July 31, 200916 yr Hi all!Some years ago I bought Captain Sim's Legendary MiG-21. Now I reinstalled it but the afterburner effect is all but legendary... it's just horrible by today's standards. Have a look by yourself:Click here! (AVSIM review)This review is about the FS2002 version but the afterburner effect is exactly the same in FS9.I checked the Aircraft.cfg file: Unfortunately there is no *.fx file for the afterburner in the [Lights] or any other section... looks like it's part of the model.Does anyone have a clue? Did you manage to change this effect with satisfactory results?Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks for your answers!
July 31, 200916 yr If it is part of the model, there will presumably be a texture for it, and if it is a texture, then it can be edited. Typically you would either add an alpha channel by opening it in a paint program of some kind, such as Photoshop (or edit the existing alpha channel if it has one) and stick a darker grey colour on that channel to increase the level of transparency (black = transparent, white = opaque, with 256 levels from black to white being the range).If it is indeed part of the model, the only way to remove it would be to either have completely black on the aforementioned alpha channel (thus rendering it invisible), or delete the texture so that it fails to load (but that might give you an undesirable visual artifact), or to get hold of the original model and remove the part in a 3D program (probably not possible without the the source files). So that means a texture edit is favourite.This is all speculation on what is possible, since I don't have that model, but the theory is sound if you wanted to try it and could find that texture. As with any malarkey of this nature, make sure you keep a back up copy of the file so that if it all goes horribly wrong, you can get back to where you started.Al Alan Bradbury Check out my youtube flight sim videos: Here
August 3, 200916 yr Hi Al :( Many thanks for your reply. I'm not really a texture guru... not at all in fact. :( But I'll make a backup and try it out. Do you know some good tutorials by chance?I'll keep you informed. Thanks again.Greets
August 3, 200916 yr These was a freeware package released a while back which changed the effects. I'm 99% sure that Captain Sim's Mig was in there (it adds burners to a lot of Migs out there).I'm at work right now, but i have this file on my gaming PC at home. Will check and post it for you.-feng
August 7, 200916 yr Will check and post it for you.Hi FengThat would be sooooo great! You're my hero! Many many thanks! :( GreetsJ.R.
August 24, 200916 yr Hi,I did some testing and I could eliminate the afterburner effect by making it fully transparent. The change has to be done with the alpha channels (making the upper half fully black) of two common to all modells bmp files: Mig21_material_fx.bmp and Mig21_material_fx_lm.bmp .If you like I could sent them. Now I have to add a decent afterburner effect. Any ideas?Hugo
August 30, 200916 yr Hi HugoMany thanks for your post. I could not answer earlier as I was on vacation... sorry. If you like I could sent them.Oh yes, please, share 'em with me! Thank you! :( Now I have to add a decent afterburner effect. Any ideas?What about the great freeware F-16 afterburner effect by Jan Rosenberg (ab_f16_.zip here at AVSIM)? It's controlled by invisible XML gauge with throttle and "N2" parameters and includes custom high-altitude contrail, custom start-up smoke puffs with several minutes of "heat" shimmer... Sounds very good, but I don't know exactly how to set it in the right place just behind the MiG's nozzle. I'll try something and let you know. Maybe some kind expert from here will help us.Greets
Create an account or sign in to comment