SA Released Combat FX Upgrade

[WarButler]

Wow, thank you so much @Mysterdogg! I really appreciate that. I am absolutely standing on the shoulders of giants, though. Without Function-X's OE script I couldn't have made these effects look half as good. Some of the things he did with the fxp were genius. Before last April I'd never even installed a mod before, so to receive such praise for something I did is unreal.

 

Those RE2 shotgun blasts feel very powerful indeed. I think I should be able to create a similar effect! Thanks again for the advice and support

 

@SKELZOR Yeah, it's a quirk of using Effect Loader instead of the traditional fxp and txd. Glad it's working for you now

 

Edited March 10, 2019 by WarButler

[LaDiDa]

Maybe a fxp + txd version whenever you're completely done with remastering San Andreas' effects system

[WarButler]

Just now, LaDiDa said:

Maybe a fxp + txd version whenever you're completely done with remastering San Andreas' effects system

I've been thinking about that, actually!

I love the modularity of using Effects Loader, as you can combine CFXU stuff with any other effects mod, or choose between my different blood effects or (soon) different muzzle flashes. But it seems that the muzzle flash effects don't work in SAMP, and I hate to exclude such a large group of people from using this mod.

Something I was thinking I could do in the meantime was taking the default fxp and txd and replacing all the explosions and muzzle flashes etc with my effects, so at least people could have something that works in SAMP. But maybe I should just hold off until I have a completed fxp. Might be a while before that happens, though

[WarButler]

So I started on the shotguns today and this is what I've come up with. I tried to emulate that RE2 flash suggested by @Mysterdogg while keeping it reasonably consistent with the rest of the muzzle flashes. Still WIP, but I think it's getting there!

 

 

[Mysterdogg]

Here's another video showing, if I'm not wrong, every muzzle flash in RE2, just in case you need any more references

 

[WarButler]

Made some more progress with the muzzle flashes! I've got a nice fiery looking (and animated) flash for the Desert Eagle, and I've made some changes to the Sawn Off Shotgun flash that I demonstrated in the previous video. I might add some extra smoke or a shockwave to the Desert Eagle to really make it feel powerful, similar to the Resident Evil 2 effect. It shouldn't be much hassle getting the remaining muzzle flashe done, so I'm hopeful that I'll be ready to release them very soon.

 

Here's a video the deagle and updated sawn-off (use the < and > keys to go frame-by-frame if you want a really close look)

 

 

Edited March 14, 2019 by WarButler

[Junior_Djjr]

About 0x004A981E crash, can be tested faster with cpktnwt cheat:

https://forum.mixmods.com.br/f10-ajuda-com-o-jogo/t1744-crash-in-imfx-or-combat-effects

 

Sorry for the delay, I still intend to recreate EnhanceFX in asi and with more care. It may be that some crash is caused by it (recently one person reported a crash using it).

Edited March 18, 2019 by Junior_Djjr

[WarButler]

I do suspect that the culprit is EnhanceFX. I'm currently using the older Remastered Effects script and I definitely get fewer crashes, even after entering cpktnwt a bunch of times. <- EDIT: I was entirely wrong. I still wonder if the frequency of the crash might also depend on hardware, and if reducing the number of particles would also reduce the chance of crashing. If this is the case, I will continue work on the new explosions that don't have those extra particles. But then again, CFXU generally creates fewer particles than OE and NGE do. Maybe the animation creates extra strain? I'm not sure. I will try the cpktnwt method with EnhanceFX later today.

 

Also, I'm hoping to release the new muzzle flash effects today! The shotguns all have basically the same effect, which I might change in the future. But it's a nice effect that feels quite powerful. A little more testing is required, as the animation of the shotgun, deagle and minigun effect was a little bit quick when I removed DeltaTimeFix. But that should just be a matter of increasing the EMLIFE value a bit. Plus I've definitely run out of steam compared to a couple of weeks ago, so I'd like to get these out and take a break before having another look at these explosions.

Edited March 20, 2019 by WarButler

[Junior_Djjr]

2 hours ago, WarButler said:

and I definitely get fewer crashes

I doubt this happens, the difference from one to the other was basically an obvious bug that I was stupid (it corrupts the game data after multiple vehicles are activated), besides that, I think I did nothing important.

 

2 hours ago, WarButler said:

I still wonder if the frequency of the crash might also depend on hardware

No, it's a game limit. At most, powerful hardware can cause more FPS, and who knows the game creates more particles if it has more FPS... I don't know, but for me it is simply a game limit.

[WarButler]

I just did some more testing and I think you are correct. My apologies! I spammed the cheat as fast as I could and I had the exact same crash every time (0x00469FBC, according to FLA). At first I didn't know you could explode pre-exploded cars with this cheat, so I didn't enter it as rapidly. It happened whether I was using CFXU, Remastered, OE, or even the vanilla effects. Same result with EnhanceFX, the Remastered script, or with neither. I also tried removing IMFX and it made no difference. After entering the cheat a few times, the sound of the explosions would not play and the game would crash after another one or two cheats. I never got the 0x004A981E crash, though. I don't know what this teaches us. I should try it on a clean build of the game, perhaps.

[WarButler]

V2 muzzle flashes are now available to download!

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ck4jor0d3ce53n7/CFXU_-_Muzzle_Flash_v2.7z/file

 

I'll keep the old ones available too, for people who prefer them. But I personally love these new ones, and I think they fit in with the atmosphere of the game a lot better.

 

Enjoy!

 

Here's a video:

 

 

EDIT: Here's an altered version of the m4 flash: http://www.mediafire.com/file/nz098qehrdofvsv/gf_m16%282%29.7z/file

This one has the "flower" shape, similar to the old version, as opposed to the "star" shape in the above video. Let me know which you prefer!

 

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by WarButler
Added video

[Junior_Djjr]

EnhanceFX recreated in .asi

https://sharemods.com/mbcnqrgwh9cw/EnhanceFX_test_1.7z.html

Delete cleo version.

 

The cleo version had 600 lines of codes, in asi is only 200 lines and very few hours of work thanks to plugin-sdk.

 

I tested it, not much I think, but it seems to be working perfectly (don't confuse to "asi works better than cleo", in fact I did different things in asi version).

 

If crash while cars in smoke, fire etc, send me EnhanceFX.log and modloader.log.

Edited March 18, 2019 by Junior_Djjr

[WarButler]

Nice work, Junior! I hope this can bring us closer to finding the solution to this! I just did a quick test using the cpktnwt spamming method again, and the game did crash, but FLA log reported the crash as 0x00000000. However, I did the same using modloader's log instead and got the same crash as before:

 

Spoiler

Game version: GTA SA 1.0 US
Unhandled exception at 0x00469FBC in gta-sa.exe (+0x69fbc): 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x00000000.
    Register dump:
        EAX: 0x00000000  EBX: 0x00000001  ECX: 0x00000000  EDX: 0x00000000  
        EDI: 0x08A8CCF0  ESI: 0x08A8CE58  EBP: 0x0028F09C  EIP: 0x00469FBC  
        ESP: 0x0028F084  EFL: 0x00210246  CS: 0x00000023   SS: 0x0000002B   
        GS: 0x0000002B   FS: 0x00000053   ES: 0x0000002B   DS: 0x0000002B   
        
    Stack dump:
        0x0028F084:  08A8CE58 00000000 5FE7F645 08A8CCF0 08A8CE58 08A8CE58
        0x0028F09C:  0028F0D8 0046A220 5FE421CC 04142DFC 0028F0D8 04142DFC
        0x0028F0B4:  00000023 0C6B02A2 006819EE 000002A2 5FE2B2AF 00000000
        0x0028F0CC:  00000000 016E55C4 0028F13C 0028F148 0053BFCC 016E5430
        0x0028F0E4:  016E5430 016E55C4 BF5D0022 0028F148 5FE7E326 0FF640C5
        0x0028F0FC:  D7F6A50D 0028F150 0028F1C4 016E55C4 7648717A 00251364
        0x0028F114:  0028F134 7648CFFF 01EE4FA0 764872B9 764874BB 00251364
        0x0028F12C:  00000020 00251364 02000001 00000000 0028F18C 0FF93628
        0x0028F144:  00000000 0028F198 0FF6F954 0FFA5084 016E44D0 00000084
        0x0028F15C:  00000000 021C03C0 0028F1AC 00000000 00000000 00000084
        base: 0x00090000   top: 0x0028F084   bottom: 0x00290000
        
    Backtrace (may be wrong):
        =>0x00469FBC in gta-sa.exe (+0x69fbc) (0x0028F09C)
          0x0046A220 in gta-sa.exe (+0x6a220) (0x0028F0D8)
          0x0053BFCC in gta-sa.exe (+0x13bfcc) (0x0028F148)
          0x0FF6F954 Ext_GetVehicleSpeedRealistic+0x125f4 in VehFuncs.asi (+0x1f954) (0x0028F198)
          0x0FF69EEB Ext_GetVehicleSpeedRealistic+0xcb8b in VehFuncs.asi (+0x19eeb) (0x0028F1BC)
          0x0FF6841E Ext_GetVehicleSpeedRealistic+0xb0be in VehFuncs.asi (+0x1841e) (0x0028F2BC)
          0x04C1A4F5 in trucktrailer.asi (+0xa4f5) (0x0028F310)
          0x04C1ED34 in trucktrailer.asi (+0xed34) (0x0028F360)
          0x04C1CCDB in trucktrailer.asi (+0xccdb) (0x0028F384)
          0x04C1C2AE in trucktrailer.asi (+0xc2ae) (0x0028F484)
          0x0053E986 in gta-sa.exe (+0x13e986) (0x0028F49C)
          0x04A6B8E9 in modloader.asi (+0x1b8e9) (0x0028F4E4)
          0x04A6FC02 in modloader.asi (+0x1fc02) (0x0028F4F8)
          0x04A6E267 in modloader.asi (+0x1e267) (0x0028F514)
          0x04A70246 in modloader.asi (+0x20246) (0x0028F688)
          0x04A7013C in modloader.asi (+0x2013c) (0x0028F694)
          0x0FA49800 std::_Func_impl_no_alloc<void (__cdecl*)(CPed *,int),void,CPed *,int>::_Do_call+0x250 in imfx.asi (+0x19800) (0x0028F6A0)
          0x0FA4815E std::function<void * __cdecl(std::function<void * __cdecl(void)>)>::operator=+0x13e in imfx.asi (+0x1815e) (0x0028F704)
          0x0FA49659 std::_Func_impl_no_alloc<void (__cdecl*)(CPed *,int),void,CPed *,int>::_Do_call+0xa9 in imfx.asi (+0x19659) (0x0028F754)

 

The EnhanceFX.txt says only "Core: Init", but is there a .log file I'm missing?

 

 

EDIT: I added an altered version of the m4 flash in my above post, along with a video. Not sure which I prefer yet, but check it out and let me know your thoughts

Edited March 19, 2019 by WarButler

[Gtamodpacker]

@WarButler can you make a uptodate pack ? 

[Junior_Djjr]

18 hours ago, WarButler said:

The EnhanceFX.txt says only "Core: Init", but is there a .log file I'm missing?

So EnhanceFX has not been activated in any vehicle, this means that this crash definitely has no relation to it.

 

46A220 crash is related to script processing, nothing about effects.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Junior_Djjr

[WarButler]

That's interesting. I disabled all mods in my modloader ini (but kept EnhanceFX, IMFX, and CFXU installed) and was unable to crash the game with the cheat. So it's something in my modloader folder. But I still haven't had the 0x004A981E crash, so I don't know if my testing is relevant to the problem that others are having.

 

Also I'm still undecided about that M4 flash... so here's a third version to confuse things even more: http://www.mediafire.com/file/9kki4c3yy9edt8f/gf_m16%283%29.7z/file

 

Feedback would be welcome; I'll include the most popular version in the full CFXU download when I update it, which I totally need to do. But I think this version has slightly better consistency between the long part of the flash and the "petals".

 

Video of the latest m4 flash:

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by WarButler
added video

[LaDiDa]

3rd version of the m4 muzzle flash looks the best to me. Nice work!

 

☺

Edited March 20, 2019 by LaDiDa

[Kikato]

Ohhh I finally got the blood effects working! I just deleted the file named "ehhh.fxp" within the effects/prt_blood folder.

[WarButler]

Yeah, I accidentally uploaded that in an earlier version! It turns out that EffectLoader doesn't care what you name your fxs files, it'll load them anyway. A silly mistake on my part, but thankfully it was easily fixed.

 

[WarButler]

Updated the main download with the V2 muzzle flashes and blood effects. Also added in an updated grenade explosion as a bonus.

[_keegan_]

If this possible, did you can make  a effect broken glass in vehicles ?

Edited April 11, 2019 by _keegan_

[WarButler]

On 4/11/2019 at 9:18 AM, _keegan_ said:

If this possible, did you can make  a effect broken glass in vehicles ?

The smashed window effect is hardcoded somewhere else, so unfortunately I can't. It does look a bit sh*t by today's standards...

 

In other news, I'm back at work with a new effect! This time it's the fire, which was definitely lagging behind some of the other effects in terms of animation. WIP still, but it should be ready soon. I'll also be updated fire_large and fire_med, and most likely the vehicle fire effects as well. Have a look:

 

 

 

[Male01]

1 hour ago, WarButler said:

The smashed window effect is hardcoded somewhere else, so unfortunately I can't.

Is water from fire trucks also a hardcoded effect?

 

Anyways, what effects haven't been made yet?

[Mysterdogg]

Just now, Male01 said:

Is water from fire trucks also a hardcoded effect?

Yeah, the water cannon is also a hard-coded feature. Most of the vehicle-related particle effects are hard-coded or "shared" as generic effects, like the burnout smoke. 

[MatthewFarrell]

Some progress?

[WarButler]

Hey all, I've been unable to focus on modding for a while but I'm coming back to it now. Slow progress on that fire update; it's proving to be trickier than I expected to get the results I wanted. I'll keep at it, but it might be a while yet.

 

However, I recently read some stuff about using colour shading on explosions, using fewer textures but creating more variation. So I tried to get something approximating that method in the old SA effects system. This example uses only smoke textures, which start out yellow and fade out to black. The initial explosion is helped out by the glowing "sphere" which creates the illusion of lighting. It would be nice to have more options for lighting effects but you can only ask for so much from a game this old. This method eliminates the need for separate fireball and smoke textures, and makes the explosions look more homogenous and "modern". I think this could turn into an Explosion 2.0 update. A potential problem is the fact that the effects are affected by timecycle colours. In the video it's orange o'clock, which really helps add saturation to the explosion. As does the SkyGfx PS2 colour filter and radiosity effect. But I'll keep testing them and hope to get them looking decent enough is as many different conditions as possible.

 

Anyway, enough waffle; here's what they look like!

 

 

[WarButler]

Explosions are coming along nicely! I've managed to solve the issue of timecycle colours ruining the illusion. Night time with the PS2 colour filter in SkyGfx was always the worst for explosions, but now I think they look pretty good under all lighting conditions. I've added 2 more emitters, this time using coloured versions of the same textures which helped with the lack of saturation in the fiery stage of the explosion. Another solution was using DSTBLENDID: 1 for some of the emitters, which changes how colours are blended. It's surprising how much you can squeeze out of such an old effects system!

 

Now that I've got a good base explosion, I can change things like the density and size for different applications. In this video, I set the effect to loop indefinitely (hence the repeating silent explosions) and tested out 3 different EMSIZE values, which changed the size and density of the effect. I could tweak this further with different particle sizes and EMRATE values, too. I also tested different times of day so you can see how much it changes the colour of the effects.

 

 

[Jinx.]

The best effects mod I saw so far for this game. Really good job!

[WarButler]

Thank you Jinx! I'm very happy that people are enjoying it. Explosions are getting ever closer to being done, although I won't be able to do much work on them this weekend. I'm hoping to get them done and released within 2 weeks or so (but don't hold me to that...). I've been trying to create different variations in size and shape, which took a lot of trial and error but I think it's paying off. Here's a video of some of the variants I've got so far. More to come soon!

 

(the sparks in the first explosion have been made smaller since this video, and I might tweak the others just a little)

 

[lsnoop]

Looks better than Overdose but somehow seems to have most disadvantages and exaggerations from it.

 

What I've seen in the preview videos so far (I don't have the game installed now):

 

- There is no option to customize the effects yourself and keep only what you like

 

- Hope it works fine by itself without IMFX or anything

 

- Blood effects. Really nice but I wish the blood puffs were smaller and less cartoonish. The pinkish thing (the brains?) than appears with a headshot still has that irrelevant bright pink texture which doesn't really fit

 

- Explosions. The "fire" and "burning" efffects are massively exaggerated and thus it is not even close to realistic.

 

Imo the "fire particle" system in SA looks pathetic in general so I guess you can't improve it much while for example the smoke particles are quite realistic. So I would rather focus on mastering the smoke effects.

 

By the way this is how grenade explosions look in real life (i.e. there is no "fire")

 

 

- Those small fires look hilarious. Hope you get rid of them asap.

 

- I hope there will be a "light" version with the reduce amounts of bells and whistles more focus to realism and original moderate effects.

 

Anyway, it is a great mod. Thanks a lot and keep up the good work!

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2019 by lsnoop