HotRockets! Particle FX Replacement + Tutorial

[Akira_R]

@Akira_R and crew: I seem to have stumbled upon a bug (and a fix!) in your edited configs that you posted earlier (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65754-HotRockets%21-Particle-FX-Replacement-Tutorial?p=1584571&viewfull=1#post1584571). Although I'm not entirely sure it's a general bug or just me having it.

Essentially for a couple of engines, the Rockomax 24-77 and Rockomax 48-7S specifically, the engines had their effect running at full blast even with the engines off. Now I know this have been seen before, and usually had to do with conflicts on other mods, but I tries exclusively with only Squad, SmokeScreen, ModuleManager, HotRockets and your squad config and it still happened.

Breaking down the issue, I tried removing your config. That obviously put the 24-77 and 48-7S engines back to normal but without any hotrockets effects (since they're not configured in hotrockets, duh!). So it was clear it had to do with your config.

So what was the solution? Well, after a lot of eagle eyed comparison between files, I realised that the 24-77 and 48-7S engines are written a little different, they already have a module "ModuleEnginesFX", but your config was looking for the typical "ModuleEngines" module in the part instead. By simply changing the line "@MODULE[ModuleEngines]" to "@MODULE[ModuleEnginesFX]" on those two engines I solved the issue. The engine effect for those engines are a bit.. simple, by default, but at least they work (I could edit the values properly with SmokeScreen inside the game).

Thank you, this is something that was changed in .25 I missed it because I'm still using .24.2 lol, I have allot of custom tweaked stuff in my career and havent felt like taking the time to do that all over again for a .25 install, and now with .90 here there really is no point until all my core mods get updated for .90

Nothing special right now lol, just to make it work. If possible under the new smokescreen system, to be able to work it ingame, using the SS GUI. The config works fine when I rebuild it and I do the tunnings. But when I restart the game and try to use that config the fx is wrong and On from the begining, and turns to stock when I launch it.

It doesn't work like that and this was discussed in smokescreen thread."Import" will show you your current config of the engine,"rebuild" will give you all parameters so you can add them if you want or if you don't have config you can make one,"Apply" will apply changes you made.Everything you change in game you need to change manually in *cfg.The things you can't change in game are [modelName = ],[transformName =],[shaderFileName = ] and [renderMode = ].

sebi.zzr is correct, as I understand it the in game UI will allow you to fidle with and tune your set up, but in order to save any changes you still have to manually edit the cfg outside of the game.

[ctbram]

What version of the game is this working for? There is no version even in the OP first post? Is this working for 0.90?

[Mecripp]

pretty much .23 on to .90 still working.

[ModZero]

What version of the game is this working for? There is no version even in the OP first post? Is this working for 0.90?

It uses a plugin, by the same autor, SmokeScreen, and that has been updated.

[SaintWacko]

I'm on .90, and I'm having an issue where none of the stock rockets have *any* effects. Engines added by mods seem to have their effects, although I haven't checked all of them, but the stock engines show nothing. What could be causing this?

Edit: Wups, I added the community configs and now *nothing* has an engine effect.

Edited December 31, 2014 by SaintWacko

[Mecripp]

I'm on .90, and I'm having an issue where none of the stock rockets have *any* effects. Engines added by mods seem to have their effects, although I haven't checked all of them, but the stock engines show nothing. What could be causing this?

Did you download this http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65754-HotRockets%21-Particle-FX-Replacement-Tutorial?p=1584571&viewfull=1#post1584571 and don't think any work has been do on them in .90 and there might be some name changes.

EDIT- Here looks like a updated just squad http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65754-HotRockets%21-Particle-FX-Replacement-Tutorial?p=1601037&viewfull=1#post1601037 not the NASA.

Edited December 31, 2014 by Mecripp2

[SaintWacko]

Did you download this http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65754-HotRockets%21-Particle-FX-Replacement-Tutorial?p=1584571&viewfull=1#post1584571 and don't think any work has been do on them in .90 and there might be some name changes.

EDIT- Here looks like a updated just squad http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65754-HotRockets%21-Particle-FX-Replacement-Tutorial?p=1601037&viewfull=1#post1601037 not the NASA.

Yes, I applied those at the same time as I added the community configs, and they still don't have any effects.

[Mecripp]

I guessing you override all the stock patch when you added them if not you have the patchs override as the game load and no telling which one of them would load last ?

[HafCoJoe]

Is there a version for 0.90 released? I've read the last few posts and I see at least one other person who isn't seeing any effects on stock rockets

[HafCoJoe]

Well it's the 1 year anniversary of Hot Rockets... So sad to see they aren't being kept up by the creator anymore . I've gotten them to work though I wish I knew how to create the gigantic fireball when in high atmo.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Avera9eJoe

[Jacke]

Is there a version for 0.90 released? I've read the last few posts and I see at least one other person who isn't seeing any effects on stock rockets

Look at the top of the same page you posted on for a link to SmokeScreen, which is the .dll that drives HotRockets. Update the Smokescreen stuff and HotRockets works fine.

[Akira_R]

Well it's the 1 year anniversary of Hot Rockets... So sad to see they aren't being kept up by the creator anymore . I've gotten them to work though I wish I knew how to create the gigantic fireball when in high atmo.

As Jacke said as long as you have a current version of Smoke Screen then you shouldn't have any issues with getting these working.

RE atmo expansion, I have made configs that will add the atmo expansion to KW engines as well as squad and nasa. but you do have to have the correct config file installed, is it not working for one of these or do you want the effect for a different engine set? If you ask really really nicely I may go ahead and make one for you.

If you have any other questions post them, I try and check this thread at least once a week, and I know there are a couple guys that also really know there stuff in regards to this mod that also check up every now and then.

[HafCoJoe]

As Jacke said as long as you have a current version of Smoke Screen then you shouldn't have any issues with getting these working.

RE atmo expansion, I have made configs that will add the atmo expansion to KW engines as well as squad and nasa. but you do have to have the correct config file installed, is it not working for one of these or do you want the effect for a different engine set? If you ask really really nicely I may go ahead and make one for you.

If you have any other questions post them, I try and check this thread at least once a week, and I know there are a couple guys that also really know there stuff in regards to this mod that also check up every now and then.

I've been fishing through the separate engine config files and I've had only slight progress at making the giant engine plume. Thank you for offering to make me a set of config files! If I ask you really really nicely .

Ehm... I am a YouTuber/Streamer who has been featured in the daily kerbal (however old and silly that was XD). I would be more than happy to give you a shout out page in my next video if I can get the engine plumes working in them. I will also give you a copy of this mega plane, the UC-Viktoria Mk2 which is currently the largest thing I've built. I plan to be using this in the future of my channel too. I really, really want those plumes.

AS TO THE PLUMES, I only really need them on the Mainsail, Skipper, and both Nasa giant engines. Those are the primary rockets I use in Atmosphere. If you want to do this, don't bother doing it with the rest.

Thanks for everything,

Avera9eJoe

[Akira_R]

I've been fishing through the separate engine config files and I've had only slight progress at making the giant engine plume. Thank you for offering to make me a set of config files! If I ask you really really nicely .

Ehm... I am a YouTuber/Streamer who has been featured in the daily kerbal (however old and silly that was XD). I would be more than happy to give you a shout out page in my next video if I can get the engine plumes working in them. I will also give you a copy of this mega plane, the UC-Viktoria Mk2 which is currently the largest thing I've built. I plan to be using this in the future of my channel too. I really, really want those plumes.

AS TO THE PLUMES, I only really need them on the Mainsail, Skipper, and both Nasa giant engines. Those are the primary rockets I use in Atmosphere. If you want to do this, don't bother doing it with the rest.

Thanks for everything,

Avera9eJoe

Well luckily those are all already done, my post here has my squad and nasa configs, just replace the ones in the HotRockets folder with those and you should be good. I honestly haven't tested them against .90 yet, they were working fine in .25 though so let me know if you have any issues with them or want the fx tweaked. A few of the smaller probe engines don't have HotRockets enabled on them yet so they will just be running stock flames. Oh and make sure the individual configs for the engines are stock, changing certain things in them might result in sadness when MM tries to apply the HotRockets patch, things like messing with the thrust/ISP/mass/fuel stuff is ok though.

As far as credit where credit is due FPSlacker is the one that really wrote those and got the atmo expansion thing down, I just went in and fixed the fact that throttle no longer had any effect on the engine FX, fixed some compatibility issues with a few other mods that make changes to some of the engines, and a few other little tweaks, and all my other work like the KW FX is all derived from his work on those two cfgs. Thank you very much for the offer, that is definitely the right kind of asking nicely that will get my lazy rear in gear lol I subbed to your channel and hope to see some sweat HotRockets fx in the near future

Cheers

Edited January 13, 2015 by Akira_R

[HafCoJoe]

Well luckily those are all already done, my post here has my squad and nasa configs, just replace the ones in the HotRockets folder with those and you should be good. I honestly haven't tested them against .90 yet, they were working fine in .25 though so let me know if you have any issues with them or want the fx tweaked. A few of the smaller probe engines don't have HotRockets enabled on them yet so they will just be running stock flames. Oh and make sure the individual configs for the engines are stock, changing certain things in them might result in sadness when MM tries to apply the HotRockets patch, things like messing with the thrust/ISP/mass/fuel stuff is ok though.

As far as credit where credit is due FPSlacker is the one that really wrote those and got the atmo expansion thing down, I just went in and fixed the fact that throttle no longer had any effect on the engine FX, fixed some compatibility issues with a few other mods that make changes to some of the engines, and a few other little tweaks, and all my other work like the KW FX is all derived from his work on those two cfgs. Thank you very much for the offer, that is definitely the right kind of asking nicely that will get my lazy rear in gear lol I subbed to your channel and hope to see some sweat HotRockets fx in the near future

Cheers

Thank you for the reply, though I've already gotten both of those config files on my machine. I got them when I first got HotRockets for 0.90. I was hoping for a specific edit to the mainsail and skipper engines to make their high atmosphere exhaust plume gigantic. Like... twice the size and three times the width of the rocket sitting on top. Like this:

Though not as detailed as having a separate spike deep in the exhaust, I would love to have an expanding plume of that size. Is this easily doable?

Edited January 14, 2015 by Avera9eJoe

[sao123]

It would be great if both hot rockets and cool rockets which are both based on smokescreen could be packaged together.

[Akira_R]

Thank you for the reply, though I've already gotten both of those config files on my machine. I got them when I first got HotRockets for 0.90. I was hoping for a specific edit to the mainsail and skipper engines to make their high atmosphere exhaust plume gigantic. Like... twice the size and three times the width of the rocket sitting on top. Like this:

http://i.stack.imgur.com/Pr8Td.jpg

Though not as detailed as having a separate spike deep in the exhaust, I would love to have an expanding plume of that size. Is this easily doable?

Ah ok I'm sorry I thought you were suggesting they weren't doing the expanding thing at all, yeah I should be able to get them to do something like that. I probably wont get to it until this weekend though, I'll shoot you a PM when it's done and I'll post it here in case anyone else wants to use it. In the meantime I know there are a couple other people as good if not better than I am at playing with the cfgs, so if any of them want to take a crack at it they are more than welcome to.

Edit: So just sitting here thinking about how to do that a couple issues come to mind, one is that when you make the effect larger all that is happening is you are making the size of the particles larger, so while making it that wide is doable it may look really bad because you will just have these really large particles, also as you increase the length of the flame you will run into the issue that the smoke wont line up with it, you can offset the point at which the smoke starts appearing but then when the engine gimbals the whole flame will move an the smoke will just be appearing out of thin air, I have a few ideas on how to get around that but I don't know if any of them will work.

RE HotRockets CoolRockets integration, they are definitely two separate mods, yes they both use the SmokeScreen plugin but aside from that they are made and maintained by two different people, currently the actual author of HotRockets is on a long extended hiatus and is partially just being maintained by the community. I don't really seen any benefit/need for trying to package them together, are you experiencing some kind of conflict?

Edited January 14, 2015 by Akira_R
Musings

[TranquilTempest]

That's the front a shock diamond in that saturn V photo. There's a lot of awesome video of the falcon 9 plume expanding as atmospheric pressure drops:

[Camacha]

It would be great if both hot rockets and cool rockets which are both based on smokescreen could be packaged together.

What's wrong with installing both? That way everyone can pick and choose whatever he likes.

[Akira_R]

That's the front a shock diamond in that saturn V photo. There's a lot of awesome video of the falcon 9 plume expanding as atmospheric pressure drops:

Yeah i love how that stuff looks, if I was able to get HotRockets to really look like that and run on the two potatoes i call a computer it would be so awesome. From what I understand there are some guys that are making essentially HotRockets for RO and trying to get the effects to look very realistic, shock diamonds and realistic expansion and movement of the shock diamonds based on the density affecting the speed of sound and all kinds of stuff that is way out of range for anything that I want to try and do lol. Apparently it is super taxing on the comp because they are using a LOT of particles.

[sao123]

What's wrong with installing both? That way everyone can pick and choose whatever he likes.

the biggest challenge is both are packaged with their own copy of smokescreen... having multiple copies is a large potential cause for crashes... If they were pacakged together with one copy of smokescreen, less chance for error.

[BudgetHedgehog]

the biggest challenge is both are packaged with their own copy of smokescreen... having multiple copies is a large potential cause for crashes... If they were pacakged together with one copy of smokescreen, less chance for error.

You only need one copy of SmokeScreen, you know.. If you already have it, don't copy it across (unless you're installing a newer version, in which case you should remove the old completely and put in the new).

[Camacha]

the biggest challenge is both are packaged with their own copy of smokescreen... having multiple copies is a large potential cause for crashes... If they were pacakged together with one copy of smokescreen, less chance for error.

You are looking for a complicated fix for an easy problem, I am afraid.

[SparkyFox]

Can you make this for klockheed martain sse and space y lifters?

[Akira_R]

Can you make this for klockheed martain sse and space y lifters?

As of right now the actual mod author has been away from the forums for quite some time now, currently some members of the community, myself included, have been maintaining a number of the configs that enable HotRockets, since that is all that HoRockets really is, just a bunch of MM patches and then some wonderful particle flame effects, the actual plugin that enables it all to happen is SmokeScreen which is still being maintained. So most of the work of making effects for an engine involves messing with MM cfgs which is something that is actually quite easy to learn.

I highly recommend you trying your hand at it, if you read the OP here and in the SmokeScreen thread, as well as reading up on MM documentation and then just look at the configs that are currently available one can figure out how it all works. If that isn't appealing to you then I am afraid your only option is to wait, at the moment I am in the middle of making configs for Vens Stock Revamp as well as a custom set for someones personal use, however that one only involves tweaking a couple of engines that are already set up. I generally tend to only wright these things for mods that I actually use because it is a very time consuming process, lots of making changes and reloading KSP to see how it looks.

If you decide to try and tackle these yourself I would be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

My first suggestion would be to take my KW config and re-purpose that for your engines, by that I mean pick a space y engine to start with, and then look for a KW engine that is of similar size and fills a similar roll, find the entry for that KW engine in the KW_hotrockets cfg and copy it into your own cfg, change the necessary things to get it to work (specifically things like the PART name and then the thrustTransform name) load it up and then start tweaking values from there to get it to look good.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Akira_R