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"Conditional" Effects? Any Way to do it?

E

EdTruthan

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us-california
Hi guys,

Has anyone ever found a way to get FS effects to appear "conditionally"... in this case with specific WIND VELOCITIES, and disappear when the wind is calm?

(BTW, nice web site, very helpful and dedicated to FS Issues, Thanks!)

This is my first post here, and after serching all the posts in a variety of forums I'm coming to the conclusion that what I'm trying to do cannot be done. None the less, I thought I'd ask to see if anybody has any clue as to how it might be accomplished:

I've developed some very effective ground level "Blowing Snow" effects for an FS9 scenery bundle that adds a series of 10 glacier research camps to the Stikine Icefield, AK, as an enhancement to Tongass Fjords by Holger Sandmann. When there is wind blowing, these effects look quite realistic and add a dynamic element to the scenery. The problem is, when there is NO WIND, the effects sprites naturally gather at the emitter location in one place like big "white storms", and thus need to be covered by snow dunes or other scenery which is doable but not a "preferred" solution. Additionally, when there are only light winds, the bit of effects that "blows out" from under the scenery cover looks a little un-natural...but at higher wind velocities (where th effect belongs), the effects are quite stunning.

This is what I've tried so far:

I've attached a snow effect to an object that's attached to another small solid body in Gmax with the Attach Tool, and then used MDLTweaker to specify a test wind velocity condition (5-10 knts). In FS the small solid body disappears as it should in outside the 5-10 knts wind condition, but the effect is still present at all wind velocities. I assume therefore that the attached effect is not altered by the conditional tweak applied to the solid Gmax object it's attached to. So, I assume that the effect itself needs to be modified at the Attach Tool's "Effects Param:" box first, but can it be done?

The GMAX attach tool SDK and FS Effects SDK are quite clear about TIME SPECIFIED parameters in the Attach Tool "Effects Param:" box, but has anyone ever found a script or way of making effects be limited and/or be triggered based on wind velocity???
 
Hi,

EdTruthan said:
I've attached a snow effect to an object that's attached to another small solid body in Gmax with the Attach Tool, and then used MDLTweaker to specify a test wind velocity condition (5-10 knts). In FS the small solid body disappears as it should in outside the 5-10 knts wind condition, but the effect is still present at all wind velocities. I assume therefore that the attached effect is not altered by the conditional tweak applied to the solid Gmax object it's attached to. So, I assume that the effect itself needs to be modified at the Attach Tool's "Effects Param:" box first, but can it be done?
Click to expand...

That is correct, the tweaks you can apply with MDLTweaker do not affect the attached effect. As you already mention, it seems the only way to condition effects is by using the effect parameters. But I don't think the wind velocity is a variable that can be used in there.

The only tweak I can think of at the moment that might work, is to fool the location of the effect when the wind velocity is low. I think it should be possible to move it under the ground in that case. But I have not tried such tweaks with effects yet, only on animations :).
 
Hi Arno, thanks for the reply. I figured as much... but it's nice to have some confirmation from an expert.

One question though: So far as "fooling" the effect by moving it underground at low wind velocities, I fooled with that, and CAN place them underground (and, if they're in hillsides they will then "blow out" of the hill, which works OK); but at sites with only level ground surrounding them, how do I get the object/sprite to "move" itself/themselves to above ground at higher wind speeds, and "move" again to underground at lower speeds? i.e. the OBJECT (w/attached effect) doesn't really MOVE once it's "conditionally" placed, the object just dissappears right?... leaving the effect still exposed and active. Is there another way you had in mind?

Alternatively, The sprites can be made to flow upward to above ground (and continue upward, albeit slowly if tweaked right), but they will do that in a STATIC windless state while underground as well, and thus show themselves anyway. There also doesn't seem to be a way to make them rise faster at higher wind velocities than they would rise anyway in a static state. Perhaps you had a thought as to how the "fooling" could be done that I haven't realized?

If not, I'll get to setting about "concealing" them with traditional scenery items as best I can. Again, I really do appreciate your FS tools and advice, the site is a very nice resource!

THANKS AGAIN!
 
Hi,

EdTruthan said:
One question though: So far as "fooling" the effect by moving it underground at low wind velocities, I fooled with that, and CAN place them underground (and, if they're in hillsides they will then "blow out" of the hill, which works OK); but at sites with only level ground surrounding them, how do I get the object/sprite to "move" itself/themselves to above ground at higher wind speeds, and "move" again to underground at lower speeds? i.e. the OBJECT (w/attached effect) doesn't really MOVE once it's "conditionally" placed, the object just dissappears right?... leaving the effect still exposed and active. Is there another way you had in mind?
Click to expand...

The attachpoint of an effect are positioned with a transformation matrix. My idea is to use a condition on this matrix, and thus replace it with one that for example places the object 1 km below the ground. As this is outside of the bounding box of the object, it might even mean that no effect shows, but I am not sure of that.

So I am not thinking of using an animation or so to fool the user, but simple changing the static position to somewhere far enough away :).
 
Couldn't it be achieved by injecting an object/effect into the sim via simconnect and controlling it ala Ultimate Traffic X style?
 
That might be possible as well, but I think 4 years ago we did not even have FSX yet :).
 
First of all, sorry for bringing up such an old thread but I didn't want to create a new one if a similar question has already been asked.

My intention is to "trigger" a firework.fx in FSX whenever a specific NAV frequency is tuned. I've had a quick look around and to my knowledge there doesn't seem to be a published way to easily trigger effects whenever a NAV frequency is tuned. I understand that I need to use the FS9 gamepack to get this to work successfully, is that correct?

Ed & Arno mentioned a few solutions some 7 years ago but it doesn't look like there was a definitive way to successfully do what he wanted. Unfortunately with a firework.fx isn't feasible to simply hide it under the ground a) because it is such a large effect it'd be difficult to hide and b) because some of the firework effects are "one time" i.e they go off once and that's it.
 
Hi,

I think the FS2004 gamepack is still needed indeed. But the tweaking is not going to be easy. I have been experimenting with adding conditions to an effect a few months ago, I think it is possible, but I didn't have the time then to completely finish it. But the simple test case I did seemed to work. It's still on my todo list to have another look at it.
 
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