[WIP] Lighthouses mod

[MLF]

Originally Posted by gap

If you mean the sharp edge where the spray particle lays over the tower, that's due to the particle being on a plane which is behind tower's 3D mesh in that point. Maybe we can fix that glitch by playing with the DepthBias parameter.

I played about with DepthBias. It seems to affect the height and frequency of the splashes. If set to a negative number the splashes seem subdued. When positive splashes and spray are regular and high.(see screenshot below with set to 5.0 - don't know why, but seemed a nice number) I think the sharp edge is reduced and only appears on the base IMO. It's quite difficult because, as you pointed out yesterday, each time you run the mission the waves behave differently but each time I have run with a +ve number for depthBias the splashes are regular and reasonably high. No idea what DepthBias is really meant to do....worse than a crossword puzzle!!!!

Originally Posted by gap

I have been doing some research on the forum, and I have read that every attempt to make FX particles affected by real wind in SHIII, has failed so far. The one thing that other modders managed, is having particles to move following a pre-set non-dynamic wind, which is exactly what we currently have in the present mod.

I seem to remember that TheDarkWraith (best known to SHIII players by his old forum name of RacerBoy) managed making SH5 smoke particles to follow real in-game wind. I didn't get time to dig into his files yet, but even if my memory was confirmed, that doesn't necessarily mean that we can achieve the same in our mod: his fix might only work in SH5, or he might have devised a workaround which can't be applied to our mod.

Fingers crossed

There was his U-Boat exhaust mod that people thought had the smoke following the wind, but I think this was discounted in one of the threads
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=154338

As you say, fingers crossed

regards,

MLF

[gap]

Originally Posted by MLF

I played about with DepthBias. It seems to affect the height and frequency of the splashes. If set to a negative number the splashes seem subdued. When positive splashes and spray are regular and high.(see screenshot below with set to 5.0 - don't know why, but seemed a nice number) I think the sharp edge is reduced and only appears on the base IMO. It's quite difficult because, as you pointed out yesterday, each time you run the mission the waves behave differently but each time I have run with a +ve number for depthBias the splashes are regular and reasonably high. No idea what DepthBias is really meant to do....worse than a crossword puzzle!!!!

Depth bias makes two objects that are co-planar in the 3D space to look as if they were one in front of the other by adding a z-bias to one of them. z in this case is not the z (North/South) global axis, but the "depth" axis that the virtual camera is aligned with at any given moment.
The approximate radius of the lighthouse base is 5 meters; your tests demonstrate that the depth bias setting in SH particle generators is in meters and that positive values mean particles closer to the observer

Originally Posted by MLF

There was his U-Boat exhaust mod that people thought had the smoke following the wind, but I think this was discounted in one of the threads
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=154338

As you say, fingers crossed

I followed the whole discussion about wind direction and particles in SHIII, but matters in SH5 are slightly different. Particles that are supposed to be affected by real wind in SH5 files, have one or both of the features below:

- a parameterless GlobalWind controller attached to the same node as the particle generator;

- a GlobalWindCoef among particle generator's parameters, whose
description in Silent3ditor and Goblin Editor reads "Global/game wind coefficient (0=not affected by in-game wind)".

Neither of the above features is found in SHIII. I have already tried adding the GlobalWind controller to our splash effect but after running the test mission I couldn't see any difference. What I want to try next, is copying the settings of one of our particle generators into a SH5 particle generator with GlobalWindCoef set to a positive value, and see what happens. Chances of success are quite low though

[MLF]

Hi gap,

Is there any way of making the wave-splash sound change with the wind speed/ At 15m/s you cannot hear it, and I'm pretty sure, from my own experience, it would be close to a roar when close to the light house?

regards,

mlf

[gap]

Originally Posted by MLF

Hi gap,

Is there any way of making the wave-splash sound change with the wind speed/ At 15m/s you cannot hear it, and I'm pretty sure, from my own experience, it would be close to a roar when close to the light house?

regards,

mlf

I think so, but you should help me finding the appropriate SFX.

BTW, this mod is slowly turning into a storm simulation mod lol

[MLF]

Originally Posted by gap

BTW, this mod is slowly turning into a storm simulation mod lol

You are right. I'm sorry. it was just an idea. I'll try and find a solution to my question, but I'm nowhere near as knowledgable in this area as you or Kendras.

I have been playing with the placement Y value to get the splashes visible during lower wind speeds, with 0.5 showing splashes less frequently at 10 m/s than at 15 m/s and very seldom at 5 m/s. I found your setting of 1.5 didn't show much at 10m/s but then that may have been just that time I loaded the mission.

The thread is about lighthouses, and perhaps that's where we should go back to?

There seems to be a lack of input/interest from elsewhere in the community.

regards,

MLF

[gap]

Originally Posted by MLF

You are right. I'm sorry. it was just an idea.

I think you misunderstood my answer: I am into whichever suggestion might improve this mod, and I like very much your idea. Please point me to any sound effect that you think might be fit for it

BTW: I have bad news regarding the wind-aligned spray particles. I have replaced our particle generators with one from SH5. It works, but after trying many settings and setting combinations, I couldn't get our particles to follow the in-game wind. I think the additional PG parameters introduced with SH5, are simply ignored by SHIII.

At this point, I guess that our only hope would be an hardcoded patch by our wizards: Stiebler, h.sie and the likes. While we wait for their magic, what should we do with our particles? Should we scrap the fake wind, or keep it? and if so, what wind direction should we set?

Originally Posted by MLF

I have been playing with the placement Y value to get the splashes visible during lower wind speeds, with 0.5 showing splashes less frequently at 10 m/s than at 15 m/s and very seldom at 5 m/s. I found your setting of 1.5 didn't show much at 10m/s but then that may have been just that time I loaded the mission.

1.5 means 15m above the seabed level. i.e. 2m below the sea level in the point on map that our lighthouse is placed at. Anyway I don't think placement nodes' Y value to be critical, as the library FX node attached to them is set as a floating object and its Y position varies with wave height. The small wave effect is triggered when the floating node has an height of 18 or more metres above the seabed (i.e. wave height equal or bigger than 1m), whereas the bigger splash spawns at an height of 18 above the seabed (wave height = 2m or more)

Originally Posted by MLF

There seems to be a lack of input/interest from elsewhere in the community. I'll try and find a solution to my question, but I'm nowhere near as knowledgable in this area as you or Kendras - where is he by the way?

Kendras sent me a PM. He is in holidays like many other subsim comrades. I think in a couple of weeks the forum will be a more lively place. By then, the first release version of our lighthouse mod will be out, and hopefully there will be more interest around it

[gap]

New patch available:

Tourelle de La Plate v12 - Patch 10

Main changes:

• Number of particle FX placement nodes around the lighthouse increased from 8 to 12; number of particles per particle generator unchanged.
  
  
• Depth bias for all the particle generators set to 5, following MLF suggestion.
  
  
• Added underwater wave sound to the splash effect. It should be audible inside the submarine too. Curiously, the SFX sounds better inside the sub than it does underwater, in free camera mode

The patch should replace all the previous patches, except v12 patch 1. As usual, I am looking forward to your feed-back

[MLF]

Originally Posted by gap

I think you misunderstood my answer: I am into whichever suggestion might improve this mod, and I like very much your idea. Please point me to any sound effect that you think might be fit for it

BTW I still haven't found the old admiralty chart symbol for lights (pre-metric chart). I had a book, "Bay of Biscay Pilot" but it's been buried somewhere under all my childrens' Uni stuff Internet is not much help.

Originally Posted by gap

BTW: I have bad news regarding the wind-aligned spray particles. I have replaced our particle generators with one from SH5. It works, but after trying many settings and setting combinations, I couldn't get our particles to follow the in-game wind. I think the additional PG parameters introduced with SH5, are simply ignored by SHIII.

At this point, I guess that our only hope would be an hardcoded patch by our wizards: Stiebler, h.sie and the likes. While we wait for their magic, what should we do with our particles? Should we scrap the fake wind, or keep it? and if so, what wind direction should we set?

I think we should keep it. It may be an illusion, but from my tests I have the impression that when the game wind goes against the fake wind, the effect of the spray isn't as dramatic as when the game wind goes with the fake wind ie. the wind-blown spray goes further when the 2 winds are combined....? Is that possible or is it my imagination? I'll post screenshots later when I test Patch 10 (most likely tonight).

Originally Posted by gap

Kendras sent me a PM. He is in holidays like many other subsim comrades. I think in a couple of weeks the forum will be a more lively place. By then, the first release version of our lighthouse mod will be out, and hopefully there will be more interest around it

You are right of course . It's holiday time - I'll be off on mine next Tuesday Just had a down moment last night

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Just so you know, I for at least one, have been following this and a few other SHIII posts with keen interest, but especially this one...

Thanks propbeanie

Regards,

MLF

I read all your posts during my absence. Good work mates !

Originally Posted by gap

BTW, this mod is slowly turning into a storm simulation mod lol

Hehe, why not ?

 

Preparing Patch 11 with full explanations.

New main features :

 

- improved a bit the medium splash effect
- added a big splash effect (affected by fake wind)
- created a totally new concept to create foam around the rock

Here V12 with Patch 11 : http://www.mediafire.com/file/zid19a..._-_Patch_11.7z

Please don't care about materials.dat modified directly inside. When we are satisfied with the graphics effects, we will put the modifications in Lighthouse_FX.dat. Else, I have to reload the game after each modification I've made into this file, and it's a huge waste of time and patience ...

The medium and large splash effects' parameters could be a little randomized.

The large splash texture might be improved. Only the large splash is (and should be) affected by wind.

About the new foam effect, we have to replace the experimental texture, but the idea is there ...

About the Depth bias controller, we should always set it at zero, else it's useless (IMO) and there are side effects.

Good tests !

By the way, in order to have sea with huge waves, open data\scene.dat, go to Sky > EnvSim : Wind > WavesProperties > 3 > Scale, and change the values to : 15 - 0.8 - 15 - 1.