***IDEA for an Awesome mod****

[Kapt.Klaus]

Well I am assuming that everyone who owns this game and considering the resources to run it, must have an awesome PC!! There for I am not suggesting alot but some fish in this game, namely a few "Dolphins", it would be cool to see them swiming by above and below the sea..... and may be a few sharks here and there. Maybe even a couple that eat the japs when their boat is sunk....:lol:

I can do the skin of the fish/dophins/sharks, but I can't do the mesh nor the programing to add them in. Thou the programing should be the same as the subs except for the size would be changed and so the mesh and it would have a new name.

ANY TAKERS???

Kapt.Klaus
Aye, we set sail at dawn.....
for the Krusty Krap....:lol:

[leovampire]

to start with wich can cost anywhere from $2,500.00 us dollars to almost $5,000.00 us.

Ran into that problem with making a few things myself. My antique program can not handle the new game engines needs in information and data.

There are a couple of guys in the comunity that have the programs needed but I don't know if they are interested in undertaking it all!

[74205]

It can be done, but the big problem is that if we intend to "use" them as the dolphins in SH3, you have to treat each one as a normal ship. You still have to open the layers file and add a lot of them to the seas, just were you want them to apear.
For dolphins, is a bit more easy, as you just drop them in some places...
But for a fish, thats another history. You will have to fill all the seas with layers, and still you should be very, very lucky to see one... and im not counting the performance impact on the cpu to handle all the "fishes" and they layers...

however, there is a second option... not a realistic one, but still a far more easy and with a minimum performance impact: A texture mod.

In fact, i have been working on this since may, but i havent been able to spend time on this mod for a lot of reasons.

There are some limitations with this. For example, as this is a texture, you will not be able to see the fish "moving" (the animation), but you are still going to see them going from one place to the other.
Also, you are going to see them all the time, it doesnt matter if you are 10m below the ocean or 1000. Still, the same happens with the rocks and plants in the sea bottom...

Now, I have a working mod, my only problem is with a shader file... i cant get the "fishes" to show in their original texture... they are just "blue"...

Tomorrow, if i can, i will post a screnshot.

[LukeFF]

Meh, not worth the effort.

[ryanwigginton]

There for I am not suggesting alot but some fish in this game, namely a few "Dolphins"

Do you work for greenpeace or something? :shifty:

[XLjedi]

As a compromise... maybe you could skin the torpedos to look like dolphins.

If I ever find the time to start building meshes, I'd probably focus my attention on some sort of steam-punk sub that looks like a crazed whale with glowing eyes that rams ships to send em to the bottom.

[STEED]

There for I am not suggesting alot but some fish in this game, namely a few "Dolphins"

Do you work for greenpeace or something? :shifty:

:rotfl: :rotfl:

[nattydread]

well how about the occasional biologics through passive sonar?

[skwasjer]

Ever thought about how the engine decides where, what size and how many rocks to draw on the bottom? Possibly, this can be used to 'auto-generate' fish. This wouldn't impact on fps so much because you travel in a sphere. Beyond a certain distance, nothing is rendered. Just an idea...

[74205]

Ever thought about how the engine decides where, what size and how many rocks to draw on the bottom? Possibly, this can be used to 'auto-generate' fish. This wouldn't impact on fps so much because you travel in a sphere. Beyond a certain distance, nothing is rendered. Just an idea...
that is another way we can make this work, but we dont know how the engine handle the vegetation files; there may be some limitations...
There has been some time since i want to test this, but as i said before, time limitations are killing me...

For now, im still trying to make my "texture mod" work. Maybe in the future i can take a look at the vegetation file and see what i can do, but for now, this is the best thing i have managed to do:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/74205/SH4Img25-7-2007_2029.23_62.jpg

Note the problem that i have, how the fishe are "blue" and dont show they real color? Also take in mind that the amount of fish is exaggerated (is just for testing purposes).

The above picture is the best thing i have managed to do, but it not only has the "blue overlay", the fishes are also transparent.
Everytime i try to use the original color for the fish i get this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/74205/SH4Img25-7-2007_2040.14_140.jpg


This is my main problem right now...

[skwasjer]

Well, this is actually correct in real life. Depending on light conditions, water conditions and the object you are looking at, certain colors will faint or be absorbed. Hence why in real life fish DO look blue underwater (unless you point a light at them)

As far as I'm concerned, your first screenshot looked very convincing...

See here:
http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247

[nattydread]

I agree, th eblue fish look fine. It requires a very bright white light source at close proximity to see any "true" colors on fish. From what I remember from snorkeling, you would only see shades of blue, dark brownish and blackish colors for red or orange pigments, whites with blue hues and maybe some yellows and greens with blue hues/tints. Also some silvery, metallic reflections with whitish-blue hues and grays for some fish.

I'd love to see some more reef like rock and coral projections...maybe because Im a reef nut, since we are in the Pacific in temperate and tropical zones. We are only really near the sea floor in shallows anyway, exactly where the reefs would be.

[Reaves]

I think a few whales could be added as ships without hurting system performance. You could even detect them on sonar. People could add them to the layers at times and using paths that the do actually take. I'm sure there would be plenty of info on whale migration habits somewhere. This would be a great mod.

Obviously you would rarely see them but that makes them special.

[74205]

I suppose that this explains another function of this shader, to make "anything blue".

But besides the color, there is still the problem of the "transparency" of the fishes. They also lack detail... its hard to figure out the shape of the fish in the first place...