alternating sea/sky colours..

[CB..]

exploiting the method used to switch the sky/sea colur sets when transiting from the atlantic to the artic/med...

http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/seainf.jpg

use-ing the stock seainf map for reference...have long suspected this to be how it is done...might be wrong..

Experimental mod to the SEAINF.bmp
file which IMO regulates the areas of the ocean covered
by the three different sea colours..(and possibly the sky colours also)
i have added blocks of new "artic" and "mediterrean" colours to the map
proposing that it's these blocks of colour as with the stock map..
that tell the game to change the sea/sky colour sets as you enter /leave these map areas..
maybe maybe not...
suck it and see..

if it does work (and it does seem to..hard to tell of course at times)
then the possible enhancements to the visuals are obvious
much more changable sea scape colours and sky colours
perhaps setting all shallow water areas to the lighter med blue would be one possible (if some what dull thought)
here all i have done is place blocks of the med/artic colours
pretty much at random round the normal atlantic hunting grounds
to test

link below

http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/SeaInf.zip

install to
SilentHunterIII\data\Env
bak up your stock file first of course..

it may have been done already...either way..no apologies if it doesn't work...:up:
no harm done ..eh?

[thesarunat]

Brilliant :up:
Will try asap!

Wow... with a bit of work a good modder could change
"atlantic" and "med" with "coastal/shallow" and
"deep", or things like that... :rock:

Drinks are on you!:()1:

[CB..]

cheers thesarunat:yep:
yup if it works....and that file is either redundant or it does SOMETHING...
it obviuosly shows the areas of the map which are covered by the different sky/sea colour files... it's extremely high res...isn't shown in game at any point AFAIK...so....worth a shot.....as far as i can reasonably tell it does work...giving med/artic colours as you travel into and out of the relevant coloured blocks/areas in the game...as it does as you go into and out of the Med/Arctic...

anything that adds variety to the sea/sky scape can only bring enhancement to the enjoyment of the game.. :sunny:
and if it proves to be effective there are huge applications for it as you hint at...
light blue MED sea colours in harbours and ports being a nice one..
for me having the sea/sky change colour slightly from place to place is very realistic and keeps the atmosphere quite literaly going
90% of this game is about the weather and sea ....compared to those two a fleet of destroyers should pale into insignificance..:know:

you don't need to be an expert modder..
anyone with a graphics program can edit the file...just use the "eye dropper" tool to pck up the artic Med colour from the stock areas and "paint" new areas into the atlantic..and of course vice versa..there may be a minimum size area that the game can read but other than that...

[Rubini]

Hi CB..!

Nice idea!

I just don't recall...the game really use the Artic collor or even Med ones without using mods (like Sh3 CMdr)? I mean: aren't these features disable by default by the devs?:hmm:

[CB..]

Hi CB..!

Nice idea!

I just don't recall...the game really use the Artic collor or even Med ones without using mods (like Sh3 CMdr)? I mean: aren't these features disable by default by the devs?:hmm:
cheers Rubini
i must admit that i had allways assumed the game automaticaly changed the colour sets in the Med and Artic...the difference is fairly subtle as stock but ...i dunno...:hmm:

perhaps if there is an issue it might be that the game will only accept these changes as the "mission" loads..rather than being capable of changing the colours "on the fly"....that would be logical...if a shame...(in this case)...if it does work it will probably need refining and experimenting with to guge the best way to use it...no doubt any transition from one colour to another might require a good few nautical miles to achieve...so an optimal distance between areas would be important..as may be a minimal size..if it is disabled in some fashion it would certainly be a shame
hard to tell as the differences are subtel and any transition area might be dang near impossible to differentiate from it's neighbouring area...!

[onelifecrisis]

You certainly don't need SH3 commander for the game to load the right colours (Atlantic/Arctic/Med) according to your location. As for whether or not they change in realtime as you sail around, I'm not sure. Anyone fancy sailing through the Gibraltar straight to find out? :lol:

One thing I do know is that environment colours (including sky and reflection maps) 'morph' from one set to the next according to time of day... so I don't see why they wouldn't change in realtime according to location as well.

[JScones]

Yeah, I was thinking down this path a little while ago... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=745901&postcount=24

Dunno if BBW (or anyone) tried it, but it's essentially the same idea that you have, but with some modifications to the controlling Env.cfg file as well.

You certainly don't need SH3 commander for the game to load the right colours (Atlantic/Arctic/Med) according to your location.
Not correct when playing careers. SH3 is broken and utilises only the Atlantic colours. SH3Cmdr repoints SH3 in the right direction based on your flotilla (11 Flot = arctic textures; 29 Flot = med textures) which is the only real successful way to solve the problem to date (hope this changes).

As for whether or not they change in realtime as you sail around, I'm not sure. Anyone fancy sailing through the Gibraltar straight to find out? :lol:
No need to bother - I can tell you now that SH3 does not change colour textures when moving between regions.

[onelifecrisis]

You certainly don't need SH3 commander for the game to load the right colours (Atlantic/Arctic/Med) according to your location.
Not correct in careers. SH3 is broken and utilises only the Atlantic colours. SH3Cmdr repoints SH3 in the right direction. Oddly, this isn't the case when playing single missions.

Strange bug. :doh: I didn't realise SH3Cmdr was doing that for me.

As for whether or not they change in realtime as you sail around, I'm not sure. Anyone fancy sailing through the Gibraltar straight to find out? :lol:
No need to bother - I can tell you now that SH3 does not change colour textures when moving between regions.
Good to know!

[Rubini]

You certainly don't need SH3 commander for the game to load the right colours (Atlantic/Arctic/Med) according to your location. As for whether or not they change in realtime as you sail around, I'm not sure. Anyone fancy sailing through the Gibraltar straight to find out? :lol:

One thing I do know is that environment colours (including sky and reflection maps) 'morph' from one set to the next according to time of day... so I don't see why they wouldn't change in realtime according to location as well.

As you read on JScones reply I don´t have the best memory but I and others that are here since Sh2 (CB.. included :D ) saw so much things here in the forums...you need to trust us a bit more.:D

[CB..]

there may be something there yet with the idea....it's too easy to just say no it is disabled..(even if it is by default) there's allways room for exploration in the files...that having been said there's no harm in learning from others involvement...modding generaly is about taking one thing and making it do something extra or different in some fashion..it's kinda expected that a lot of the doors you want to go through are shut to begin with..:up:

whilst we're here and to make up for the possible dissapoint ment...for those who haven't allready adopted new custom cloud textures here's one i've made to replace the stock white cloud sky scape textures..
http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/nori00.jpg

a matter of personal preference cloud textures...(only two for the entire game...what were they thinking?? madness)

here's a link
http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/sh3_cloud1.zip

also good news (but no doubt VERY OLD news lol) is that the SH4 sea colour dats work quite happily in SH3 as far as i can show anyway..
so that makes a change from the more normal slightly odd (IMO) SH3 blue sea
tho i'd still prefer slate grey seas !!

[denis_469]

Excellent!

[CB..]

Cheers Denis:up:

here's what the game looks like with the SH4 atlantic Envcolor file
much nicer scape with finer detailing on the surface IMO..
http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/sh4sea.jpg

this using the sh3 artic sky color to contrast the lighter blue to nice effect..

i'm a fan of the smaller mod scene -easy quick tweaks - so here's a link to the sea/sky colour download..

http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/sh4_sea.zip

territory heavily covered by other mods i know...but you can't have too much of a good thing?:up:

[anzacmick]

gday all,
i myself tried this a few years back changing the carabean to med textures with the seainf but to be honest i dont recall there being much difference or even if it worked.....
cheers

[3Jane]

Does the env sea colour have any bearing on any 8 or 16K versions. Or is that not an issue with those kind of files.

[Tomi_099]

Absolut !! Brilliant !!! :up:

[Venatore]

Has potential :hmm:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Nice clouds CB.:up:

[CB..]

cheers all:yep:


3jane the envcolour files AFAIK are not affected by the 8/16k changes...although again AFAIK it is possible to adjust the sea etc colours from within the scene.dat
so this will depend on the mod used..but on the whole the two tings are pretty seperate:up:

one interesting thing you can try from within the scene.dat is to adjust the rate at which the game tiles the cloud textures...so you can shrink and enlarge the area covered in a single "tile"..and this radicaly effects the cloud display.. :ping:
that's fun to experiment with..that coupled with the fact that the cloud texture files are named specificaly in the scene.dat "could mean" an unlimited number of new custom cloud textures could be added to the game..
http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/cloudhex.jpg

here's an example scene.dat to try where i have edited the tile from the shown 12 to 11 as an experiement....also included is increased visability/reduced range fogging and increased sunlight intensity

http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/sh3_fogmod2.zip

by renaming the reference in the scene.dat from Nori00 and Nori01.tga to Nori02 and Nori04.tga etc etc etc in a copied new scene.dat and then using a program such as SH3 commander and sh3 weather etc to "swop" these new scene.dats in before you launch the patrol..
you could just do this by "swoping" in the new cloud textures but by using custom scene.dats etc you could also change the sunlight cloud tiling and many other factors to really randomise the sea/sky scape for each new patrol...

[3Jane]

cheers all:yep:


3jane the envcolour files AFAIK are not affected by the 8/16k changes...although again AFAIK it is possible to adjust the sea etc colours from within the scene.dat
so this will depend on the mod used..but on the whole the two tings are pretty seperate:up:

one interesting thing you can try from within the scene.dat is to adjust the rate at which the game tiles the cloud textures...so you can shrink and enlarge the area covered in a single "tile"..and this radicaly effects the cloud display.. :ping:
that's fun to experiment with..that coupled with the fact that the cloud texture files are named specificaly in the scene.dat "could mean" an unlimited number of new custom cloud textures could be added to the game..
http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/cloudhex.jpg

here's an example scene.dat to try where i have edited the tile from the shown 12 to 11 as an experiement....also included is increased visability/reduced range fogging and increased sunlight intensity

http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/sh3_fogmod2.zip

by renaming the reference in the scene.dat from Nori00 and Nori01.tga to Nori02 and Nori04.tga etc etc etc in a copied new scene.dat and then using a program such as SH3 commander and sh3 weather etc to "swop" these new scene.dats in before you launch the patrol..
you could just do this by "swoping" in the new cloud textures but by using custom scene.dats etc you could also change the sunlight cloud tiling and many other factors to really randomise the sea/sky scape for each new patrol...

Excellent, thank you

[CB..]

:up: :up:

[anzacmick]

gday all,
CB: in responce to ur WIP - ive uploaded my seainf files for inspection.....as i said...i really dont think they worked but woulda been pretty cool had they of....

http://hosted.filefront.com/ANZACMICK/
in the SH3 folder... ENV.rar :up:
would love to try and work it out....
cheers

[CB..]

cheers anzacmick,,,:up:
yup on the face of it the thing doesn't work....but there may well be other things that the edited file might in some fashion have some influence over...so it may not change the sea colours on the fly as you pass from one area to another..but it may have have some sort of trick up it's sleeve...past experience with modding the silent hunter series has taught me over and over again to wait and see...one thing leads to another...the possible effect or change might be completely unrelated to the original concept/thought but it may lead to something
on the other hand it might be a complete dead end...either way no lasting harm done!