SA Released Combat FX Upgrade

[LaDiDa]

If you want absolute realism: San Andreas isn't for you, play HD era or something because they really f*cked up gta in general by sprinkling realism on it...

[WarButler]

Well, there is a lot of Overdose DNA in the muzzle flash effects, but I tried to tone them down a little to fit the game's atmosphere more closely. In my opinion, at least. I feel like these effects are, on the whole, reasonably less exaggerated than Overdose. But I suppose I'm going for "cinematic" as opposed to fully realistic. But that's a matter of personal taste. Anyway, I'll address your points individually @lsnoop:

 

1. You absolutely can customise it, since it uses Effect Loader. Each effect has its own folder inside models/effects and can be replaced or deleted with ease. For example, there are two versions of the blood effects, muzzle flashes and (soon to be) explosions, which you can pick and choose from. If you delete an effect then the game will just use the equivalent effect from whichever effects.fxp + txd you have installed. I think this is a significant advantage of this mod. Beyond that, you can still replace textures or edit the script like with any other effect mod. I might have to make a tutorial video and/or rewrite the main post as I have received a few comments expressing confusion about how it works.

 

2. It works without IMFX, you just won't get the variations in muzzle flashes and explosions, i.e. all weapons will use "gunflash.fxs" instead of "gf_colt45", "gf_uzi" etc. There'll still be some variety in the explosions but fewer than with IMFX, naturally. The only other thing you need is Effect Loader. EnhanceFX is optional, but makes the vehicle overheating effects more varied. I might make an fxp+txd version in the future but I'd like to have more effects completed to avoid leaving any obvious vanilla effects that might look out of place. Is it because you play SAMP that you don't want to use IMFX? Am I right in thinking that IMFX does not work with SAMP? I have had mixed reports about the muzzle flashes working in SAMP, but I think the issue was solved by setting Visual FX Quality to medium or higher in the pause menu (which needs to be done anyway, regardless of whether you're playing SAMP or single player)

 

3. I agree that the headshot effect doesn't really work with the new version 2 blood effects, and I intend to make a new one. In fact, this might be the next thing I work on. The current one is essentially the same as Overdose, except with the gore textures from Project Overhaul. My first blood effect was more exaggerated and worked better with the headshot. Keep in mind though, that the headshot effect won't happen unless you have IMFX installed and headshots enabled. I don't personally agree that the blood mist in the new version looks too exaggerated however. I've identified a small issue with it that made the animation stop at the 3rd texture instead of the 4th. I will update the main download with the fixed version after this post. Perhaps the slightly smoother animation will make it seem less cartoonish.

 

4. At this stage it's unlikely that I'll make significant changes to how the explosions look since I've already spent quite a while on them and I'm personally very happy with them (the ones from the latest videos, that is). My intention with these new explosions was to make the smoke and fire feel less separate than the old explosions. I might make a less fiery variant for some of the explosions, but if you don't use IMFX then the default explosion will probably be something similar to first one you see in the latest video (but with smaller sparks; I made them bigger by mistake).

 

5. Yeah, I have already decided to scrap that fire and will try and make a new version another time. The capabilities of the effects system (and/or my knowledge of it) are too limited for what I was trying to do. They were indeed too small, and they were also not versatile enough to use as the game's default fire (It looked pretty shoddy when a ped caught fire and ran around). I jumped the gun in uploading that preview, to be honest. So consider that fire update cancelled, and I'll try again later.

 

6. Maybe one day. These new explosions won't have as many of the extra particles (debris, sparks etc) that the old ones did. But the explosions themselves do generate more particles on the whole. A lighter version isn't totally out of the question, but is also not a priority right now. My main motivation for making a light version would be if people reported performance issues, as I'm generally fairly satisfied with the "feel" of the effects. I'll see what the feedback is like once the new explosions are released. There's always the possibility that I'll make new versions of various effects as I learn more about particle systems and try things out. But it's unlikely they'll ever be particularly similar to the vanilla effects, as I'd find that too much of a step backwards.

 

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I'm glad that, on the whole, you like the mod. I want to make the effects as good as I can so it's valuable to hear a bit of criticism if needed. I'm still learning a lot about how particle systems have been used in other games. But they'll probably never satisfy everybody since we all have different visions for how we want our version of SA to be. I hope this wall of text addressed your points sufficiently!

 

Edited June 25, 2019 by WarButler

[lsnoop]

The amount of text shows this is gotta be a 9/10 mod 

 

I hope I wasn't too harsh and just to let you know I've just installed the game specifically for the mod .. Looks great so far !

 

The blood effects in the latest version look just right btw (the demos I watched seem a bit outdated) 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2019 by lsnoop

[WarButler]

Yeah I can talk until your ears fall off if I'm not careful lol. But I've put a fair bit of time into this mod and I take a lot of pride in it! SA is an important game to me, so if I can add something of value to people's experience of the game then I am happy. Feedback is important, good or bad. It's part of the reason why I make the preview videos before releasing new effects.

 

I'm glad to hear that you reinstalled the game! I hope you enjoy the mod. Yeah, perhaps it isn't immediately clear that there are different versions of the effects. The new blood effect is much less extreme (and it's my favourite), although the first version is the most popular one.

 

At some point I will make a single video featuring all of the effects, to try and clear up any confusion for people who find the mod in the future.

 

[WarButler]

So it's taking me a lot longer than anticipated to get these explosions done. I got kind of burned out from numerous failed experiments (editing and testing can get extremely tedious...), so I took a break from the whole thing. But fear not; I am still working on them! During my downtime I've still been studying the explosion effects of various games, old and new, looking for inspiration for new ideas to try out. Many of these have proven to be dead ends, as they have exceeded either the game's capabilities or my own. Anyway, as a reward for your patience, here is a download of the current WIP versions of the rocket and grenade explosions for you to test:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nlvy797xjky0fpi/V2_Explosion_Preview.7z/file  (work in progress, rocket and grenade explosions only!)

 

Since it's just two explosions, it might be a little jarring to use them alongside the other Version 1.1 explosions. But I wanted to let you try these out for yourselves. The rest will come soon ...ish ...probably. They look considerably better with radiosity enabled in SkyGfx and probably won't look right with an ENB type mod (but feel free to test that out).

Edited July 25, 2019 by WarButler

[LaDiDa]

I appreciate all the work you do for this! Would it be possible for you to check out the explosions from Black (also ran on PS2 & Renderware).

[Zer0p4nic]

Please do not hesitate to announce when it works for SAMP, this MOD is fantastic, good effects

[WarButler]

The finish line is in sight! Just a little longer...

I've changed my visual mods to get a more "honest" view of the colour of the explosions. I'm using Junior's Real Linear Graphics timecyc, Simple Bright Reshade configuration and have turned off some functions of SkyGfx. The explosions themselves have had some significant updates.  Explosive weapons now have 2 stages. This was inspired by the explosions in Resident Evil 2, so thank you @Mysterdogg for the reference! I've been fighting with overdraw i.e., exceeding the limit of particles the game can draw at a time. Mainly because the vehicle and aircraft explosions are made up of 2 effects, played simultaneously. This is forcing me to try and approach things more economically, so I'm still hopeful that these explosions won't be too bad for most people's performance. as the "texture budget" (number of different textures to store in memory) is still reasonably low and the textures themselves are mostly 128x128 or 256x256 pixels. But I also don't know what I'm talking about so we'll just have to see what happens when I finally release them!

 

Anyway, here's the video!

 

 

Edited September 17, 2019 by WarButler

[WarButler]

Molotovs and satchel charges are done! I'm still working out what to do with explosion_medium and explosion_airstrike. They're used for car and aircraft explosions respectively, in conjunction with explosion_fuel_car. But I can't really have another full explosion effect or it most likely won't show, due to the overdraw problem but also because explosion_medium is always behind explosion_fuel_car, so it would be a waste of particles. Or I'd have to make it completely oversized to be visible behind explosion_fuel_car. In the latest videos, explosion_medium produces the "spikes" you see behind the car explosions and the puff of grey smoke/dust underneath. It works as an accessory to explosion_fuel car, but in isolation the effect doesn't look great... which wouldn't be a problem if explosion_medium wasn't also used for things like explosive barrels and gas station explosions. So I need to come up with a simple, "cheap" (particle-wise) effect that can work on its own or with the vehicle explosions. Same goes for explosion_airstrike, except airstrike is shown in front of fuel_car, and isn't used in isolation under normal conditions, which gives me more leeway.

 

Since the last video, I've slowed down the vehicle explosions a bit. The smoke lasts 50% longer and the fireball lasts 25% longer. That's about as slow as I can make without spoiling the animation or generating more particles. I've also increased the size and lifetime of the shockwave effect for the rockets by 10%. Not much else left to do apart from the explosion_medium/airstrike stuff. Explosion_small and large are the same as the explosion_rocket and grenade_launcher because if you use IMFX then I don't think you ever see these explosions, and if you don't use IMFX then the explosive weapons will all use the RPG effect and the tank will still use the grenade launcher effect.

 

Aaaanyway, boring. Here's a video of the molotovs and satchels!

 

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by WarButler

[WarButler]

I think I'm about ready to call these finished! Here is a link to the new explosions:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/4ezd6l25jv4yloq/Combat_FX_V2_Explosions.7z/file

 

Let me know if you find any issues!

 

If no problems arise then I'll add them to the main download and record a new video to make it "official".

 

If you use MixSets and they don't look as good as the videos, you should set FxEmissionRateMult to -1, FxEmissionRateShare to 0 and instead set your visual fx quality setting to high or (preferably) very high. Or you could set FxEmissionRateMult to a higher value e.g. 2.0.

 

I recommend deleting your old explosion effect folders first to delete any textures that are no longer needed.

[Junior_Djjr]

On 9/29/2019 at 1:07 PM, WarButler said:

If you use MixSets and they don't look as good as the videos, you should set FxEmissionRateMult to -1, FxEmissionRateShare to 0 and instead set your visual fx quality setting to high or (preferably) very high. Or you could set FxEmissionRateMult to a higher value e.g. 2.0.

I updated it now, I think it was a mistake to have based it on Low.

 

I slightly increased the EMRATE of the gunflash effects of your mod (not all, but for M4, pistol etc) and fixed the problem of them not rendering in Low, and in High I didn't notice any difference, it was excellent yet. I think you could do that, to give people the opportunity to use this mod on Low. Until today I thought that the gunflash not working on Low was caused by an IMFX bug, but it was actually a bug of the effect itself.

[WarButler]

 

1 hour ago, Junior_Djjr said:

I updated it now, I think it was a mistake to have based it on Low.

 

I slightly increased the EMRATE of the gunflash effects of your mod (not all, but for M4, pistol etc) and fixed the problem of them not rendering in Low, and in High I didn't notice any difference, it was excellent yet. I think you could do that, to give people the opportunity to use this mod on Low. Until today I thought that the gunflash not working on Low was caused by an IMFX bug, but it was actually a bug of the effect itself.

That will be an easy fix. I will do it ASAP! I had also assumed it was an IMFX or game bug until I recently installed the new MixSets and realised that it was because of the way the game divides the EMRATE values with low visual fx settings. I should probably test all effects with low settings, as I normally keep my settings on very high. I'll also see if I can do the same for the explosion shockwaves so they still appear on low settings. BTW the way the tire smoke is configured in the "improvements + densities* MixSets.ini makes the effect look so much better! Customising effects through MixSets is a really cool feature. I was wondering, would it be possible to add more controls for the bullet tracer effects? I'm currently using this edit of a script by Vital to shorten their lifespan (also adds a smoke effect, but I made it invisibie), but it would be cool to have the option in MixSets. If not, it's no problem!

[Junior_Djjr]

1 hour ago, WarButler said:

I had also assumed it was an IMFX or game bug until I recently installed the new MixSets and realised that it was because of the way the game divides the EMRATE values with low visual fx settings.

Exactly, me too.

1 hour ago, WarButler said:

I should probably test all effects with low settings, as I normally keep my settings on very high. I'll also see if I can do the same for the explosion shockwaves so they still appear on low settings.

Try to make low settings just acceptable, think about peoples that want to use your mod on low PCs.

It's worth saying, like, "If you want to play your game using Low quality settings on menu but with good effects, use MixSets with 'FxEmissionRateShare = 1' and 'FxEmissionRateMult = 1.0' on .ini.".

 

I updated the MixSets.asi now again (damn, I'm very indecisive). Just a few peoples downloaded (maybe you too), so whatever.

The last update I was multiplying by the Medium configuration, so if you use 'FxEmissionRateShare = 1', to make it look like high you need 'FxEmissionRateMult = 1.33333333333333', like, WTF. I changed the working, now to make it look like high you just need to use 1.0. To look like low you need to use 0.5 and so on.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Junior_Djjr

[WarButler]

23 hours ago, Junior_Djjr said:

The last update I was multiplying by the Medium configuration, so if you use 'FxEmissionRateShare = 1', to make it look like high you need 'FxEmissionRateMult = 1.33333333333333', like, WTF. I changed the working, now to make it look like high you just need to use 1.0. To look like low you need to use 0.5 and so on.

That seems more intuitive! Just to clarify, Is 1.0 the same as high or very high settings? I will update the OP and the readme with that information soon.

 

I've fixed the muzzle flashes and the explosion shockwaves for low effects. I literally just added 10 to the EMRATE values for most of the muzzle flashes. I can't believe the solution was so simple!

I slightly tweaked the colour of the Desert Eagle, Minigun and Shotgun muzzle flashes too, but I would like to make more siginificant alterations to these particular effects later. Explosion shockwaves took a little more adjusting, as they became too bright on very high settings. But I halved the alpha and I think they're reasonably balanced now. The explosions still look a bit weaker on low settings, but they should do the job. At least low settings are useable now anyway

 

I've also made a new AK47 muzzle flash effect! To use it you'll need to use my gunflash.dat from IMFX (in the download below) or edit your own to assign weapon ID 30 to the new gf_ak47 effect instead of gf_cuntgun. Now the country rile and AK can have their own individual effects!

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/lch7dohlckguphg/Fixed_for_Low_Settings.7z/file

Edited October 2, 2019 by WarButler

[Junior_Djjr]

1 hour ago, WarButler said:

Is 1.0 the same as high or very high settings?

There is no difference from high to very high.

 

Vanilla:

Low = 0.5

Medium = 0.75

High / Very High = 1.0

 

If using "FxEmissionRateMult = 2.0" with "FxEmissionRateShare = 0", low will be like high and high will be 2X more dense.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Junior_Djjr

[Junior_Djjr]

You forgot "m4petal2.png".

[WarButler]

1 hour ago, Junior_Djjr said:

You forgot "m4petal2.png".

The other m4 textures were wrong too. Oops. Should be fixed now

 

When I eventually change the fire effects I'll try and make them use fewer particles, so the game doesn't hit its limit so quickly. Using high FxEmissionRateMult settings looks awesome but quickly hits the particle limit when there are several fires. But like you said, it's good for people who want high effects quality on low settings

[Junior_Djjr]

19 minutes ago, WarButler said:

so the game doesn't hit its limit so quickly

I created an effects limit adjuster, so you can use more emissions. I can add it to EnhanceFX soon.

But optimizing is always good.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Junior_Djjr

[WarButler]

 

On 10/2/2019 at 10:05 AM, Junior_Djjr said:

I created an effects limit adjuster, so you can use more emissions. I can add it to EnhanceFX soon.

But optimizing is always good.

That's awesome! That'll be very useful indeed. 

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by WarButler

[Mysterdogg]

Here's a video I found of molotov explosions in slow motion and I have to say that your current effect, @WarButler is definitely the closest-to-reality I've seen, it's amazing!

 

It's incredible all of the potential that particle effects currently have, and with the addition of complementary mods like IMFX and EnhanceFX the result it's enormous! 

[WarButler]

Thank you, @Mysterdogg! I was also surprised to realise what the old SA particle system could do. It may be capable of even better things once Junior's effect limit adjuster is released. On top of that, the potential of EnhanceFX has not been fully explored yet. Safe to say, there is more to come for SA's particle effects in the future!

Edited October 6, 2019 by WarButler

[Mysterdogg]

the best that we could expect from EnhanceFX is to continue with DK's IMFX main idea: to individualize every effect. FunctionX also aimed to that when working on OE's gun flashes and with the rest of the "for developers" effects. He was (everyone one of us was) waiting for a revolutionary solution for the particle effects system and it was not until now that such thing happened!

 

There's a lot more I can say but I will keep private to not spoil anything new coming

[LaDiDa]

That's great news, looking forward to future updates (or other peoples effects perhaps).

[Developing Zeus]

https://www.gtainside.com/en/sanandreas/mods/137874-gta-v-bullet-tracer-v2/

This appears to make things look better. A better bullet tracer.

Can this be added to this mod?

[jahmshut]

Is it possible to somehow fix the bloody trees?

https://imgur.com/a/CaWOxkU

[LaDiDa]

Pretty sure overdose effects worked around that issue

[WarButler]

15 hours ago, jahmshut said:

Is it possible to somehow fix the bloody trees?

https://imgur.com/a/CaWOxkU

The problem lies in surfinfo.dat. Rockstar assigned the blood effect to trees, probably because the default effect is so basic that it doesn't look too out of place. Download "Bleeding Trees Fix" from here, which will make the game us the sparks effect instead:

 

https://www.gtagarage.com/mods/show.php?id=9226

 

@Developing Zeus Whoops, apologies for the late reply. Personally, I strongly dislike how that makes the bullet tracers look. But I do use my own edit of Vital's script to make the tracers much smaller and faster, as bullets should be. I've also made the smoke invisible, Here is a link to my edited version if you are interested:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ccie689jvlzks07/Bullet_Tracers_%28no_smoke%29.7z/file

 

I might include it as an optional extra, perhaps along with an edited particle.txd.

Edited December 1, 2019 by WarButler

[jahmshut]

10 hours ago, WarButler said:

The problem lies in surfinfo.dat. Rockstar assigned the blood effect to trees, probably because the default effect is so basic that it doesn't look too out of place. Download "Bleeding Trees Fix" from here, which will make the game us the sparks effect instead:

 

https://www.gtagarage.com/mods/show.php?id=9226

thanks

[Developing Zeus]

On 12/2/2019 at 4:02 AM, WarButler said:

 

@Developing Zeus Whoops, apologies for the late reply. Personally, I strongly dislike how that makes the bullet tracers look. But I do use my own edit of Vital's script to make the tracers much smaller and faster, as bullets should be. I've also made the smoke invisible, Here is a link to my edited version if you are interested:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ccie689jvlzks07/Bullet_Tracers_%28no_smoke%29.7z/file

 

I might include it as an optional extra, perhaps along with an edited particle.txd.

Thankyou Sir!

And don't apologize for a late reply cuz I visited today only (after a long time).

[FrannDzs]

On 1/12/2019 at 19:32, WarButler said:

El problema radica en surfinfo.dat. Rockstar asignó el efecto de sangre a los árboles, probablemente porque el efecto predeterminado es tan básico que no parece demasiado fuera de lugar. Descarga "Bleeding Trees Fix" desde aquí, lo que hará que el juego tenga el efecto de chispas:

 

https://www.gtagarage.com/mods/show.php?id=9226

 

@Desarrollando Zeus Whoops, disculpas por la respuesta tardía. Personalmente, no me gusta mucho cómo se ven los trazadores de balas. Pero uso mi propia edición del script de Vital para hacer que los trazadores sean mucho más pequeños y rápidos, como deberían ser las viñetas. También hice invisible el humo. Aquí está un enlace a mi versión editada si está interesado:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ccie689jvlzks07/Bullet_Tracers_%28no_smoke%29.7z/file

 

Podría incluirlo como un extra opcional, tal vez junto con una partícula editada.txd.

hello brother, how are you ?, well, I have a problem with your mod and samp-addon together, and is that the gunflash is lost, nose to what is due but could you ask the creator? I really asked him to do it but he is very reserved with his things and I would like more people to help persuade him (@nonamenoname) please, the 2 mods are really great and I didn't want everything to be ruined. Nothing more, I hope you have a good week brother.