Steam loco exhaust smoke size

I plan to make a video on how to redo the smoke on ben neals engines by completely erasing the smoke container and starting new
 
#610

:wave:mre12ax7: I can tell you how to do this if interested..PM Me
Bobcass_20130929_0046_zps5922a858.jpg
 
@BobCass

Hi Bob.

I happened to notice that the Twinkles smoke in your image in post #4 looks a bit "blocky". Compare it with the smoke in my image in the above post I'm sure you'll see the difference. Yours is showing some rectangular chunks of smoke in places, rather than a nice merged effect.

I'm wondering if you might need to adjust your Performance Settings. My slider bars for Ground, Scenery, Spline editing and Trains are set to maximum. Perhaps it's one (or more) of those which might be creating the improvement.

Not a criticism, just an observation and some thoughts on the possible cause.

Cheers
Casper
:)
 
@ Casper

I PM'd Bob and with his help have gotten all of Ben Neal's steam locos working with the smoke and I have noticed the same things you have. I'm running TS12 and all my sliders are set to the max. Any one else have any suggestions as to why we're seeing rectangular chunks in our smoke? Thanks.
 
I see what you guys mean..But do not know how to fix..But from what I understand through, It would have to come from con-fig file(command)..
 
I'm going to bump this thread to see if anyone knows how to fix this problem. Also, my smoke flashes on and off. Know why?
 
Smoke flashing as in textures flickering?

This could be because of the way the textures are being overlaid on top of each other. In a slower sense, it's similar to how the cars now bunch up on top of each other at rail crossings. When the start to move, there is flickering as each car (sprite object) pushes out of the other car that is still stationary.

The disappearing could be the usual redraw issues we've been seeing with TS12 SP1. I think N3V is looking into this, but I can't recall now offhand.

It would be nice to have a valid known bugs that still need fixing list somewhere for us to see. At least then we wouldn't be chasing problems in circles more than we need to.

John
 
stouthm said:
@ Casper

I PM'd Bob and with his help have gotten all of Ben Neal's steam locos working with the smoke and I have noticed the same things you have. I'm running TS12 and all my sliders are set to the max. Any one else have any suggestions as to why we're seeing rectangular chunks in our smoke? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hi southm,

The weird chunks in loco smoke are usually (but not always) caused by using .tfx files to create the smoke.
I usually create a new smoke container to suite the particular loco, depending whether it's a passenger loco or a freight loco.

Cheers,
Bill69

p.s. I have learned a lot more about the smoke container since I uploaded Ben's USRA 2-8-8-2
 
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@ Bill69 - I was hoping that you would chime in on this thread. I have no idea what you mean when you say you create a new smoke container for each loco. Would it be possible to make just one for use in Ben's locos? As of now I'm running the 4-8-2 USRA Light TS12 as a test, kuid:96914:4780. My problem is that I can change bogeys and make the loading and unloading smoke different colors but that's about it. Oh yeah, I can eliminate the track in most of Dorsey's building so that I can have more freedom in choosing what I want to load and unload. In other words my experience is limited as far as the config file is concerned. Is it very involved creating a new smoke container? Thanks.
 
Usually any loco burns pretty clean, and smokes little, and in cold weather the steam fog is mistaken for being smoke.

But I like smoke belching ALCO's, and steamers sanding the flues, working heavy on steep slopes ... maybe it looks unrealistic ? But does it look cool ... YES !
 
What I'd like is to see the damn game respond to the work being done - that way you'd get the light smoke that's normal for easy work, and big dark apocalyptic clouds when it's straining to get get a heavy drag up a 2% grade.

Best I've been able to do is to get thick(er) black at slow speeds that fades to gray as it get's up some speed. (See my M&Pa rebuilds/reskins of Ben Neal's 4-4-0, 4-6-0, and/or 2-8-0 on the DLS)
 
stouthm said:
@ Bill69 - I was hoping that you would chime in on this thread. I have no idea what you mean when you say you create a new smoke container for each loco. Would it be possible to make just one for use in Ben's locos? As of now I'm running the 4-8-2 USRA Light TS12 as a test, kuid:96914:4780. My problem is that I can change bogeys and make the loading and unloading smoke different colors but that's about it. Oh yeah, I can eliminate the track in most of Dorsey's building so that I can have more freedom in choosing what I want to load and unload. In other words my experience is limited as far as the config file is concerned. Is it very involved creating a new smoke container? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hi southm,

Ben Neal has been in touch with me asking if he can upload the locos I updated to his own web site. I have naturally said yes to this proposal but told him I am at present updating his locos again. So as I update them some more I am sending them directly to Ben. The smoke container is in the main loco config file so the loco itself has to be updated to change the smoke. Basically look in the config for "smoke0", which is usually the smoke from the stack, Look in smoke0 for "minsize", "maxsize' and "mass". The minsize tag should be about 0.3 or 0.4, don't change it. The "maxsize" tag can be changed upwards to whatever you want (within reason) and the "mass" tag can be increased to give more smoke. You will likely have to do quite a few testings after changing these tags to get what you want.
It is more involved if you want to use the latest physics with smoke puffs in sync with the cylinders.

Cheers,
Bill69
 
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