fire simulation

[jimski]

Is is possible to simulate fires on the ground that can be seen from the air at night? I am planning a night bombing mission and can't see the target. I know in reality much night bombing was done by aiming at flares or aiming into fires started by previous bombs. I want to simulate that.

Jimski

[Corsair Freak]

Hi Jimski,

Nanni made a landing light (A firey barrel) that you could place where you need it. I don't know how bright it is as I've never used it, but you can give it a go. Nanni's CFS Page


Good Hunting,
Brandon

[jimski]

Thanks much for the link. The burning barrel landing light is too dim but also on that page is a phosphorous fire marker that worked. I fiddled with its fx file and I think I have it burning about 20 minutes, might try to make it brighter. As is I can see it five miles off at 5000 feet which is good enough. There is an option of attaching the effect to a standard bomb. That is what I am using. I have a formation of AI planes a few minutes ahead of me drop the fire bombs which gives me an aimpoint. I think that is about how it was done for real. I'll bet a real fire bomb raid might be seen from a very long distance, 50 miles or more.

Thanks for the help!

Jimski

[Corsair Freak]

glad to be of service.

[Bombardier101]

Hi Jimski


I was working on Burning Apartment DPs for the British apartments. It adds a fiery [EXTRA] to the DP of one apartment so you can see a burning city. I need some help from you though. Um, how do you change the amount of time the effect goes for?


All help appreciated,




Bombardier

[jimski]

I increased the time by dumb luck. I had never looked at an fx file before. Opened it with notepad and it is just a text file. All I knew about it was that it was fire lasting about four minutes. Towards the end of the file I saw three groupings under the names fire1, fire2 and fire3. Each had a "lifetime" of about 240 which I took to mean 240 seconds or 4 minutes. I changed 240 to 1240. In my test I could see the fire from 10 miles from 10000 feet and it lasted for as long as I hung around (I was getting shot at). In general I'd say it about as bright as a house fire. No where near as bright as an industrial fire. I suppose a perfect effect might start with the house fire and it grows many times brighter for an hour or so and then goes down. I have no idea how to simulate that.

Jimski

[Bombardier101]

Thanks for the info Jimski


Happy flying,




Bombardier

[james007]

Have you checked Blades version 2 upgrade in the Sim-Outhouse web.

[Corsair Freak]

Bombardier,

I've been tossin' the idea about an "[extra]" in the DP of a building...

if the DP is a modification of a stock infrastucture, every destroyable building of that type will have the burning. so say you want "building type a" to have the burning effect, any other scenery with "building type a" will also have it.

I think if you were to have a completely separate effect that you could place in the mission builder you could just save it as a layout, as in other words... if you're flying over a burning house one day, a week later the house isn't gonna be on fire. if it was in a layout you could just remove it. Just a suggestion.


Good Hunting,
Brandon

[jimski]

Spent more time with the phosphorous fire. If you call up fx_phbomb in notepad you can make the fire last as long as you want by changing the "lifetime" of each "emitter" in the "fire" paragraphs. If you change the "xscale" and "yscale" of the "particle" in each fire you can make the fire as large as you want, right up to h bomb size. But it looks cheezy in the larger sizes because of the flicker that is designed into it. I may try to deal with that next free time.

Since it is designed to be used as a "vehicle" in mission builder you can start a ground fire at any time in any place, even make it move as with any vehicle. This in addition to modifying a bomb to be a phosphorous bomb.

It is a bit tediuous to tinker with because it looks to me that in order to see the effect of any change you make in fx-phbomb you must stop/restart your computer and restart csf2, etc.

Jimski

[Bombardier101]

Hi guys,


Actually the DPs modded were those *British Apartment Type#, *British Block House Type# and *British House Type# buildings. I don't think people use them much but they are good! So now I need permission to upload it to SimV since I've modded and renamed the SkyAFire effects by LouieG.

Happy flying,



Bombardier

[Woodlouse2002]

I'll bet a real fire bomb raid might be seen from a very long distance, 50 miles or more.

Thanks for the help!

Jimski

I think some of the really big firestorms could be seen by following waves of aircraft 150 miles away and more.

[jimski]

I agree. I once worked with a fellow who was a b29 navigator on the big Tokyo fire raid. His main comment was how rough the ride was at altitude.

I have the phosphorous bomb setting fire to about a city block now and burning for an hour. It looks real from 10000 feet or so. Main problem is that no matter how big and bright it gets it is not visible beyond about ten miles but I assume that is a limit in the program.

I am lucky to have bought in my youth a copy of William Green's Famous Bombers Of The Second World War and I quote from the B29 chapter: "Bombing techniques employed path finder lead-ships, carrying 180 70-lb M47 Napalm-filled bombs each, followed by a main force with each Superfortress dropping twenty four 500 lb clusters of M69 oil incendiaries in a pattern, distributing 8333 of these bombs per square mile."

Jimski

[Woodlouse2002]

I should imagine there's another parameter in the fx file for visible range. Or maybe you've already maxed it out.

[jimski]

I'm judging it is a program thing since it looks like all lights go out at ten miles or so. Some runways have very bright lights that seem to turn on all at once and not by degrees as you approach.

It there an essay somewhere about the workings of the fx files? I have a feeling there is a lot more that can be done including starting a small fire that grows very large with time.

Jimski