Effect size change issue

DaveWG · Post by **DaveWG** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 5:55 am

Hi, I've notice an issue with the size of some fx in V2.4 compared to V2.3. If you look at the AB effects in this picture:

The effect should fill the afterburner can. This is how it looked in V2.3:

If I replace the ParticleDraw.fx file in the ShadersHLSL folder with the one from 2.3 and delete the shader cache, the effect returns to the correct size.

McMaster · Post by **McMaster** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:20 am

This is because 2.4 reduced the size of particle effects.

Qatsi58 · Post by **Qatsi58** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:23 am

Yesterday I had a similar issue with contrails, sprites seemed to be scaled 50%.

I previously patched 2.3 and maybe that didn't work out well, so now I'm reinstalling full 2.4 and see how it goes.

Qatsi58 · Post by **Qatsi58** » Mon Oct 06, 2014 1:02 pm

I can confirm that with a full reinstall of V2.4 I am seeing 50% downscaled particles.

I hope this will get fixed for effects sprites, otherwise all effects being affected would need a update.

Kind regards,

Gerrit

gsnde · Post by **gsnde** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 6:00 am

This might be the better place - I originally thought that to be a model specific issue - see here.

I also made a complete re-installation with V.2.4 and can confirm that the issue affects all afterburner effects.

Post by **Beau Hollis** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:50 am

We did reduce the scale because we had a report that wake and particle sizes were larger than those in v1 and FSX. We looked into the math in the v2 GPU particles and the scales were in fact too large. One thing to note is that effect and light scaling in FSX and v1 varies depending on the size and aspect ratio of your view. This is part of why the scales got off in the first place because the primary developer of the GPU particle system had his monitors rotated vertically when he was hand editing the scalars to match the old system. The oversized particles were also a performance issue when near the camera because there were 4x the pixels to shade and raster. We're sorry for anyone that hand tuned effect scales in content for 2.0-2.3. Now particles and extrusions scale relative to fixed scalar regardless of the aspect ratio, so it should be easier to ensure that effects look the same for all users. The current scalars were picked to line up with v1 and FSX in the most general use case. Since the scale is variable in the old system, we chose the aspect ratio of a standard 1080p monitor.

_michal · Post by **_michal** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 10:24 am

We can assume that new particle size is final and won't change in future 2.n updates?

gsnde · Post by **gsnde** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 10:57 am

Also - since this seems to affect all FS9 and FSX made effects - a way / script / procedure / tool would be very much appreciated to help updating this very big number of effects to the new standard. What typical settings have to be changed with what factor in order to restore the optics from old standard to new standard?

Lapi · Post by **Lapi** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 12:08 pm

Quote:
Quote from Beau on October 24, 2014, 09:50

This is part of why the scales got off in the first place because the primary developer of the GPU particle system had his monitors rotated vertically when he was hand editing the scalars to match the old system.

Hehehe... better than having the primary developer of the aerodynamic system trying out Mach-speed in a submarine, while the primary weather system developer was looking at rotating clouds in front of another vertically flipped monitor...

gsnde · Post by **gsnde** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:44 am

Just to make sure in case it is relevant - when I say all FS9/FSX made effects are affected I am talking about effects attached to AI aircraft.

abranpuko · Post by **abranpuko** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 7:57 am

the scale of ai trafic lights in fsx was perfect. we had the sensation of no t being alone in the dark.

Larry_R · Post by **Larry_R** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 8:18 pm

I can confirm that on my system, the size of tiles used for wake effects in v2.4 are once again the same size as seen in FSX to a fair degree of accuracy. In V2.3 they were twice the size the same effect in FSX. I would assume this would apply to all effects, as there is nothing specific about wake effects that might change things.

I have also noted that the overall opacity of particle effects in v2.4 is now a much closer match to FSX. Perhaps this was due to the number of particles rather than the treatment of alpha values. This is much appreciated because it means that there is far less of a need to create P3D specific effects.

On my setup at least, there is a new issue in v2.4 with respect to tiles: there is a peculiarity with the way tiles respond to the rate parameters as mentioned in another thread, this with a clean install of v2.4.

abranpuko · Post by **abranpuko** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 9:15 pm

Larry_R. hello!...can you give some help? how, then , could i see in the night, the aiplanes lights more far than 10-15 km? after that distance, it dissappear.

thanks!

gsnde · Post by **gsnde** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 2:01 am

This is getting complicated. It sounds as if different type of effects are not equally affected which does not make sense for me. We should state more explicitly what works and what not.

Larry, are the wake effects you have tested generic P3D or from FS9/FSX? Where do we have to look to see what you have seen?

My reports are for FS9/FSX afterburner effects which all appear very much scaled down. This issue is with all aircraft I checked (MBAI SR-71, MPAI F-102, MPAI Saab Draken, MPAI Su-24, FMAI Tornado)

Post by **Beau Hollis** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 7:40 am

Wake effects are extrusions (a connected triangle strip that follows a path and varies in width) whereas most effects are sprints (a single 4-sided quad). As such they go through two different code paths. The extrusion effect sizes were not effected by the main window's aspect ratio the way sprites were, so their size was consistent, and could be replicated 1-to-1. Sprite and light sizes vary in FSX depending on the window's aspect ratio and the WideViewAspect setting. We would certainly like to know about any other issues there may be with the particle system. It would help if you could post the fx file name or the text of the file if its custom, and screenshots in p3d/fsx.