FSX-MS FSX GlowingHeat Sr-71 Blackbird Missing Nose Vapor Effects

[lmeirose 1]

Hello All,

I just had a quick question for all of you. I recently purchased, downloaded and installed the Glowingheat SR-71 V2.4 for FSX (I'm running it on a Windows 10 operating system) and I've really been enjoying flying it. I've noticed, however, that when I perform steep climbs or turns with the aircraft, the vapor effects on the nose appear to be displaying black squares (implying that the effects files might be corrupted or missing):


 

From what I know and have seen with previous iterations of the model, the nose vapor should be white, just like the vapor that comes off the inlet spikes. From what I can gather from the .cfg file, the nose vapor effect is indeed separate (it's labeled as "fx_glowingheat_SR71_vapor3.fx"). I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the product, as well as trying to replace the effect from the previous GlowingHeat/Alphasim Blackbird iterations, but I haven't had any luck thus far. I contacted GlowingHeat via their website on their support forum, but haven't heard anything back yet...

Have any of you run into this issue? Is there a fix for this? Is there anything I can do on my end to resolve the problem (perhaps in the .cfg file)?

Thanks very much for all of your help!!

[charliearon 3,023]

If all of the other vapor effects from the other balckbirds are the same (black), what would

happen if you used one of the other vapor effects like fx_glowingheat_SR71_vapor2.fx, if it

exists?  I would delete fx_glowingheat_SR71_vapor3.fx and then make a copy of

fx_glowingheat_SR71_vapor2.fx and just relabel it as #3.  At least your nose vapor will be white.

Maybe try editing your effect:

Below is a sample f-35 vapor effect.  Color Start and Color End are the numbers to edit.

make them the same as your good vapor effects near the engines.

[ParticleAttributes.0]
Blend Mode=1
Texture=fx_1.bmp
Bounce=0.00
Color Start=255, 255, 255,32
Color End=250,250,250,16
Jitter Distance=0.20
Jitter Time=1.00
TempK=107.00
TempRate=0.00
uv1=0.50, 0.75
uv2=0.75, 1.00
X Scale Goal=1.00
Y Scale Goal=1.00
Z Scale Goal=0.00
Extrude Length=0.00
Extrude Pitch Max=0.00
Extrude Heading Max=0.00

 

[lmeirose 1]

charliearon, thank you your suggestions!  They proved extremely helpful!

As per your advice, I opened and viewed the SR-71's effects (.fx) files via Notepad.  As it turns out, the problem was that the effect "fx_Glowingheat_SR71_vapor3.fx" effect that controls the nose vapor was attributed to the effects texture "fx_Aa-Con.bmp", which doesn't exist in the FSX "Effects" "texture" folder.    The other two vapor effects are attributed to the "fx_1.bmp" (which is one of FSX's default effects textures for smoke/vapor trails, right?), and they appear to work fine; so here's what I did to fix the problem:

- I copied the "fx_1.bmp" effects texture to create a second copy of it

- Next, I renamed the "fx_1.bmp - Copy" effects texture as "fx_Aa_Con.bmp"  

Problem solved!! 

[charliearon 3,023]

Glad it worked out for ya!

[lmeirose 1]

Thanks again!  I didn't realize that you could examine/edit the effects in that manner.  Definitely good to know!! 

Oops!  I meant rename the effects texture as "fx_Aa-Con.bmp".