How do I add colored smoke?

[rayrayblues]

The only smoke effect that I can find in the ME is "Big Smoke".

It looks great, but it's too big and black.

I would like to be able to also add white, green, yellow, orange, blue, red, or any color

smoke markers at airfields, Helo LZ's etc. I have seen them in DCS videos, but don't know how to add them.

Do I have to write a script or something?

[ArjenHVA]

14 minutes ago, rayrayblues said:

The only smoke effect that I can find in the ME is "Big Smoke".

It looks great, but it's too big and black.

I would like to be able to also add white, green, yellow, orange, blue, red, or any color

smoke markers at airfields, Helo LZ's etc. I have seen them in DCS videos, but don't know how to add them.

Do I have to write a script or something?

It's called Smoke Marker in the trigger list which is associated with a trigger zone. In this particular use case I 'draw' a circuit with colored smoke markers for the recovery after dialing into a particular frequency. 

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by ArjenHVA

[rayrayblues]

Got it, thanx.

 

[rayrayblues]

59 minutes ago, ArjenHVA said:

It's called Smoke Marker which is associated with a trigger zone. In this particular use case I 'draw' a circuit for the recovery after dialing into a particular frequency. 

 

 

Okay, now how do I make it last longer than 5 minutes?

[ArjenHVA]

3 hours ago, rayrayblues said:

 

Okay, now how do I make it last longer than 5 minutes?

 

I would just create a large trigger zone that you enable in whenever a unit enters it. Should give you sufficient time for a landing etc. Otherwise you have to apply more rules / scripting

 

 

[Chump]

Set up a continuous trigger type where the condition is "time since flag"=5. In the action, change the flag value and pop smoke. This will keep the smoke going forever.

[rayrayblues]

@ArjenHVA & @Chump

 

Thanx guys. Very helpful info, now, Is there a way to pop smoke

using the radio, such as when calling "inbound" or when entering the zone.

I like using the new invisible FARP, but sometimes I hide them too well.  

I have run out of gas while trying to remember where the gas station is.   

If I could have the smoke pop with the radio, it would help me find the FARP.

[ArjenHVA]

4 hours ago, rayrayblues said:

@ArjenHVA & @Chump

 

Thanx guys. Very helpful info, now, Is there a way to pop smoke

using the radio, such as when calling "inbound" or when entering the zone.

I like using the new invisible FARP, but sometimes I hide them too well.  

I have run out of gas while trying to remember where the gas station is.   

If I could have the smoke pop with the radio, it would help me find the FARP.

Should be quite straight forward.

 

If you add a radioitem in the triggerlist and assign a flag number to it.

 

If you click on the radio item in-game, the flag becomes true (value 1). Add a second trigger which is managed by the condition that flag 1 has to be true after which it deploys the smoke marker. 

 

 

For a zone trigger that are various options that are related to an IN ZONE condition (unit, part of coalition, group, etc.)

[rayrayblues]

OK, I'll give it a shot. Thanx again.

[rayrayblues]

@ArjenHVA @Chump

Thanx again guys, here is what I came up with: 

I created a trigger zone 1 to 2 miles radius.

I set the trigger to 3 SWITCHED CONDITION,

Set the conditions to  UNIT INSIDE ZONE (Rotary-1, Zone-1)

and actions to SMOKE MARKER (Zone-1, 1, GREEN)

 

 

I set up an invisible FARP with required ground support and a windsock hidden under some trees.

 

 

When I enter the zone, the smoke pops.

 

 

There is no need for a trigger to turn it off,

so you can rearm and gas up and the smoke will go out by itself after 5 mins.

Later on if I need more gas and bullets, I can just re-enter the zone and the smoke pops again for 5 more minutes. 

It is repeatable. this is just what I was looking for, I love it!    Thanx.

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by rayrayblues

[ArjenHVA]

10 hours ago, rayrayblues said:

@ArjenHVA @Chump

Thanx again guys, here is what I came up with: 

 

 

Glad to hear you got what you were looking for! 

[_Defi]

On 7/28/2021 at 11:35 PM, Chump said:

Set up a continuous trigger type where the condition is "time since flag"=5. In the action, change the flag value and pop smoke. This will keep the smoke going forever.

Hey sorry, but i dont quite get this. How do you make the Smoke marker run forever? I am not sure what the Flag parameter means in this context. 

Here is what i have

 

null

[cfrag]

13 minutes ago, _Defi said:

Hey sorry, but i dont quite get this. How do you make the Smoke marker run forever? I am not sure what the Flag parameter means in this context. 

That's probably because the hint is incorrect, you'd end up with a smoke being initiated once every 5 seconds. Since smoke runs for 5 minutes, you'd end up with 60 smoke effects clustered on the same spot, severely impacting performance. What you need is a repeating rule that is triggered by 'time since'. You'll also need to reset the flag, so that time since will trigger again.

If all you want is worry-free permanent smoke anywhere on the map, and don't mind the overkill, DML will do that for you just by placing (copy paste supported) trigger zones and changing a single attribute - in DML you never change code and control everything with trigger zones on the map. I've included a small demo to get you started. Click on onw of the two trigger zones, and inspect the 'smoke' attribute. All DCS smoke colors are supported.

 

keep on smokin'.miz

[Chump]

Thanks for the correction, @cfrag. I meant Time Since Flag Seconds = 300 (5 minutes, not seconds). The "Time Since" part can be achieved by toggling the flag off/on.

[_Defi]

On 3/17/2023 at 10:22 AM, cfrag said:

ant is worry-free permanent smoke anywhere on the map, and don't mind the overkill, DML will do that for you just by placing (copy paste supported) trigger zones and changing a single attribute - in DML you never change code and control everything with trigger zones on the map. I've included a small demo to get you started. Click on onw of the two trigger zones, and inspect the 'smoke' attribute. All DCS smoke colors are supported.

thanks! thats a script now to trigger the smoke. nice.  i solved it myself now by having a trigger zone and then setting a trigger to kick off the smoke marker inside the trigger zone when the Player0 (myself) flies outside of the zone.  So usually when i practice on targets when i leave a certain zone it should restart the smoke so i can fly back to the area easily. Making the trigger zone large enough means i wont trigger the smoke constantly. Works ok like that. Ideally you want a trigger that says "if smoke marker empty" or a time since/elapsed since start of smoke or a way to store the time triggered when the smoke started so that one can say time elapsed since timestamp xyz. 

[PoliticalPuffin]

Hi all,

Out of necessity I have tried various things in the editor. It's great fun but a bit frustrating from time to time. The thing I wanted to say was that I am always amazed by the generosity of the folk in this community, DCS community that is. I am sure there are a fair share of dicks but so far I have seen nothing but people reaching out and being met with kindness, sincerity and the help that they need.

I guess I just wanted you guys to know that you are pretty great and I'm glad that my positive thoughts on the human race are, mostly, born out to be correct in this community.

I wish you and yours all the very best. Thanks for giving an old man some hope that we are not all horrid, selfish, greedy so-and-sos.

Cheers