This adds a new optional property "+Effects per second" which specifies how many times per second this effect will generate its particles. The option must be specified after the point where "+Delay" is expected. This should produce consistent effects regardless of framerate. The value of "+Effects per second" must be positive and may not be 0. Above that, every value should "just work". I took special care that you could specify values that are above the usual framerate and still have the option do what you expect but please check if that actually works as intended.

I will have to take a look at the issue you described in your third point since that sounds very weird.

 
Re: Particle effect testing
Should I set +Number (which is required according to the wiki) simply to 1? Also, does this also work the same way for +Trail effect?

 

Offline m!m

  • 211
Re: Particle effect testing
There are no further changes changes to the effect required for making use of the new feature. The other options still have the same meaning but now they are only used N times per second instead of every frame. The new option works everywhere, where "+Duration" and "+Delay" is supported so yes, trail effects should also work with this.

 
Re: Particle effect testing
Thanks a million! Everythings working super-super smoothly now. I have several cool ideas where I can use this. :)

 
Re: Particle effect testing
I'm sorry to come here again, but I ran into an annoying bug that caused me to debug my entire modpack. All I did was adding following entry (without having it used by any weapon/ship) to the tbl:

Code: [Select]
$Effect: Firespew
$Type: Cone
+Filename: ParticleSmoke01
+Size: (50)
+Lifetime: (10)
+Deviation: 0
+Velocity: (10 30)
+Number: (1)
 +Direction: Reverse
+Duration: (1)
+Effects Per Second: 2

The result of this was that debug builts (both FRED and FS2, using the recentmost nightly - 20190514 and your SMAA builts) would no longer start but crash with the error message attached below; which occured immediatly after the preload screen. I checked the wiki to make sure everything was configured correctly. No trace of the cause was left in the debug log. It didn't cause any issues on regular builts, and the effect was working as intended.

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]
« Last Edit: June 17, 2019, 04:48:03 pm by Nightmare »

 

Offline m!m

  • 211
Re: Particle effect testing
I think the problem here is +Deviation: 0 since that doesn't make sense for normal distributions. Could you try replacing that with something greater than zero?
If that solves the issue, I'll add some error handling to make sure it gives you an actual error message and not just a crash...

 
Re: Particle effect testing
Setting the value to 0.1 seems to have fixed it. :nod:

If it is actually an error the wiki page should be updated as I don't see any warning there yet.

 
Re: Particle effect testing
Added the warning to the wiki. "Revision information" hasn't been updated in a while though.