Vehicle Effects - Custom Sound Effects support added!

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

Vehicle Effects is a mod I've been working on that allows some more effects to be added to vehicles via xml files, while also adding a couple of custom effects. This way we can have steam trains that have steam, propeller planes that don't sound like jets and probably many more things that look and sound like they should. Some features are still being added, but the mod can be found here!

Current features

• Create custom sound effects via xml.
• Editor for creating definition files in the Asset Editor.
• Allows new effects to be added to vehicles.
• Allows replacement and removal of existing effects on a vehicle.
• 'wrapper' effect used to position other effects.
• 3 new engine sound effects, one steam, one diesel, one wheel noise.
• 1 new particle effect for steam exhausts on trains and boats.
• 1 new particle effect for diesel engine exhausts.
• 1 new small spot light effect with daytime visibility.
• MultiEffects via config to create alternating/timed effects.
• Propeller sound effect for planes.

Planned features

• Update editor to support custom MultiEffects.
• Add better location preview for wrapped effects in editor.

Video

Video showing some particle, sound and light effects.

Spoiler

 

Links

 

Workshop page
GitHub page

 

If anyone has ideas, suggestions or problems concerning this mod, please leave a comment below!

[Tim The Terrible 586]

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bach2Baroque 168]

I wonder if it's possible to make the train play an arrival melody when it makes a stop? That would be sweet.

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

38 minutes ago, Bach2Baroque said:

I wonder if it's possible to make the train play an arrival melody when it makes a stop? That would be sweet.

That might be possible, I'll look into it.

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

That steam locomotive is fantastic. I'm blown away by it. Perfect for my old Victorian style train building assets. Is there a link to the fully working train?  

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

There are some links to vehicles on the bottom of the mod's workshop page, one of those should be what you're looking for.

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

27 minutes ago, Acc3ssViolation said:

There are some links to vehicles on the bottom of the mod's workshop page, one of those should be what you're looking for.

Already seen them and have them in my city. All my trains are now going to be steam trains  They look and sound amazing, only negative I can see so far is that the steam is very visible at night. Although that may be a good thing, either way I love this mod!

 

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

UPDATE: More options!

Spoiler

 

Just updated the mod with some new features:

• Effect flags can be set
• Effects can be removed by specifying "None" as a replacement effect
• Custom multi effects can be created
• Train Ditch Light effect, the same as a small truck headlight but visible during the day.
• Should fix smoke particles getting stuck in places on a second map load.

I also attached an example that uses the new features to add alternating ditch lights to a passenger train, thanks to @bsquiklehausen for the suggestion.

And check the workshop page for some info on the mod's usage. Any new info will be added there as well to keep everything in one place.

[boformer 3,169]

Is there still no serialization for these effects?

I know that they added support for prop light effects in the last update, so the NetworkSkins LightPropEnabler is basically obsolete.

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

I'm not sure, but the main problem was the lack of position and direction support for effects on vehicles. PropInfo.Effect contains a position and direction vector, but VehicleInfo.Effect does not, so you have to get creative.

[bsquiklehausen 190]

@Acc3ssViolation - Fantastic update! Maybe we could get a diesel smoke particle as well? It'd be great to have under acceleration.

 

EDIT: I'd also love bell and horn sound effects.

[pauliaxz 195]

Would like to know if non-train vehicle effect is possible to be made - orange car blinkers as exterior lights.

I guess it could be possible, because we have various light emitter props, so some light with lesser luminous strength could be used for cars. Loaction of those blinker props could be defined by position and rotation coordinates. There are already front light props introduced in AD update, so those could be modified to be orange colored and blink together with parts in _i texture,

[donoteat 478]

So are custom animations (steam locomotive valve gear) within the realm of possibility?

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

40 minutes ago, pauliaxz said:

Would like to know if non-train vehicle effect is possible to be made - orange car blinkers as exterior lights.

I guess it could be possible, because we have various light emitter props, so some light with lesser luminous strength could be used for cars. Loaction of those blinker props could be defined by position and rotation coordinates. There are already front light props introduced in AD update, so those could be modified to be orange colored and blink together with parts in _i texture,

 

3 minutes ago, donoteat said:

So are custom animations (steam locomotive valve gear) within the realm of possibility?

I don't think either of these are possible.

[Kaschperl 92]

This sounds really promising! Hmmm, I'm thinking about whether this could be used to add more realistic brake lights to cars. I've always thought that the rear lights weren't bright enough. That could be done using the MinSpeed and MaxSpeed attributes and would somewhat emulate the brake lights of cars with automatic transmission, which would of course fit well in US cities I'd give it a go if I hadn't broken my workshop integration yesterday. Anyway, this opens up  some new possibilities!

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

I'm seeing a lot of hype over the steam train.

[Feindbold 1,190]

That looks and sounds amazing!

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

Update/Released!

I feel like the mod is reliable enough for a release, so it's up now!
I still want to add some new features and perhaps tweak some effects if necessary.

Changes

• Added some sound effects that were requested, I'm not sure the sound levels are completely right yet.
• Added a daytime, small directional light (Train Ditch Light) and a diesel exhaust smoke particle effect (Diesel Smoke).

Check this discussion page for an updated list of options/effects.

 

[bsquiklehausen 190]

I've just finished updating many of my trains to be compatible - all the freight trains and the original American Commuter Train are set up and working, and the rest are coming very soon!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=577210966

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

3 hours ago, bsquiklehausen said:

I've just finished updating many of my trains to be compatible - all the freight trains and the original American Commuter Train are set up and working, and the rest are coming very soon!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=577210966

I'm predicting that we'll be seeing a very excited Strictoaster soon

[Giovanni E 155]

This is great news, i'll  be finishing up my steam cargo boat model today, will definitly add the steam effect. This opens so much possibilities. 

A question though, will it be possible to use these effects on buildings too ? or is it for vehicles only for now, these custom effects would help a lot when creating heavy polluting factories and maybe even flarestacks.

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

The default effects Factory Steam, Factory Smoke and Factory Smoke Small are pretty similar to the new particle effects.

[Delta2k5 311]

Great mod!

What I am missing is some red tail light for my trainsets - especially for the AEM7 it would be great to have

[Tim The Terrible 586]

Yes, red tail lights would be awesome!

[Delta2k5 311]

2 hours ago, Tim The Terrible said:

Yes, red tail lights would be awesome!

Some other idea, as we got smoke for diesel engines:

How about some random, bluish "flash"?  we could use that at pantographs or power-rails  it does not need to have a large corona, but should emit a fair amount of light in ground direction. The effect could be only active above 0 km/h and should appear somewhere between every 10 and 30 seconds randomly

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

Red tail lights would be great, but to do it properly we would need both a custom shader and train AI, so I don't really see that happening. Maybe a glowing red orb would work but that would look pretty bad.

The flash/spark on the other hand is a lot easier to do.

EDIT: Little snippet for a spark effect using the default taxiway light

Spoiler

<Effect name="Vehicle Effect Multi">
	<!-- Stop it from happening when stationary -->
	<MinSpeed>2</MinSpeed>
	<!-- Not that relevant -->
	<Duration>1</Duration>
	
	<SubEffects>
		<SubEffect>
			<StartTime>0</StartTime>
			<EndTime>1</EndTime>
			<!-- Tweak this to get it to appear more or less often -->
			<Probability>0.025</Probability>
			<!-- Taxiway Light seems perfect for a blueish pantograph spark effect -->
			<Effect name="Vehicle Effect Wrapper" base="Taxiway Light">
				<Position x="0" y="4.94" z="0.43" />
				<Direction x="0" y="0" z="1" />
			</Effect>
		</SubEffect>
	</SubEffects>
</Effect>

 

 

[pauliaxz 195]

There is a vanilla blinking orange light prop (warning light). It would be nice to have it implemented for vehicle turning signals/blinkers.

We know that there are already white light emitters that can be set in Vehicle Asset Editor. Same way could be done for orange lights, but, of course, we don't want them to be blinking forever. In some way illumination texture parts (100% black for turning signals) are dependent on car wheels (as separate mesh elements) rotation. IMO there should be a way to tie light props with car wheel rotation. So in the end both texture parts and light props would be blinking.

[.Del 53]

On 15 October 2016 at 10:21 PM, Acc3ssViolation said:

That might be possible, I'll look into it.

If it's possible, I would like for the steam engine to play their steam whistle when leaving the station.

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

3 minutes ago, Dejected Angel said:

If it's possible, I would like for the steam engine to play their steam whistle when leaving the station.

These two assets actually do:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=455478064

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=497357930

[Acc3ssViolation 81]

37 minutes ago, pauliaxz said:

There is a vanilla blinking orange light prop (warning light). It would be nice to have it implemented for vehicle turning signals/blinkers.

We know that there are already white light emitters that can be set in Vehicle Asset Editor. Same way could be done for orange lights, but, of course, we don't want them to be blinking forever. In some way illumination texture parts (100% black for turning signals) are dependent on car wheels (as separate mesh elements) rotation. IMO there should be a way to tie light props with car wheel rotation. So in the end both texture parts and light props would be blinking.

Syncing them up is proving to be rather difficult. You'll have to stick to illumination maps I'm afraid.