[wip ] Larger Waves

[THE_MASK]

http://rapidshare.com/files/40766612/Sobers__SH4_ver1.2__waves_mod_ver_1.4_for_RFB_ver_ 1.28.rar.html (http://rapidshare.com/files/40766612/Sobers__SH4_ver1.2__waves_mod_ver_1.4_for_RFB_ver_ 1.28.rar.html)
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/5673/waves1qm6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
I used the mini tweaker to change some variables for the waves . I am using RFB (mod by Beery) so any changes are over the top of the RFB (mod by Beery) Scene dat file . The first thing i noticed was that 15m\s waves look more realistic . Ships , sampans etc do not seem to have the burning , damage by large waves like in SH3 (needs more testing) . Now i will talk about the radar . Without the larger 15m\s waves when a radar contact was made the time compression drops to 8X and if you want to ignore the contact and time compress away then you find that you have to turn the radar off or the game will keep recieving radar contact and time compressing back to 8X . With the larger waves the radar seems to lose contact in between waves and you can time compress normally until contact is lost . Now i will talk about losing contact with larger 15m\s waves . You seem to lose radar contact on and off in heavy seas (needs more testing) . Now i will talk about contact reports . Contact reports seem to be far far fewer in heavy seas (needs more testing) . Now i will talk about periscope sightings in 15m\s winds . Forget about seeing much in heavy seas . Overall the game seems to be harder to get tonnage .

[ReallyDedPoet]

Look forward to this Sober, thanks for your efforts:up:

RDP

[panthercules]

Look forward to this Sober, thanks for your efforts:up:

RDP

Ditto that - I haven't been out in much heavy weather yet, but so far I've been a bit disappointed by the water/wave action in SH4 compared to SH3. The shallow water near shore looks pretty good, but high seas in deep water have just been unimpressive so far - hope you can work some of your magic here.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Look forward to this Sober, thanks for your efforts:up:

RDP
Ditto that - I haven't been out in much heavy weather yet, but so far I've been a bit disappointed by the water/wave action in SH4 compared to SH3. The shallow water near shore looks pretty good, but high seas in deep water have just been unimpressive so far - hope you can work some of your magic here.

Overall I like the water, but yeah, the heavier\storm water is just fair at best.

RDP

[THE_MASK]

Download link for Sobers waves mod for RFB . Feedback please .
Look for link at top of thread

[CaptBC]

Hello Sober!

Thanks for sending the link, I have looked at the scene.dat file in the sim, and it looks pretty good! I have not seen it in stormy weather yet, as I have yet to see stormy weather! Always sunny but with variable winds. Does anyone have a weather mod to make changes more frequent or localized?

[panthercules]

Download link for Sobers waves mod for RFB . Feedback please .
http://rapidshare.com/files/40337245/Sobers_waves_mod_for_RFB.rar.html (http://rapidshare.com/files/40337245/Sobers_waves_mod_for_RFB.rar.html)

I like the larger waves, but there's something here that still just doesn't "feel" right. Maybe this just accentuates the problem we already have about the subs not really riding the waves well, but with this it seemed even worse in that respect - with all that extra wave action going on, the sense that the sub was "riding a rail" was even more evident. Plus, although Fraps indicated I was still getting 30fps, something about the way the bow wake and waves interacted made it look like it was moving really slow - almost like a slide show effect. Not sure why, given the Fraps results, but it had that feeling nonetheless.

And, I'm not sure if this is related to the mod or not, but there still seems to be something wrong with the sea color (seems much too light-blue/turquoise looking, even in very deep water well off-shore - I'm not sure 'cause I haven't seen much in the way of deep Pacific water except in movies, but it just seems too much - like everything looks like the shallow water in a clear lagoon or something). I have that problem with the stock water, but I think what you're doing with the foam/wave tip effect may be accentuating it as instead of a whitecap effect I seem to be getting large areas of ocean going all white/foamy at the same time - maybe it's just not "choppy" enough or something.

I think this holds a lot of promise, as the stock water/wave effects in SH4 just don't seem to have the same ooomph as they did in SH3. I definitely got a real "Das Boot" sense of pounding through a harsh North Atlantic storm in SH3, but I don't get anything like I would expect the Pacific equivalent to be in SH4 yet - but the higher waves here at least start to move in that direction. Keep up the good work :up:

[THE_MASK]

Wasnt there someone that adjusted files for individual ships and subs in SH3 to better cut thru waves ? That would be the only way as far as i can guess . Maybe Anvart is our saviour here .

[CaptainCox]

Cool work Sober! :up:
Just one thing. What are the tweaks you did to the Scene.dat, I have some other stuff tweaked in that .dat so I need to put it in manually.

Cheers!

[Typhaon]

Can you please post screenshots with and without your mod for direct comparison?
And is there any chance of having this mod for Trigger Maru as well?

[THE_MASK]

Variables i changed with Mini tweaker by Timetraveller and using Improved Scene.dat Tweakfile by robbierob2005 . Some variables may have changed , some may not have . These are the changes .
General Environmental Data
MaxWaveHeight=512
SeaSpeed=0.05
ChoppyWave=0.02

[THE_MASK]

[/URL]
[URL="http://imageshack.us"] (http://imageshack.us)

[THE_MASK]

Download link for Sobers waves mod for RFB . Feedback please .
http://rapidshare.com/files/40337245/Sobers_waves_mod_for_RFB.rar.html (http://rapidshare.com/files/40337245/Sobers_waves_mod_for_RFB.rar.html)

I like the larger waves, but there's something here that still just doesn't "feel" right. Maybe this just accentuates the problem we already have about the subs not really riding the waves well, but with this it seemed even worse in that respect - with all that extra wave action going on, the sense that the sub was "riding a rail" was even more evident. Plus, although Fraps indicated I was still getting 30fps, something about the way the bow wake and waves interacted made it look like it was moving really slow - almost like a slide show effect. Not sure why, given the Fraps results, but it had that feeling nonetheless.

And, I'm not sure if this is related to the mod or not, but there still seems to be something wrong with the sea color (seems much too light-blue/turquoise looking, even in very deep water well off-shore - I'm not sure 'cause I haven't seen much in the way of deep Pacific water except in movies, but it just seems too much - like everything looks like the shallow water in a clear lagoon or something). I have that problem with the stock water, but I think what you're doing with the foam/wave tip effect may be accentuating it as instead of a whitecap effect I seem to be getting large areas of ocean going all white/foamy at the same time - maybe it's just not "choppy" enough or something.

I think this holds a lot of promise, as the stock water/wave effects in SH4 just don't seem to have the same ooomph as they did in SH3. I definitely got a real "Das Boot" sense of pounding through a harsh North Atlantic storm in SH3, but I don't get anything like I would expect the Pacific equivalent to be in SH4 yet - but the higher waves here at least start to move in that direction. Keep up the good work :up:
I use RFB for realism and the larger wave mod seems to make contacts , tonnage in heavy seas more real . I am not worried about the roller coaster thing because in the end it only affects looks . I dont use external view . I wish i could help with your requests but sadly many things are behond me .

[CaptainCox]

Cheers for the info Sober!:up:

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice sober, just saw the new pics:up:

RDP

[panthercules]

I use RFB for realism and the larger wave mod seems to make contacts , tonnage in heavy seas more real . I am not worried about the roller coaster thing because in the end it only affects looks . I dont use external view . I wish i could help with your requests but sadly many things are behond me .

I think the game-affecting implications (contacts, deck gun accuracy (with kv29's gun destabilization), etc. of this work are fascinating, and certainly worth exploring further. I don't really use external view either (except for occasional screenshots), but I do spend a fair amount of time on the bridge so I am looking to have the visual factors improved as well. I know the modders did some great work with sea effects and graphics with SH3, so I'm hoping that something like that can come out of this work as well. I haven't seen any threads about sea color in SH4, but I know there was a fair amount of work done on that in SH3, so maybe someone will work on that too in combination with some of this and get something that will improve graphics as well as gameplay.

[EDIT] BTW - just tracked down the source of my "slideshow" problem, and it doesn't appear to be related to this mod at all - turns out somehow my video driver setting for Antialiasing had reverted to "Application controlled" for some unknown reason. When I set it back to 4x the slideshow feel went away, and this looked much better than it did before. Now that it's playable on my machine, I'll try to give it a workout on my next patrol.

[ming]

I too would like the SHIII "feel" with regards to the boat in stormy seas. I think it added to the realism as well as visuals. Submariners on watch sometimes had to strap themselves to the structure so they would not be swept from the vessel...so its not just the cool feel and visuals, its the cool reality. I have no clue how to do it, but I assume it has to do with boyancy (that doesnt look like its spelled correctly but you know what I mean:up: ).

[The General]

I know the GWX boys (bouys) did some amazin' stuff with the sub physics for SH3. The sub reacted more realistically to wave action (increased pitch and roll and increased rising and falling with the wave). Hell, they even worked it so performance took a hit in bad weather, with decreased fuel efficiency etc as the sub battled through heavy swells. These guys are geniuses I tell you! I believe they're busy putting the finishing touches to the latest version of GWX for SH3. Maybe they'll be good enough to take a crack at SH4 when they've had some well-desrved R & R.

[THE_MASK]

Nothing will happen until after 1.3 and even then some people prefer the uboats and some people think they dont have a good enough computer for SH4 . You are right , we need the top GWX guys after patch 1.3 is done .

[The General]

Nothing will happen until after 1.3 and even then some people prefer the uboats and some people think they dont have a good enough computer for SH4 . You are right , we need the top GWX guys after patch 1.3 is done .Yay! Somebody thinks I'm right! Somebody ask Kpt. Lehmann (GWX Team Leader) nicely. I'd do it, but he doesn't particularly like me.

[THE_MASK]

The latest version is 1.4 on the top of the thread

[Uber Gruber]

@Sober

Brilliant...well, pretty damn good anyway. Thanks mate :up:

[Fearless]

Awesome.:up:

[CaptBC]

Ahoy!

Thanks Sober! I really like the bigger waves. As for the subs riding the rail, I adjusted the gc height in my sub's sim file. I increased it to make it ride lower in the water, and it rolls with the waves! Lots of side to side and pitch and yaw! Hope to have some pics soon. I have not seen any ill effects yet, will keep testing!

Capt. BC

[tater]

^^ that would be interesting to combine with the destabilized deck gun (Real Deck Gun mod) by kv29.

[Fearless]

Ahoy!

Thanks Sober! I really like the bigger waves. As for the subs riding the rail, I adjusted the gc height in my sub's sim file. I increased it to make it ride lower in the water, and it rolls with the waves! Lots of side to side and pitch and yaw! Hope to have some pics soon. I have not seen any ill effects yet, will keep testing!

Capt. BC

Cool, what file name, field and value was changed

[panthercules]

Ahoy!

Thanks Sober! I really like the bigger waves. As for the subs riding the rail, I adjusted the gc height in my sub's sim file. I increased it to make it ride lower in the water, and it rolls with the waves! Lots of side to side and pitch and yaw! Hope to have some pics soon. I have not seen any ill effects yet, will keep testing!

Capt. BC

Cool, what file name, field and value was changed

Inspired by Capt. BC's post above, I tried experimenting with this along with my test install of kv29's (destabilized) Real Deck Gun mod - for the S-18 I'm testing with, I changed the following:


S-18 Class (Data\Submarine\NSS_s18\NSS_s18.sim):
gc_height = 3.05 ; was 3




I also played around a bit with increasing the "draughtSurfaced" setting, but I eventually set it back to stock value as my changes made the boat wallow too much and too deep for my taste (my changes may have just been too major - probably should only change it by .1 or .2 at a time and see what happens) . I originally set the gc_height from 3 to 3.5, and my S-18 rolled over and capsized :oops: , so you gotta be a little careful with these settings :lol:

With just the tiny tweak noted above, I was getting some pretty decent looking/feeling rolling motion from bridge view and good deck gun movement, so this is definitely worth playing around with.

[THE_MASK]

Ahoy!

Thanks Sober! I really like the bigger waves. As for the subs riding the rail, I adjusted the gc height in my sub's sim file. I increased it to make it ride lower in the water, and it rolls with the waves! Lots of side to side and pitch and yaw! Hope to have some pics soon. I have not seen any ill effects yet, will keep testing!

Capt. BC

Cool, what file name, field and value was changed

Inspired by Capt. BC's post above, I tried experimenting with this along with my test install of kv29's (destabilized) Real Deck Gun mod - for the S-18 I'm testing with, I changed the following:


S-18 Class (Data\Submarine\NSS_s18\NSS_s18.sim):
gc_height = 3.05 ; was 3





I also played around a bit with increasing the "draughtSurfaced" setting, but I eventually set it back to stock value as my changes made the boat wallow too much and too deep for my taste (my changes may have just been too major - probably should only change it by .1 or .2 at a time and see what happens) . I originally set the gc_height from 3 to 3.5, and my S-18 rolled over and capsized :oops: , so you gotta be a little careful with these settings :lol:

With just the tiny tweak noted above, I was getting some pretty decent looking/feeling rolling motion from bridge view and good deck gun movement, so this is definitely worth playing around with.
How do i change the .sim values .

[panthercules]

How do i change the .sim values .

You use the minitweaker program on the .sim files just like with the .dat files. See this thread for details/explanations: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=110889

Good luck!

[THE_MASK]

I just cannot get rid of the stupid floating cork effect . The sub should be cutting thru the waves rather than bobbing up and down like a cork . Most annoying:x

[CaptBC]

Ahoy All!

I am still testing my changes to the various files for my boat. I am using a Porpoise Class sub (USS Pollack SS-180) and have modded the sim file by adjusting the gc_height to 3.3 (was 2.9 originally). CAUTION! Large adjustments to this setting may affect diving! I tried 3.9 and could not maintain depth at 200'. The boat kept drifting upwards (too bouyant!) and I had to run with planes down to stay below a thermal layer. I am also adjusting the surface depth in the sub.cfg file in the NSS_Porpoise folder. I am not quite there yet. More tweaking and testing is in order. Care must be taken not to adjust too far, as the result can be undesireable if not downright deadly to the boat!

Capt. BC