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Hi all,
I'm designing an effect for FS2004 Lunar Rover TerraBuilder Moon add on that would leave a set of wheel tracks in the lunar soil as the rover moves. I got it going by using the water wake effect, first through the default "dirt" channel (the dirt effect that kicks in when vehicle is on the dirt surface). That worked but it was unreliable - the dirt was only kicked up (and hence, the wheel trail visible) when the wheel was on the ground (and since there is a lot of bouncing, the wheel constantly leaves the surface ever so slightly). That left the trail looking discontinued and very unrealistic. Then I connected it to the smoke channel - works perfectly now, except for two "bugs":
A: Whatever I do, I cannot get the wheel trail to lay close to the ground. It follows the contour of the terrain nicely, but about 3 feet off the ground. I tried everything: offsets (both in aircraft.cfg and *.fx files) seem to work only in x and y directions. It seems to project the trail extrusion from the geometric center of the rover (which is not on the ground but a little bit up, where the CG would be.), so I even designed a quick test object with the center on the ground, but the trail was still off the surface.
B: This is probably a FS bug, but when going over terrain, especially down a slope, the effect that is associated with the vehicle's ground contact points "loses" the altitude link and starts drifting upwards. This can be re-set only by coming to a full stop, and then starting movement again.
So - the common problem to these two is the vertical placement of the effect. I tried every parameter available, including the temperature settings that cause particles to float up/down, with no success. Is there any way to force the effect to lay low to the ground, rather than drift up every which way?
Misho
I'm designing an effect for FS2004 Lunar Rover TerraBuilder Moon add on that would leave a set of wheel tracks in the lunar soil as the rover moves. I got it going by using the water wake effect, first through the default "dirt" channel (the dirt effect that kicks in when vehicle is on the dirt surface). That worked but it was unreliable - the dirt was only kicked up (and hence, the wheel trail visible) when the wheel was on the ground (and since there is a lot of bouncing, the wheel constantly leaves the surface ever so slightly). That left the trail looking discontinued and very unrealistic. Then I connected it to the smoke channel - works perfectly now, except for two "bugs":
A: Whatever I do, I cannot get the wheel trail to lay close to the ground. It follows the contour of the terrain nicely, but about 3 feet off the ground. I tried everything: offsets (both in aircraft.cfg and *.fx files) seem to work only in x and y directions. It seems to project the trail extrusion from the geometric center of the rover (which is not on the ground but a little bit up, where the CG would be.), so I even designed a quick test object with the center on the ground, but the trail was still off the surface.
B: This is probably a FS bug, but when going over terrain, especially down a slope, the effect that is associated with the vehicle's ground contact points "loses" the altitude link and starts drifting upwards. This can be re-set only by coming to a full stop, and then starting movement again.
So - the common problem to these two is the vertical placement of the effect. I tried every parameter available, including the temperature settings that cause particles to float up/down, with no success. Is there any way to force the effect to lay low to the ground, rather than drift up every which way?
Misho
... so, although it does work, the esthetic look is a little underwhelming. I'll keep at it by tweaking a few params and see where it goes. Thanks for the tip, though!