Pacific environment 4 RELEASED

[kriller2]

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1037/pe4screenja3.jpg

Download here:
Pacific Environments 4 (http://www.silenthuntermods.com/forum/index.php?topic=144.0)

See video made with PE4 here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92_1p4lTSbs)

11.09.2008 PE4
– New sun sets and sun rises, with a more realistic cycle from yellow to orange / red.
– New realistic bow wave, thanks to Demonizer for using his mod as a base for my work.
– New modified pitch and roll to make the submarine/u-boat sail deeper, but still have roll
and pitch.
– New sea foam from Wclears EE mod, modified to match the blue sea-colour of PE4.
– New scene and clouds for more realistic waves and environment colours.
– Missing underwater bubbles and roll pitch for S-18, S-42 and U-boat added for TM and
stock SH4.
– New water shader by Nisgeis to support shallow transparent water including changes so
you now can see the sub submerged from a high altitude.
– Modified the shaders for postprocess filtering to stop the from being oversaturated during
sunsets with PPF.
– All japanese warships retextured.

Read the included manual for instructions on how to install PE4.

Copyrights
The contents of this mod is freeware and may NOT be used without written permission from me, we have
used huge amounts of time on this mod! - this is the fourth edition so overall this mod has taken 1 year
to make.
Respect our work and don't use ANY part of this mod without contacting kriller2tester@hotmail.com
I will personaly send your request further on to the modder responsible for the parts of ROW / PE4 you
would like to include in your mod.
THIS MOD CAN NOT BE USED FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES OF ANY KIND.

Disclaimer
I am in no way responsible for any accident happening to you or your computer / graphics card while
using this PE4. Using this mod is at your own risk so don't contact me if any of these things happen.

Credits for Pacific Environments 1-4 and (ROW)
Kriller2 – new bow wave, environmental colours, sky and reflection textures, terrain textures,
underwater-textures, modified seafoam, modified fireeffects and explosions, all japanese warships
retextured, scene work for PE4.
Dave / LeoVampire - for the original work on datafiles to control sun set, sun rise and alot of brilliant
ideas, RIP
Demonizer – Original bow wave which I have used and worked on to make it more realistic for PE4.
Mav87th - Free moving Camera and new periscope.
L3th4l for his fire and smoke textures.
Dr.Beast - for his work on the special effects mods for NSM4 and stock SH4.
Nisgeis - for the new Special effects for fire, smoke and oil-leak and depthcharge / shell hits and the new
enhanced water shader to show shallow waters and transparent water.
Jaketoox - for his first work on the sun sets and sun rises, which me and Dave since have improved.
Carotio – for his work on the moon texture and help with the texture for peak of waves.
Kapitain_zur_see - lightning effects and underwater bubbles and caustics for subs
Torps,LukeFF - for Sound-mod not included, which you can download from here, includes realistic
submarine interor and engine effects, fire sounds etc.

ROW sound mod vers. 9 (please read the manual if you are using TM or OM)
http://www.megaupload.com/dk/?d=IN68GMIR
Rapid share mirror (http://rapidshare.com/files/198436111/Row_Sound_Effects_V9.rar)

Credits for help and parts of this mod:
"ROW recovery team" testers
Rcjonessnp175,Sqk7744,Donut,Letterboy 1,Snuffy,W_Clear,FooFighters,CaptainHaplo,Reallyde dpoet and
MushMartin.
and Monolith, Dr. Beast and others.
- Redwine: for torpedo explosions and underwater depth charge explosions
- Seeadler for his clouds shaders and sea foam, which I modified to match this mod.
- Wclear for his nice water spray effects and for his scene work, some of his ideas for reflections are used
in this mod. Thanks for your suggestion to use part of your mod.
- Kapitain_zur_see: For his work on the lightning DDS file's
- Rubini: for his debris mod which he let me include in PE4.
– Nauticalwolf for his work on the trees and helping me with the grass and sand textures.

Credits to testers of PE4:
AVGWarhawk, GlobalExplorer, reallydedpoet, Torps
DrBeast, Gunfighter, swdw, Torps

[Syxx_Killer]

Those shots look AMAZING!!! Thanks for all your hard work making SH4 look prettier! :cool::rock:

[Xantrokoles]

In German I would say: '' VOLL DE HONISCH!''
(Use it as a big compliment!)

Maybe I can make a small appeal...

I sailed on a high-seas liner to an Island in the Northsea a year ago. We had a ordinary storm and there were waves, higher and not so long pulled like them in Row.
I really love Row, but the stormy waves from WClear are IMO amazing.
I don't know wether you can exhaust the limit of the waves high still a little bit, but when you get it, this would be as great as the whole mod.

[Vorkapitan]

Kriller you dood it again!! Great work!! :up: :up: :up:

I thought I noticed a water pattern (repeating) emerging from your last update..
Maybe just me being too picky.

[Ducimus]

Looks great Kriller! I like how the water looks like a deep rich blue towards the bottom of the first screenshot. I was no real world sailor, but i have spent a few weeks on charter fishing boats, and, i kinda wish i had a rock cod rig to drop over the side, or a big fat yellowfin to reel in now. :rotfl:

Allso I would like to reduce the effect of the Post process filters, because they are to much, so if anyone know how to do that?,

skwasjer might be the man to talk to about that. I know hes done some nifty editing to the PPF in the past.

[MONOLITH]

Awesome kriller. Awesome. :up:

[ReallyDedPoet]

Looks great kriller :yep:


RDP

[skwasjer]

I know a bit of shader language yes, and I think WClear does as well. Not sure who else but there's a few others too. If I can be of help let me know what specifically you want. I'm a bit short on time though and vacation is near so it may have to wait. :oops:

[SteveW1]

Damn that looks AWESOME can't wait to see more:rock:

[The Fishlord]

Awesome start kriller. I've always loved PE/ROW from the moment I saw it.

Is the jelly water going to be removed in this version? It's always there for me...:-?

[THE_MASK]

added more arrays to the wave properties by the look of it ?

[linerkiller]

:huh: :o :huh: :o :huh: :o :huh: :o :huh: :o :huh: :o
kriller.....this is ****ing REAL!

[Fish40]

Another first!! Looks fantastic!:up:

[kriller2]

I know a bit of shader language yes, and I think WClear does as well. Not sure who else but there's a few others too. If I can be of help let me know what specifically you want. I'm a bit short on time though and vacation is near so it may have to wait. :oops:

HI Skwasjer, I would like to reduce the sharpness and colour change of the ppf filter so that the result would be somewhere in the middle of these 2 pictures:

PPF on
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/2784/subppfys6.th.jpg (http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subppfys6.jpg)

PPF off
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/5247/subnoppfmp8.th.jpg (http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subnoppfmp8.jpg)

This would remove the bug with ocean getting black when there is high waves and sunsets, because if I turn of the ppf-filter at sunsets, you can suddenly see the right colour of the ocean instead of the black colour.
I have tried fiddling with the shader files, yesterday, but there are alot and when I do something im not sure what would happen :p

[kriller2]

added more arrays to the wave properties by the look of it ?

Right now I only have four wave properties, I tried adding more wave properties and then it was double the trouble to remove bugs from the waves.

Awesome start kriller. I've always loved PE/ROW from the moment I saw it.

Is the jelly water going to be removed in this version? It's always there for me...:-?

Thanks Fishlord. I haven't seen any jelly water while testing, but there is a problem with the waves suddenly looses it's quality when going in TC and the wave properties should shift to another, which I have to figure out.

[DrBeast]

:o:o:o:o:o

*speechless*

[gAiNiAc]

Kriller,

The overall affect you're achieving is excellent...............

The color though is a bit rich and dark compared to the Pacific....(I've done two WESTPAC's so I've seen it....)........

I'd lighten up the blue a bit and add a touch of green...............

The Indian ocean actually is as deep colored as what you have already but on the purple-ish side........

Gorgeous work so far!

[DeepIron]

Kriller, you and the other PE contributors are *really* going to drive me to buy a dual core CPU and *much* better video card if you keep this up!

Thanks! :up:

[Alex]

Wonderful work, as always, Chris ! :arrgh!:
The water looks damn real, Sir. :huh:

:rock: :sunny: :smug: ;)

[kriller2]

Thanks for all the feedback ! this is definately encouraging :D

@Skwasjer, I have found out what caused the black sea / colour change when turning on PPF filter and how to control it... :cool: This means we finaly can have the best of both worlds!

[kriller2]

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3922/sunsetpe4wipqb2.jpg

[Carotio]

Looks good :up:

Did you choose your new avatar yourself? :lol:

[Syxx_Killer]

Kriller, that pic is unbelievable! :o:cool::rock:

[Digital_Trucker]

That's an amazing shot, K2:sunny:Can't wait to see what else goes along with it:rock:

[skwasjer]

@Skwasjer, I have found out what caused the black sea / colour change when turning on PPF filter and how to control it... :cool: This means we finaly can have the best of both worlds!

Cool :up:

[Defiance]

Wow K2 Wow :rock:

Brilliant :) :up:

[clayman]

WHOA ....... That is some shot!!! :up: :up: :up:

[DrBeast]

I wonder what other maladies kriller2 will cause on me. I just had my eyeballs pop out of their socket! :rotfl:

[kriller2]

I wonder what other maladies kriller2 will cause on me. I just had my eyeballs pop out of their socket! :rotfl:

Sorry my friend :p I hope you have a good insurrance when you see this "live" on your screen ;)

[DrBeast]

Unless you get it finished in the next 10 days, it'll be a long, long time before I see it. My summer vacation starts next Thursday or Friday, and I'll be gone for about 2 months...computer-less and internet-less! :damn: At least it'll give me one more thing to look forward to when I'm back ;)

[kriller2]

Unless you get it finished in the next 10 days, it'll be a long, long time before I see it. My summer vacation starts next Thursday or Friday, and I'll be gone for about 2 months...computer-less and internet-less! :damn: At least it'll give me one more thing to look forward to when I'm back ;)

Still trying to get SH4 to accept my scene.dat, but it's getting better, but im allso going on vacation tuesday :yep:

Wow! 2 months without the internet and not being able to take SH4 for a spin, thats a long vacation :hmm: be sure to check out the internet cafes while you are there :rotfl:

[DrBeast]

Wow! 2 months without the internet and not being able to take SH4 for a spin, thats a long vacation :hmm: be sure to check out the internet cafes while you are there :rotfl:

I live in a country riddled with beautiful beaches and a lovely sea...too bad I'm not really a sea person! :p
Yeah, you'll be seeing the Beast from time to time, no way I'm staying away from this place all that time! :up:

[kriller2]

Wow! 2 months without the internet and not being able to take SH4 for a spin, thats a long vacation :hmm: be sure to check out the internet cafes while you are there :rotfl:

I live in a country riddled with beautiful beaches and a lovely sea...too bad I'm not really a sea person! :p
Yeah, you'll be seeing the Beast from time to time, no way I'm staying away from this place all that time! :up:

@Beast check your PM.

[kriller2]

Hi all, im back from vacation and has used some days to work on the new edition. Been editing shader files and working with the scene.dat file and textures.

Well.. here is some screenshots.

day
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/2328/pe4daylightae3.th.jpg (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4daylightae3.jpg)

sunset
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/411/pe4sunset2wm6.th.jpg (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4sunset2wm6.jpg)

dawn
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4341/pe4dawnjx8.th.jpg (http://img214.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4dawnjx8.jpg)

[Digital_Trucker]

Welcome back, K2:sunny:Hope you had a good vacation, sure looks like it was a productive one:yep: Screenies look great:up: Can't wait (but will if we have to), for the latest PE.

[Lynx2069]

Looks great, been looking for something to put the strain on my system....
Although I truly don't mind seeing 70-90FPS consistently....

[kriller2]

Looks great, been looking for something to put the strain on my system....
Although I truly don't mind seeing 70-90FPS consistently....

Thanks Lynx, the good thing about the new edition is that I have used a lower resolution for both the clouds and sky textures, so it should run much better than PE3.3.

[Fish40]

THAT'S IT!!! I refuse to start another patrol until I have this! Great work as usual:yep::up::rock:

[Fearless]

Neat stuff:rock: Why stay submerged during the day!! :lol: Ooops!! here comes that destroyer again spoiling my magnificent view. :yep:

[Lynx2069]

Looks great, been looking for something to put the strain on my system....
Although I truly don't mind seeing 70-90FPS consistently....
Thanks Lynx, the good thing about the new edition is that I have used a lower resolution for both the clouds and sky textures, so it should run much better than PE3.3.
Thats amazing, you really should be paid for all the work you do. All of the modders on this work do amazing things for "amateurs". I see "talented" coders by the dozen and I'd be more then willing to hire you guys (if I were boss....LMAO) then some of my idiot co-workers.

(ABSOLUTELY NO OFFENSE MEANT AS YOUR TALENT SHOWS YOU ARE CLEARLY NOT AMATEURS, THAT IS MEANT SHEERLY IN TERMS TO YOU DOING IT FOR FREE AND NOT BEING EMPLOYED BY UBI)

Edit: I can't be the only one curious enough to ask Kriller but do you have any idea when we might see a rought "beta" version. (If you do that kind of thing with your mods as I was lucky enough to find PE3 in a extremely stable state.)

[Peto]

Outstanding! If you don't do this for a living some company is missing out on some great talent! :hmm:

Luckily--we're not :up:!!!

:rock:

[Digital_Trucker]

So I was taking a spin in my speedboat in the Harbor at Pearl and took a few pictures of K2's latest artwork (and I do mean artwork)

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/9433/20080717131351qg7.th.jpg (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717131351qg7.jpg) http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2858/20080717131308fh9.th.jpg (http://img140.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717131308fh9.jpg)http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/3420/20080717130900lh0.th.jpg (http://img255.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717130900lh0.jpg) http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/8949/20080717130205cn9.th.jpg (http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717130205cn9.jpg) http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/3355/20080717130045fy2.th.jpg (http://img398.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717130045fy2.jpg) http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/6013/20080717130008tt8.th.jpg (http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717130008tt8.jpg)

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3551/20080717125751rw9.th.jpg (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717125751rw9.jpg) http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/7250/20080717123215er5.th.jpg (http://img300.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717123215er5.jpg) http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7528/20080717122909gd6.th.jpg (http://img214.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717122909gd6.jpg) http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/1593/20080717122725vs1.th.jpg (http://img359.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717122725vs1.jpg) http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/9121/20080717122133qi7.th.jpg (http://img359.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717122133qi7.jpg)http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5089/20080717121845gx6.th.jpg (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080717121845gx6.jpg)

Excellent work, sir. You sure you were on vacation?

[PanzerBoxb]

Wow! Those shots are simply amazing. :up:

[Orion2012]

Looks Great, can't wait.!!!

[Defiance]

Welcome back K2 :)

Hope you had a relaxing holiday (vacation)

Real beautiful pics you posted there DT ;)

Ohh can't wait to start snapping screenies :up: lol

[cdrsubron7]

Really looking forward to your new version of PE, kriller. Fantastic work. :up:

[DeepIron]

Amazing... :cool::up: Certainly looking forward to PE4...

My only critique is that the surface appears a little too "rippled"... like "cats paws" type of ripples. The water color looks very good...

[Probex]

Really great work, Kirller2. I can't wait for the new release.


On the topic of colour; currently in 3.3 the underwater colours have a greenish hue and that's nice, however, that same green hue becomes even more prominent on a dark night which seems quite unrealistic. I was wondering whether there is a game limitation of some sort? Ideally, I would like the green hue when there is sunlight, and gray/black when it is night-time. What do you think?


Thanks.

[kriller2]

My only critique is that the surface appears a little too "rippled"... like "cats paws" type of ripples. The water color looks very good...

Hi DeepIron,
That's because of the way the SH4-engine works, you can decide how the water should look like at f.ex. 4 different wind speed and then the engine calculates the in betweens, I have tried alot of different values and been using some of Wclears excelent scene.dat work for inspiration to come up with a formula that looks nice at 0 -4 m so we have the nice sunsets / sun rises where the sun and clouds reflects in the water, unfortunately there is a problem with the SH4 engine when the sun allmost sets and alot of wind, resulting in the kind of reflections you see on DT's screenshots.

BTW nice screenshots DT ! :up:

On the topic of colour; currently in 3.3 the underwater colours have a greenish hue and that's nice, however, that same green hue becomes even more prominent on a dark night which seems quite unrealistic. I was wondering whether there is a game limitation of some sort? Ideally, I would like the green hue when there is sunlight, and gray/black when it is night-time. What do you think?

Hi Probex, I think you do have a point so will see if there is something I can do about it.

Looks great, been looking for something to put the strain on my system....
Although I truly don't mind seeing 70-90FPS consistently....
Thanks Lynx, the good thing about the new edition is that I have used a lower resolution for both the clouds and sky textures, so it should run much better than PE3.3.
Thats amazing, you really should be paid for all the work you do. All of the modders on this work do amazing things for "amateurs". I see "talented" coders by the dozen and I'd be more then willing to hire you guys (if I were boss....LMAO) then some of my idiot co-workers.

(ABSOLUTELY NO OFFENSE MEANT AS YOUR TALENT SHOWS YOU ARE CLEARLY NOT AMATEURS, THAT IS MEANT SHEERLY IN TERMS TO YOU DOING IT FOR FREE AND NOT BEING EMPLOYED BY UBI)

Edit: I can't be the only one curious enough to ask Kriller but do you have any idea when we might see a rought "beta" version. (If you do that kind of thing with your mods as I was lucky enough to find PE3 in a extremely stable state.)

Hi Lynx,
Thank you very much :), I have worked on this mod from time to time, so it's not something that I have made in a week or something, been testing alot of different methods to archive the current results both for colours and reflections and the formula for rendering the waves, but I am very critical and keep on tryin untill the result is like it looks like at a picture from the pacific ;)

Currently there is no ETA for this mod, still trying to correct a bug where the waves suddenly goes out of sync resulting in some strange liquid ocean, this is a "bug" that have been there allways, but this means that you with current the PE4-state would have to save the game when this happens and load it again to see the nice waves with good reflections again.

Maybe it's impossible to correct this and if it turns out that way, I will release the mod anyway and someone else can see if they can improve on the formula for rendering of the waves :hmm:

Allso I would like this mod to work with both TM and RSRD and OM, so still some work.

[Orion2012]

I too like Lynx (EXACTLY....) have experienced the odd camera problem, but like...I...he...said it seems to be resolved after removing both the camera.dat from the PE3 Install1 and from the TMO patch.

I believe the following glitch/problem is found in the stock game, where you can see light sources through opaque textures. I've seen it in the US campaign when it came to the sun being visible through my conning tower and now on the inside of my IX uboat in OM..here is the first screenshot..

http://i316.photobucket.com/albums/mm333/Orion3049/SH4Img2008-07-20_162140_390.jpg
As you can see the light in the Radio room is visible through the bulkhead in the control room.

Now after you press Shift+F2 to "walk" the problem is gone...
http://i316.photobucket.com/albums/mm333/Orion3049/SH4Img2008-07-20_162149_093.jpg
I myself have almost no idea where to begin looking for what the difference is between the standard camera and the "free-walk" camera. If anyone has any idea where to begin looking, I'd like to see if I can solve the issue.

Also Kriller, you said there was an issue with wave detail disappearing, any indication it could be related to time compression as I've read some post where the water goes flat after being above 2048 time compression.

[Fish40]

[Quote] by Kriller2: Allso I would like this mod to work with both TM and RSRD and OM, so still some work.



I hope you did'nt forget RFB:cry:

[Seeadler]

I have worked on this mod from time to time, so it's not something that I have made in a week or something, been testing alot of different methods to archive the current results both for colours and reflections and the formula for rendering the waves, but I am very critical and keep on tryin untill the result is like it looks like at a picture from the pacific

Be in mind that there are different water shaders for each config option (waves on/of, high texture on/off etc.). If it looks fine for one user it must not for the others with a slight different config. The problem here is you cannot change the ocean/wave calculation for all configs in the same way, for some configs it will never work. The formula for the waves is AFIK hardcoded because the result values are one of the input parameters for the vertext shader.

The vertex shader is the one which moves the vertices in XYZ direction to produce the effect of waves. After this the vertext data are transfered into the pixel shader to return a color value for each pixel of a polygon.

[kriller2]

I have worked on this mod from time to time, so it's not something that I have made in a week or something, been testing alot of different methods to archive the current results both for colours and reflections and the formula for rendering the waves, but I am very critical and keep on tryin untill the result is like it looks like at a picture from the pacific

Be in mind that there are different water shaders for each config option (waves on/of, high texture on/off etc.). If it looks fine for one user it must not for the others with a slight different config. The problem here is you cannot change the ocean/wave calculation for all configs in the same way, for some configs it will never work. The formula for the waves is AFIK hardcoded because the result values are one of the input parameters for the vertext shader.

The vertex shader is the one which moves the vertices in XYZ direction to produce the effect of waves. After this the vertext data are transfered into the pixel shader to return a color value for each pixel of a polygon.

Hi Seeadler,
Okay I will keep it in mind :hmm: have I understood your post correctly that the modfifying of the scene.dat at different wave states, not allways looks the same at different hardware setups? or do you mean editing of the shader files?

The files I have edited is the scene.dat to modify the rendering of the waves and some shader files which controls how the colours looks like with postprocess filtering and offcause the env-files and texture files controling the colours etc.

BTW if you want to help me with getting this mod to be as good as possible, I can send you the latest files and you could take a look at it ?

[Quote] by Kriller2: Allso I would like this mod to work with both TM and RSRD and OM, so still some work.



I hope you did'nt forget RFB:cry:

I will not forget RFB Fish :) currently testing the latest with both TM + RSRD + OM..

[kriller2]

I too like Lynx (EXACTLY....) have experienced the odd camera problem, but like...I...he...said it seems to be resolved after removing both the camera.dat from the PE3 Install1 and from the TMO patch.

I believe the following glitch/problem is found in the stock game, where you can see light sources through opaque textures. I've seen it in the US campaign when it came to the sun being visible through my conning tower and now on the inside of my IX uboat in OM..here is the first screenshot..

http://i316.photobucket.com/albums/mm333/Orion3049/SH4Img2008-07-20_162140_390.jpg
As you can see the light in the Radio room is visible through the bulkhead in the control room.

Now after you press Shift+F2 to "walk" the problem is gone...
http://i316.photobucket.com/albums/mm333/Orion3049/SH4Img2008-07-20_162149_093.jpg
I myself have almost no idea where to begin looking for what the difference is between the standard camera and the "free-walk" camera. If anyone has any idea where to begin looking, I'd like to see if I can solve the issue.

Also Kriller, you said there was an issue with wave detail disappearing, any indication it could be related to time compression as I've read some post where the water goes flat after being above 2048 time compression.

That's strange, it must be some value that controls how the light are rendered that has been changed in the camera.dat file for the free cam mod, unfortunately I don't know the camera file well enough to look into this issue, it's Sergbutos and Mav87 playground :hmm: anyone else have an idea Ducimus MAv87? :ping:

[Seeadler]

Okay I will keep it in mind :hmm: have I understood your post correctly that the modfifying of the scene.dat at different wave states, not allways looks the same at different hardware setups? or do you mean editing of the shader files?

If you only edit the wave states - no, but if you change color, fresnel, refraction params - yes.

There are different water????.fx shader files, waterTransPS.fx is for the high settings which takes all params and others for lower settings which don't care about of some parameter from *.dat files.

[Digital_Trucker]

That's strange, it must be some value that controls how the light are rendered that has been changed in the camera.dat file for the free cam mod, unfortunately I don't know the camera file well enough to look into this issue, it's Sergbutos and Mav87 playground :hmm: anyone else have an idea Ducimus MAv87? :ping:
No expert here either, but isn't it possible that it's some fundamental difference between the two types of camera controllers?:hmm:

[Orion2012]

That's strange, it must be some value that controls how the light are rendered that has been changed in the camera.dat file for the free cam mod, unfortunately I don't know the camera file well enough to look into this issue, it's Sergbutos and Mav87 playground :hmm: anyone else have an idea Ducimus MAv87? :ping:
No expert here either, but isn't it possible that it's some fundamental difference between the two types of camera controllers?:hmm:

Thats what I was wondering...And I have no idea where to begin looking for the difference....

[Digital_Trucker]

What I was getting at is that there may not be anyplace to look for the difference. If the view of one of the controllers is rendered differently in the hard code, then it would be one of those things we just have to live with.

Something just came to mind, though. If using the free move camera controller works to stop light from "passing through" opaque objects in the interior, couldn't we make all of the interior cameras free move, but limit their movement (but not rotation) speed to zero?

[DeepIron]

Hi DeepIron,
That's because of the way the SH4-engine works, you can decide how the water should look like at f.ex. 4 different wind speed and then the engine calculates the in betweens, I have tried alot of different values and been using some of Wclears excelent scene.dat work for inspiration to come up with a formula that looks nice at 0 -4 m so we have the nice sunsets / sun rises where the sun and clouds reflects in the water, unfortunately there is a problem with the SH4 engine when the sun allmost sets and alot of wind, resulting in the kind of reflections you see on DT's screenshots.Ah... thanks for the explanation K2... I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to work through all the settings and test them.

Currently there is no ETA for this mod, still trying to correct a bug where the waves suddenly goes out of sync resulting in some strange liquid ocean, this is a "bug" that have been there allways, but this means that you with current the PE4-state would have to save the game when this happens and load it again to see the nice waves with good reflections again.

Maybe it's impossible to correct this and if it turns out that way, I will release the mod anyway and someone else can see if they can improve on the formula for rendering of the waves :hmm:K2, I think this is a side-effect of the time compression algorithms in SH4. I've noticed that when I use TC above 2048 for a long period of time, the "game clock" seems to get out of sync too. I'm pretty sure the issues are caused by insufficient CPU time dedicated to updating the SH4 environment...

I could be wrong, but that how it seems to me...


Cheers!

[kriller2]

5m
http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/1724/newskype4wipql3.th.jpg (http://img93.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newskype4wipql3.jpg)

2 m sun sets
http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/7923/sunsetpe4wiptf9.th.jpg (http://img394.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sunsetpe4wiptf9.jpg)

daylight
http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/9512/newsky2mpe4wipcf1.th.jpg (http://img394.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newsky2mpe4wipcf1.jpg)

Progress: the ugly border at the horizont is gone and some editing of the clouds and the way the clouds is drawn and reflects in the sea.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Looking good K2 :up: Like that the ugly horizon is now gone :yep:


RDP

[TDK1044]

It's looking great, K2. As a TMO user, I hope it ends up being compatible with that mod. :D

[AVGWarhawk]

Very nice Kriller

[Orion2012]

Looking VERY good...can't wait!

[Orion2012]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!
What I did was edit the clipping distance on the TMO ENABLE UBOAT Camera.dat file for the interor fore camera from 0.01 to just 0.1 and I also changed the angularangle from 65.0 to 75.0 and the problem was GONE!!! I'm gonna do some further testing to see if i caused another monster but so far so good.

Don't know if the same method could be used to stop the same problem with the sun through the conning tower.

[kriller2]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!
What I did was edit the clipping distance on the TMO ENABLE UBOAT Camera.dat file for the interor fore camera from 0.01 to just 0.1 and I also changed the angularangle from 65.0 to 75.0 and the problem was GONE!!! I'm gonna do some further testing to see if i caused another monster but so far so good.

Don't know if the same method could be used to stop the same problem with the sun through the conning tower.

Nice find Orion ! :up: I will try the solution above and test it for PE4. Now if we allso could get rid of the ghost people on ships, but I read on the SH3 forum that it's hard-coded... :hmm:

[kriller2]

Hi DeepIron,
That's because of the way the SH4-engine works, you can decide how the water should look like at f.ex. 4 different wind speed and then the engine calculates the in betweens, I have tried alot of different values and been using some of Wclears excelent scene.dat work for inspiration to come up with a formula that looks nice at 0 -4 m so we have the nice sunsets / sun rises where the sun and clouds reflects in the water, unfortunately there is a problem with the SH4 engine when the sun allmost sets and alot of wind, resulting in the kind of reflections you see on DT's screenshots.Ah... thanks for the explanation K2... I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to work through all the settings and test them.

Currently there is no ETA for this mod, still trying to correct a bug where the waves suddenly goes out of sync resulting in some strange liquid ocean, this is a "bug" that have been there allways, but this means that you with current the PE4-state would have to save the game when this happens and load it again to see the nice waves with good reflections again.

Maybe it's impossible to correct this and if it turns out that way, I will release the mod anyway and someone else can see if they can improve on the formula for rendering of the waves :hmm:K2, I think this is a side-effect of the time compression algorithms in SH4. I've noticed that when I use TC above 2048 for a long period of time, the "game clock" seems to get out of sync too. I'm pretty sure the issues are caused by insufficient CPU time dedicated to updating the SH4 environment...

I could be wrong, but that how it seems to me...


Cheers!

Yes it's quite frustrating,but it allso means I suddenly discover a new formula which looks nicer than a previous one :cool:

I allso read this and have tried running both Wclears scene with only 2048 TC and the stock SH4 scene (I set it to max 2048 TC in the cfg), but it realy doesn't help much. I could be wrong, but I have a strong feeling that it's a stock SH4 bug. It's just that it's much more anoying now when runing more detailed waves.

A final solution to this problem could be to have one save game which you allways save in when you see the liquid ocean and reload the game.. This way the waves would allways be perfect.

[clayman]

Man, this is really looking perfect K2 .... and the dang horizon line is gone! No more "edge of the known universe" look!

[Orion2012]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!
What I did was edit the clipping distance on the TMO ENABLE UBOAT Camera.dat file for the interor fore camera from 0.01 to just 0.1 and I also changed the angularangle from 65.0 to 75.0 and the problem was GONE!!! I'm gonna do some further testing to see if i caused another monster but so far so good.

Don't know if the same method could be used to stop the same problem with the sun through the conning tower.
Nice find Orion ! :up: I will try the solution above and test it for PE4. Now if we allso could get rid of the ghost people on ships, but I read on the SH3 forum that it's hard-coded... :hmm:
I've been thinking that too....I'm not real familiar with the character models, but I may go looking around later. Will post my results here later. Also, worth pointing out, after I fixed the camera, it seems to somehow made it a "free-cam." what I mean is when i puch a directional arrow, the camera will move foward or back and won't reset back to the default view without you pressing "shift+f2" then pressing F2 for the command room.

Edit: Solved free cam problem by setting some things to 0.0. will look later, to lazy right now.

[kriller2]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the comments, the development is going good now and im begining to fine polish the edges, so maybe this will come sooner than first expected ;)
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/2492/pe4roughweatheriz9.jpg

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3716/sunset2pe4wipso2.jpg

[Alex]

The first one (especially) looks like reality, Chris. You rule !
The color variety looks better than ever, particularly the one of the water.

[Digital_Trucker]

Ditto to Alex's comment. Amazing looking:up:Layer a side view out of a cockpit over that one and I'd think I was doing a fly-by:rock:

[Fish40]

This looks fantastic!:rock: I can't wait for it's release!:yep:

[keltos01]

same here ! :up::up::up:

[Peto]

Salute! That's beautiful!

Outstanding Work!!!

:up:

[Orion2012]

I've been thinking that too....I'm not real familiar with the character models, but I may go looking around later. Will post my results here later. Also, worth pointing out, after I fixed the camera, it seems to somehow made it a "free-cam." what I mean is when i puch a directional arrow, the camera will move foward or back and won't reset back to the default view without you pressing "shift+f2" then pressing F2 for the command room.


Solved the issue of it going into a "free-cam" by editing the interior fore camera parameters that control the movement (Movespeed, moveinertia, moverun, all to 0.0) But have now discovered a bright green screen when i go the "interior aft" camera. Not sure if it's something I caused or an issue with the IXc/40 from OM. Anyone have a suggestion?

Also kriller you mentioned the ghost people , and I have seen pics of it, but have never seen it myself, what "conditions" do they appear under??

[Task Force]

This mod makes the water look the closest to real thing ive ever seen.;) :yep:

[Navarxos]

Fantastic MoD!Release it ASAP or ill hack into your PC and steal all the files you have developed so far :D .

[TDK1044]

The difference between competence and excellence is attention to detail. You personify that ethic, K2. :D

[DeepIron]

I allso read this and have tried running both Wclears scene with only 2048 TC and the stock SH4 scene (I set it to max 2048 TC in the cfg), but it realy doesn't help much. I could be wrong, but I have a strong feeling that it's a stock SH4 bug. It's just that it's much more anoying now when runing more detailed waves.
Well, there's always the chance the Ubi Devs may take note of what the engine is capable of with persistence and careful tweaking and perhaps *fix* the issue... Remote chance I know, but one can hope...

BTW... stunning work K2! Those last screenies are incredible!:rock::rock::rock:

[cdpca]

Have quietly sat on my mushroom watching the mods going by and decided it was time to pipe up and say what wonderful work Leo(rip),Kriller, Ducimus and all the rest have done to make this a wonderful simulator to enjoy. Also...for those who scream that a mod has messed up your computer......99.9% of time I found it was something I did...not the modder. If all else fails.......READ THE DIRECTIONS! Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents on loss of texture in TC. I have noticed it only happens if weather changes in TC for me. Just a little wind or wave change seems to do it. Probably been looked at already...but thought I'd throw it out.
:hmm:

[Orion2012]

Have quietly sat on my mushroom watching the mods going by and decided it was time to pipe up and say what wonderful work Leo(rip),Kriller, Ducimus and all the rest have done to make this a wonderful simulator to enjoy. Also...for those who scream that a mod has messed up your computer......99.9% of time I found it was something I did...not the modder. If all else fails.......READ THE DIRECTIONS! Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents on loss of texture in TC. I have noticed it only happens if weather changes in TC for me. Just a little wind or wave change seems to do it. Probably been looked at already...but thought I'd throw it out.
:hmm:

If the whole world would follow instructions, there would be no need for things like, "tech support"

[kriller2]

Dark and foggy with rain
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/6886/pe4stormwiphu2.th.jpg (http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4stormwiphu2.jpg)

Dark and foggy storm
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/1400/pe4stormwip2gr7.th.jpg (http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4stormwip2gr7.jpg)

Im trying to make the storms so that the ocean will still be in a shade of blue/grey and the soroundings allso like RL to give the storms a more dramatic look instead of the old grey storms from PE3, what do you think ?

[rodan54]

The stormy weather states really needing a reworking for a more realistic portrayal. So far those shots are looking pretty darn close. :up:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Beaufort_scale_11.jpg

[TDK1044]

Dark and foggy with rain
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/6886/pe4stormwiphu2.th.jpg (http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4stormwiphu2.jpg)

Dark and foggy storm
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/1400/pe4stormwip2gr7.th.jpg (http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4stormwip2gr7.jpg)

Im trying to make the storms so that the ocean will still be in a shade of blue/grey and the soroundings allso like RL to give the storms a more dramatic look instead of the old grey storms from PE3, what do you think ?


Looking great, K2! :D

[ReallyDedPoet]

Dark and foggy with rain
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/6886/pe4stormwiphu2.th.jpg (http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4stormwiphu2.jpg)

Dark and foggy storm
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/1400/pe4stormwip2gr7.th.jpg (http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4stormwip2gr7.jpg)

Im trying to make the storms so that the ocean will still be in a shade of blue/grey and the soroundings allso like RL to give the storms a more dramatic look instead of the old grey storms from PE3, what do you think ?

Looking great, K2! :D

I concur :yep::up:


RDP

[Task Force]

Looks great. One of my favroit mods is getting even better.:up:

[DeepIron]

Im trying to make the storms so that the ocean will still be in a shade of blue/grey and the soroundings allso like RL to give the storms a more dramatic look instead of the old grey storms from PE3, what do you think ?K2, we're running out of adjectives to describe PE... fantastic, wonderful, awesome, colossal, stupendous...

But I'm getting worried. You keep this up, nVidia and ATi will have to create new cards and drivers just to do your tweaking justice! :up:

[clayman]

Dark and foggy with rain
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/6886/pe4stormwiphu2.th.jpg (http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4stormwiphu2.jpg)

Dark and foggy storm
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/1400/pe4stormwip2gr7.th.jpg (http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4stormwip2gr7.jpg)

Im trying to make the storms so that the ocean will still be in a shade of blue/grey and the soroundings allso like RL to give the storms a more dramatic look instead of the old grey storms from PE3, what do you think ?

That stunning .... the slate blue in those storm shots :up:

[swdw]

Feedback:

Water is too blue in the storms. As a great deal of the color comes from reflections under low light conditions, when you have a thick dark gray overcast, you should have water that is grayish in color, not blue.

The light is not strong enough to cause the same coloration it does when the sun is out (blue wave length scattering), so color should shift in this case to a more reflective color.

If you have some light poking through and the haze becomes bluish, then the water will have a bluish cast similar to the screen shots.

Otherwise, with clouds and haze being gray, you'll only have traces of blue, usually more of a bluish green where there's foam, the bulk should have a grayish cast to it.

[DrBeast]

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc262/blacksavvas/Vacation_Summer_08/CIMG0364.jpg

Still on vacation, thought I'd check out how you guys are doing...and by the looks of it, some people (hi, Kriller2!) are doing an AMAZING job! :up:

[Fish40]

I wanna go there! Wherever that is:lol:

[Peto]

I'm pretty sure I saw that chair on Palawan.

:p

[Seeadler]

I will verify this, I must go in September for vocational reasons to Cebu and Palawan:cool:

[Fish40]

My Grandfather was in Palawan, only in 1944. The pictures he took look a heck of a lot different than that paradise:nope:

[kriller2]

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc262/blacksavvas/Vacation_Summer_08/CIMG0364.jpg

Still on vacation, thought I'd check out how you guys are doing...and by the looks of it, some people (hi, Kriller2!) are doing an AMAZING job! :up:

Hi Dr. Beast, thanks it looks like you got the best view on the ocean from that chair, looks nice :up:

[kriller2]

Feedback:

Water is too blue in the storms. As a great deal of the color comes from reflections under low light conditions, when you have a thick dark gray overcast, you should have water that is grayish in color, not blue.

The light is not strong enough to cause the same coloration it does when the sun is out (blue wave length scattering), so color should shift in this case to a more reflective color.

If you have some light poking through and the haze becomes bluish, then the water will have a bluish cast similar to the screen shots.

Otherwise, with clouds and haze being gray, you'll only have traces of blue, usually more of a bluish green where there's foam, the bulk should have a grayish cast to it.

Hi Swdw,
thanks for the feedback, I needed that :yep: and have corrected the water colour in storm and cloudy now, but if I set the fresnell coefiecient very low in the scene.dat it allso affects all other weather settings so I have left it so we have the nice glossy sea in bright daylight :up: but instead I have turned down the sun reflection a bit when storm and now the sea is a greyish colour with a little trace of blue, pictures coming up soon!

[kriller2]

Hi all,

Here is the latest update, I have added some new bubles to the submarines and u-boats and made a new seabed and underwater-colours:
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9036/pe4underwaterenvironmenwd0.th.jpg (http://img98.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4underwaterenvironmenwd0.jpg)

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/2427/pe4underwaterenvironmener6.th.jpg (http://img98.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4underwaterenvironmener6.jpg)

EDIT:
Here is a screenshot of the new storm-colours:
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8704/pe4stormdp2.th.jpg (http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4stormdp2.jpg)

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/649/pe4storm2lm4.th.jpg (http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4storm2lm4.jpg)

@Swdw is it better?

[Defiance]

Looking Great as usual K2 :up:

Liking those seabeds with what looks like lots less weed/kelp

Keep on tweaking :rock:

[shackman]

These shots are perfect in my opinion... Can't find the right words... truly jawdropping...

Do the underwater colors change with the bad weather as well into a more greyish look or do they stay that blue like in the underwater shots in sunny weather?

How is the fps-hit in comparison to the stock-game? I know it's one of the stupid questions to ask...but well my rig is kind of low-end and I'm getting worried that I can't play with your mod.

And another one I have... does this mod only affects the atlantic-waters or does it cover the arctic and mediterranean waters as well?

Best regards...and keep up the great work!!

[keltos01]

a beauty ! when do you think you'll release ?

[KrOkOZyABrA]

Storm colours very good:up::up:, but underwater:hmm::oops:, maybe more green:hmm::oops:

[DrBeast]

To those that commented on my holiday pic: it's a shot from a beach near Kavala, northern Greece. What you see is the northernmost waters of the Aegean sea ;)

The foot you see sticking out at the left? That's a guy who just saw the pics of PE4! :rotfl:

[Fearless]

Truly amazing work :rock:

[kriller2]

These shots are perfect in my opinion... Can't find the right words... truly jawdropping...

Do the underwater colors change with the bad weather as well into a more greyish look or do they stay that blue like in the underwater shots in sunny weather?

How is the fps-hit in comparison to the stock-game? I know it's one of the stupid questions to ask...but well my rig is kind of low-end and I'm getting worried that I can't play with your mod.

And another one I have... does this mod only affects the atlantic-waters or does it cover the arctic and mediterranean waters as well?

Best regards...and keep up the great work!!

Thanks Shackman.

Yes the underwater colours will change a bit when in storm, but only the light coming from above the water, not the colour of the water that wouln't be realistic :hmm:

The PE4 mod will use a lower resolution sky texture than PE3, so it should run better than pe3, but I have made alot of other changes to the way the shaders works so don't know how it will affect perfomance on lower rigs, but soon (within a week) PE4 will go to testing and we will see ;)

PE4 colours and environment is made to work with the pacific scenario and the u-boat campaign, but some of the changes to shaders etc. will allso affect the atlantic.

[kriller2]

Storm colours very good:up::up:, but underwater:hmm::oops:, maybe more green:hmm::oops:

I can't give the underwater colours more green it would look weird :oops: , because I can only adjust the light coming from above the water to give the submarine and the seabed a shade of green and keep the underwater blue, like in RL.

Alot of comprimises has been made in the development of PE4, f.ex the water will still be dark during sun sets / sun rise when there are alot of wind, these thing can not be changed, because of how the SH4-engine works.

[KrOkOZyABrA]

Yes, let there be more light!!:rock::rock::rock::rock:

[extraterrestrial]

Is it normal that the Sub is so good visible under water? Especially in the distance?

€: ok, its normal.
But i can't become friend with the underwater colour. I think the blue looks a bit too artificial.

[shackman]

The PE4 mod will use a lower resolution sky texture than PE3, so it should run better than pe3, but I have made alot of other changes to the way the shaders works so don't know how it will affect perfomance on lower rigs, but soon (within a week) PE4 will go to testing and we will see ;)
Well that's good news...looking forward to the testing.. :yep:

PE4 colours and environment is made to work with the pacific scenario and the u-boat campaign, but some of the changes to shaders etc. will allso affect the atlantic.
I didn't know there was a difference.. I alway thought the colours for the pacific and atlantic waters would be the same... :doh: whatever...that's just details...can't wait to see for myself :D

Cheers!!

[kriller2]

Is it normal that the Sub is so good visible under water? Especially in the distance?

€: ok, its normal.
But i can't become friend with the underwater colour. I think the blue looks a bit too artificial.

The underwater colour where made by comparing real life pictures of the pacific ocean, you can see my inspiration here (warning big picture )
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/images/wideport.jpg

I know it's not 100% correct, but it's getting close? - it looks alot more like the picture when the submarine are near the surface.

[DrBeast]

...soon (within a week) PE4 will go to testing and we will see ;)


Really wish I could contribute to those tests, but my vacation won't be over until beginning of September! I'm getting bored senseless already! :dead:

[ReallyDedPoet]

...soon (within a week) PE4 will go to testing and we will see ;)

Really wish I could contribute to those tests, but my vacation won't be over until beginning of September! I'm getting bored senseless already! :dead:

Do you work :hmm::lol:


RDP

[DrBeast]

...soon (within a week) PE4 will go to testing and we will see ;)

Really wish I could contribute to those tests, but my vacation won't be over until beginning of September! I'm getting bored senseless already! :dead:
Do you work :hmm::lol:


RDP
Work? What's that?? :rotfl:
I'm an unpaid researcher, doing what's called a PhD thesis (I call it slave work though!). These days I'm busy doing absolutely nothing in a beach in northern Greece, and that gets boring after the first three weeks! :p

[extraterrestrial]

The underwater colour where made by comparing real life pictures of the pacific ocean, you can see my inspiration here (warning big picture )
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/images/wideport.jpg

I know it's not 100% correct, but it's getting close? - it looks alot more like the picture when the submarine are near the surface. Hm ok, compared to the real picture it looks quite good (sometimes realism <> more beautiful :D)
But something still irritates me, maybe its the good visibility + the weird green touch of the sub(in the blue water). Dont know if you have an effect on this.

Btw: the stormy setting looks very good.
Btw2: I think the rolling of the sub is not perfect. With small waves it's rolling for such a big object quite much. On the other side in storms my feeling is that it could be more.

[kriller2]

The underwater colour where made by comparing real life pictures of the pacific ocean, you can see my inspiration here (warning big picture )
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/images/wideport.jpg

I know it's not 100% correct, but it's getting close? - it looks alot more like the picture when the submarine are near the surface. Hm ok, compared to the real picture it looks quite good (sometimes realism <> more beautiful :D)
But something still irritates me, maybe its the good visibility + the weird green touch of the sub(in the blue water). Dont know if you have an effect on this.

Btw: the stormy setting looks very good.
Btw2: I think the rolling of the sub is not perfect. With small waves it's rolling for such a big object quite much. On the other side in storms my feeling is that it could be more.

Hi Extra, I have tried to make the effects a little more subtle and modified the underwater fog and visibility, is this better?
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/674/pe4underwater2aj9.jpg

The rolling of the sub have been reworked for PE4 and should behave more realistic now and the sub ride the waves lower, here is a picture of it, it's dificult to show on a picture..
http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/8215/pe4highwavesme9.jpg

[Fearless]

Sweeeeeeeeet!!! :rock:

[Fish40]

Lookin real good Kriller!:up: I'm chomping at the bit for this one:yep:

[cdrsubron7]

Mighty fine lookin, Kriller. Mighty fine !!! :up: :rock:

[Alex]

Sweeeeeeeeet!!! :rock:

I agree with this statement ! :hmm: :huh: :sunny:

:rock:

[gimpy117]

The underwater colour where made by comparing real life pictures of the pacific ocean, you can see my inspiration here (warning big picture )
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/images/wideport.jpg

I know it's not 100% correct, but it's getting close? - it looks alot more like the picture when the submarine are near the surface. Hm ok, compared to the real picture it looks quite good (sometimes realism <> more beautiful :D)
But something still irritates me, maybe its the good visibility + the weird green touch of the sub(in the blue water). Dont know if you have an effect on this.

Btw: the stormy setting looks very good.
Btw2: I think the rolling of the sub is not perfect. With small waves it's rolling for such a big object quite much. On the other side in storms my feeling is that it could be more.
Hi Extra, I have tried to make the effects a little more subtle and modified the underwater fog and visibility, is this better?
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/674/pe4underwater2aj9.jpg

The rolling of the sub have been reworked for PE4 and should behave more realistic now and the sub ride the waves lower, here is a picture of it, it's dificult to show on a picture..


I like the blue shift effect!!! it's nice to see the colors go away finally like in real life!:up:

[The General]

I am particularly looking forward to seeing the sub pitch & roll more realistically. This has been a problem since SH3. Apparently, only the Devs have the key because it's 'hardcoded' I believe?

[kriller2]

Hi all subsimmers!

Thanks alot for all the comments, it's nice to see the response from all you people, I have good news, this mod will now go into testing.

Some final adjustments are made before packing and im now 99% satisfied with the mod, offcause there still are some issues I would like to fix like caustics on the sea bottom etc. etc., (btw the black water is almost gone now!!) but there comes a time where you have to let go of a project and this is it, now I need some dedicated testers to receive feedback and maybe find some bugs.

Lots of work has gone into making the new edition of PE4 and here are some of the key features:
- New scene.dat with more realistic water rendering and sun light on clouds etc. etc.
- New shaders for underwater scenery and textures
- New shaders for clouds and textures
- New post process filters edited and modified so that the colours and light should folow the daytime cycle more realisticly
- All colours of the day and storm etc. changed.

It would be great if the following people could try this mod and test it?


Skwasjer ( if you have the time that is :yep: )
Dr. Beast ( if you find a computer capable of running the new PE4 :lol: )
Torps
Realydedpoet
Gunfighter
AvgHawk
Swdw ( especialy you should take a look at the roll pitch mod enhanced bubbles mod with the new submarines data files)
Seeadler (Allso if you have the time and you are welcome to give me ideas, suggestions for the shaders etc.)
Digital Trucker
All the above people expect a PM soon :up: (uploading the mod now.)

[Task Force]

So if the beta goes good what is the ETA of this mod. I realy want it.:D And if you want one more beta tester. I got 200 pluss Gb waiting for it on my hard drive.:up: :lol:

[Fearless]

By all means send it my way also if u want it beta tested. :know:

[ReallyDedPoet]

Thanks k2 :yep::up:


RDP

[extraterrestrial]

Im glad that this mod proceeds that fast. :D
Could it be that the (new & old) underwater pictures are gone?

€: Now they are back, yes I think it looks now better, the sub blends more into the environment.
Maybe a little bit too much green? I dont know, it's difficult for me to rate this.
What do the others say?

[TDK1044]

Much of this is subjective and also depends on how well you individual monitor is lined up. K2 has chosen some very good Beta Testers, so let's let them do their work while we eagerly await the release of the mod. :D

[cdpca]

If this is the last version it would be an honor to beta test it and run the heck out of it!

[DrBeast]

I'm sorry to announce that any beta testing on my behalf will be next to impossible for the next couple or three weeks :cry:

As soon as I'm back from my vacation (in about 10 days from now), I'll be busy finding a new house for me and g/f and moving. Then, as soon as my g/f is done with her exams it'll be her time to move in. Those that have gone through that ordeal know it can be VERY time-consuming! :dead:

I'll keep monitoring the mod's progress as best I can, though, and when I finally have some time I'll see what changes can be made (if any) in the Special Effects department, for all the supported versions so far. ;)

[ReallyDedPoet]

Love the new " pitch and roll " effect thus far k2 with the Beta, an improvement over the current PE :yep: Also nice to see the horizon bug gone :) Like the fog, although it is a little taxing on the system, for those who can handle this it is worth it.

I'll also confirm ( you mentioned this earlier ) the weird affect on the waves
after T\C :yep::oops: For me it's like the " northern lights " are overhead with this :o

Anyway, I am enjoying testing this. Folks will not be disappointed.


RDP

[Syxx_Killer]

I, for one, am sure looking forward to PE4! It is looking fantastic! However, can this issue be looked at. Here is my current mod order:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/Syxx_Killer/Miscellaneous/StockMods.jpg

The issue I am experiencing is one I mentioned in the RFB thread a while back. However, I have switched mods around again. :oops::lol: When playing as a U-Boat (Type IXD2), and this is certainly reproducible, when I order the sub to surface it rides really high in the water. Some people have recently mentioned it in the Environmental Effects thread. If the sub doesn't ride high if you test it, try starting a mission with it already submerged and then surface.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Thus far most of my time has been with the F.Boats, I have gotten the flying sub a few times, with 1.0 in the beginning and then a few times after that, and mainly when the seas were high. In the last PE I got this in higher seas, thus far with the new Beta I find the sub sits lower in the water, and I am not getting the flying sub, it looks really good.

However I am still early on, be interesting to see what others report in :yep:


RDP

[kriller2]

Thus far most of my time has been with the F.Boats, I have gotten the flying sub a few times, with 1.0 in the beginning and then a few times after that, and mainly when the seas were high. In the last PE I got this in higher seas, thus far with the new Beta I find the sub sits lower in the water, and I am not getting the flying sub, it looks really good.

However I am still early on, be interesting to see what others report in :yep:


RDP

Hi RDP,
Thanks for the report, it sounds good that you like the new sub and roll pitch mod and yes it will be interesting to hear what the others thinks of it :yep:

Keep testing :up: you will probaly find some bugs somewhere allso.

[kriller2]

I, for one, am sure looking forward to PE4! It is looking fantastic! However, can this issue be looked at. Here is my current mod order:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/Syxx_Killer/Miscellaneous/StockMods.jpg

The issue I am experiencing is one I mentioned in the RFB thread a while back. However, I have switched mods around again. :oops::lol: When playing as a U-Boat (Type IXD2), and this is certainly reproducible, when I order the sub to surface it rides really high in the water. Some people have recently mentioned it in the Environmental Effects thread. If the sub doesn't ride high if you test it, try starting a mission with it already submerged and then surface.

Hi Syxx.
This shouldn't be a problem in the new PE4, because of the new way the sub sits deeper in the ocean and I haven't experienced anything like that while testing PE4, @anyone of the testers, experiencing the above with PE4 ?

[Digital_Trucker]

Yep, subs definitely riding better in the rough water. The only thing I've noticed, maybe it's just me, but the clouds seem to be moving a little too fast. Other than that, it's looking wonderful here. I especially like the stormy weather and fog.

As usual, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures :

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/4283/20080807172029uq3.th.jpg (http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807172029uq3.jpg) http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/7537/20080807172145wf8.th.jpg (http://img391.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807172145wf8.jpg) http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/4084/20080807172349yh6.th.jpg (http://img362.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807172349yh6.jpg) http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/8572/20080807172448jx9.th.jpg (http://img297.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807172448jx9.jpg) http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/2023/20080807172856ed2.th.jpg (http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807172856ed2.jpg) http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/7743/20080807173931pm8.th.jpg (http://img165.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807173931pm8.jpg)

http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/4388/20080807180949cy9.th.jpg (http://img352.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807180949cy9.jpg) http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/4507/20080807181028fr2.th.jpg (http://img362.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807181028fr2.jpg) http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/6973/20080807192706ee9.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807192706ee9.jpg) http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/1693/20080807192734qd0.th.jpg (http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807192734qd0.jpg) http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/4853/20080807193139ml8.th.jpg (http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807193139ml8.jpg) http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/941/20080807193031uo9.th.jpg (http://img388.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20080807193031uo9.jpg)

[ReallyDedPoet]

Show off ^^^ :lol::lol:


RDP

[TDK1044]

Those look great. Looking forward to this mod. What kind of fps hit are you guys seeing?

[ReallyDedPoet]

I have noticed a hit with fog more than anything else, from about 39-40fps down to 25. Still very playable,
and as you have seen, it looks great :yep:


RDP

[TDK1044]

The fog looks awesome, RDP. Really reminds me of SHIII. :D

[Digital_Trucker]

Show off ^^^ :lol::lol:


RDP
Well, I can't show of my skills (because they've gone walk-about), so I have to show off the scenery:rotfl:.

As far as any FPS hits for me, nothing noticeable except the usual (fog, harbors and HUGE convoys). Occasionally the game starts with a low FPS (don't know whether that's mod related or a stock problem) and I alt-tab out and then back into the game and all is well again. Don't have a clue what's going on there, but I don't care, either, since it's so easily solved and doesn't seem to come back once it's solved.

[Seeadler]

A note to upcomming users of this mod.
The visual appearence is also dependent on the used hardware (display type and internal color settings, graphic card) and the graphic card driver settings.

I have installed the beta on my XP PC with a CRT display plus a GeForce 7800
and on my Vista 64 system with TFT display and a GeForce 8800. The Vista System has in addition different color temperature settings inside the TFT firmware


XP PC
http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/alben/91/3063991/1280_6432396238353535.jpg

Vista PC
http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/alben/91/3063991/1280_3036666164333036.jpg

Personally, I prefer more the settings on the Vista system over the extreme blue XP settings;)

[Will-Rommel]

I like all those screens. Guess it's time to switch from E4.6 to PE again!

[Syxx_Killer]

This is one of my favorite mods! I can't wait for it! :rock:

[Bambistor]

Hi Mates!

I'm a noob at this! but is there anyway i can download PE4 somewhere?:o

And btw where do i find new playablesubmarines? i mean like the Los Angeles Class, or some modern subs.

[W_clear]

I think this a more realistic color.
http://img216.imagevenue.com/loc137/th_61530_SH4Img52008-08-09_12.30.55_609_122_137lo.jpg (http://img216.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=61530_SH4Img52008-08-09_12.30.55_609_122_137lo.jpg)
http://img249.imagevenue.com/loc213/th_61531_SH4Img52008-08-09_12.44.45_781_122_213lo.jpg (http://img249.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=61531_SH4Img52008-08-09_12.44.45_781_122_213lo.jpg)
http://img247.imagevenue.com/loc568/th_61537_SH4Img92008-08-09_12.50.08_703_122_568lo.jpg (http://img247.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=61537_SH4Img92008-08-09_12.50.08_703_122_568lo.jpg)
http://img16.imagevenue.com/loc1165/th_61532_SH4Img12008-08-09_12.47.11_156_122_1165lo.jpg (http://img16.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=61532_SH4Img12008-08-09_12.47.11_156_122_1165lo.jpg)

[kriller2]

Hi Seeadler and Wclear,

The colours are different in the pacific, so it would be a shame to say that it's to blue or another colour is better than another, the blue in the pacific can be green and dark blue and allmost purple sometimes.

I can't make the mod use all of the colours, so I decided to make something like these pictures from RL:
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/8075/bluepacificed1.th.jpg (http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bluepacificed1.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4: (yes the clouds is modified a little from the PE4 that is out for testing, I couln't resist on trying the "modders challenge" thread ;)
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/15/pacifcbluepe4or9.th.jpg (http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcbluepe4or9.jpg)

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/9637/hires071108n4774b046subwh2.th.jpg (http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hires071108n4774b046subwh2.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4:
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5066/pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.jpg)

Allso the blue should shift in PE4 from a blue in the morning like your pic wclear to a more bright blue like the above picture, when it's midday.

[The General]

Could you guys have a look at the video posted here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=919317#post919317 ?

The pitch & Roll of the U-boat, in even moderate seas, is enormous compared to anything seen in Silent Hunter 3 or 4. Is there anything we can do or is it a hardcoding problem?

I say 'we' but I of course really mean 'you' :lol:

[kriller2]

Could you guys have a look at the video posted here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=919317#post919317 ?

The pitch & Roll of the U-boat, in even moderate seas, is enormous compared to anything seen in Silent Hunter 3 or 4. Is there anything we can do or is it a hardcoding problem?

I say 'we' but I of course really mean 'you' :lol:

HI General.
Thanks, I can see the pitch is alot more than sh3 and 4 and it is indeed possible to make something like that (Wclear have made some nice improvements on the pitch), but the problem is that the modification allso softens the submarines resistance against sea / rolling and then if a plane come by and drop a bomb near the submarine it will tip over or if you are surfacing the boat and make a crash dive while turning the boat will tip over. I know because I tried it when working on the roll pitch in PE4 :hmm:

[W_clear]

Hi Seeadler and Wclear,

The colours are different in the pacific, so it would be a shame to say that it's to blue or another colour is better than another, the blue in the pacific can be green and dark blue and allmost purple sometimes.

I can't make the mod use all of the colours, so I decided to make something like these pictures from RL:
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/8075/bluepacificed1.th.jpg (http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bluepacificed1.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4: (yes the clouds is modified a little from the PE4 that is out for testing, I couln't resist on trying the "modders challenge" thread ;)
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/15/pacifcbluepe4or9.th.jpg (http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcbluepe4or9.jpg)

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/9637/hires071108n4774b046subwh2.th.jpg (http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hires071108n4774b046subwh2.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4:
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5066/pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.jpg)

Allso the blue should shift in PE4 from a blue in the morning like your pic wclear to a more bright blue like the above picture, when it's midday.

Hi
please look:

http://img216.imagevenue.com/loc437/th_87978_SH4Img62008-08-10_21.22.48_468_122_437lo.jpg (http://img216.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87978_SH4Img62008-08-10_21.22.48_468_122_437lo.jpg)http://img162.imagevenue.com/loc936/th_87980_SH4Img52008-08-10_21.24.48_343_122_936lo.jpg (http://img162.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87980_SH4Img52008-08-10_21.24.48_343_122_936lo.jpg)http://img213.imagevenue.com/loc550/th_87987_SH4Img22008-08-10_21.20.25_015_122_550lo.jpg (http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87987_SH4Img22008-08-10_21.20.25_015_122_550lo.jpg)

[swdw]

Could you guys have a look at the video posted here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=919317#post919317 ?

The pitch & Roll of the U-boat, in even moderate seas, is enormous compared to anything seen in Silent Hunter 3 or 4. Is there anything we can do or is it a hardcoding problem?

I say 'we' but I of course really mean 'you' :lol:
HI General.
Thanks, I can see the pitch is alot more than sh3 and 4 and it is indeed possible to make something like that (Wclear have made some nice improvements on the pitch), but the problem is that the modification allso softens the submarines resistance against sea / rolling and then if a plane come by and drop a bomb near the submarine it will tip over or if you are surfacing the boat and make a crash dive while turning the boat will tip over. I know because I tried it when working on the roll pitch in PE4 :hmm:
In addition to the problems mentioned above, there is one other thing you have to consider, and it is something that is very frustrating for modders. what this frustration centers around his people comparing apples to oranges.

The clip you showed is one of a U-boat. If you want to compare that clip to another U-boat of the same type, that's a good idea. However, comparing it to a fleet boat and expecting a fleet boat to act the same way is where the problem arises.

Fleet boats were typically much longer, much larger, much heavier, and had a deeper draft than the most common U-boats used in the Atlantic. This has a direct effect on the boats susceptibility to pitching and rolling. A longer boat will pitch must less because it's not riding up and down the swells. A heavier boat tends to smooth out the effects of the swells. A deeper draft, tends to make the boat punch through the top of the swells rather than ride over the crest.

Now if you pull up some of the old silent service TV shows and make a comparison using those, you then have something to stand on.

However even when comparing those films, unless you know what how the boat was loaded, you can't be too sure if you're getting an accurate comparison with a boat with a full war load out.

On top of all this, there is a limitation in the game engine that I discovered when giving feedback to kriller on version 3.1 the Pacific environments. This has to do with the way the game interprets the depth information and how it references the wave action in the process. The problem here is if your waves get too tall, you will find the boat will not follow the wave troughs or peaks.

Instead, the boat bottoms out at a certain point and moves in a straight line. This happens because of the way the depth information is interpreted in the game in relation to the waves. This is a hardcoded part of the game engine that cannot be changed by any amount of modding.

This is the same problem in Silent Hunter 3 that causes the flying ships with the huge waves in GWX and some of the other mods. You will get the same effect in SH4 if you push the wave height too far with environmental mods.

As another example of what people expect compared to what real life is, I'll offer this. Most SH 4 users seem to want a roller coaster ride with the submarines. Some of this is from watching movies, some of this is from riding on small boats, and some of it is just pure conjecture. On the RFB team, we have a couple of people that were actually on Balao class diesel boats. Their feedback on the pitch and roll as it exists in RFB, is that it is pretty much what they experienced at sea. Turn that around, and people who have never been on a submarine of any kind are telling us that the boats ride too smoothly through the waves. Even when we have told people that the boat characteristics are based on feedback from real diesel boat sailors, we still have people tell us that they think the boats ride too smoothly. Go figure . . .

So I guess my point on this is, if you're going to be making comparisons, make sure you compare apples to apples, and that if you draw conclusions, they're well researched.

Ducimus and I had an in-depth discussion on this on this forum and the UBIsoft forum. Part of it even included pictures to help illustrate the issue. If you do a search, you might be able to find these discussions.

And by the way, if you install PE 3 after RFB, you lose the pitch, roll, and physics characteristics in the RFB subs. The RFB team is going to work with crueler to give you the best of both worlds with PE 4 and future RFB releases

[swdw]

Hi Seeadler and Wclear,

The colours are different in the pacific, so it would be a shame to say that it's to blue or another colour is better than another, the blue in the pacific can be green and dark blue and allmost purple sometimes.

I can't make the mod use all of the colours, so I decided to make something like these pictures from RL:
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/8075/bluepacificed1.th.jpg (http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bluepacificed1.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4: (yes the clouds is modified a little from the PE4 that is out for testing, I couln't resist on trying the "modders challenge" thread ;)
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/15/pacifcbluepe4or9.th.jpg (http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcbluepe4or9.jpg)

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/9637/hires071108n4774b046subwh2.th.jpg (http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hires071108n4774b046subwh2.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4:
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5066/pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.jpg)

Allso the blue should shift in PE4 from a blue in the morning like your pic wclear to a more bright blue like the above picture, when it's midday.

AWWw c'mon- confess. You pasted boats from SH4 into real pictures :arrgh!::D

Just kiddin- but the sea and sky look so good in the comparison shots above, it almost looks like that's what you did. Great work!:cool:

[DrBeast]

A small request to the beta testers:
Can you please post your PC's hardware configuration, GPU driver version and OS, as well as (any) impact on FPS? Cheers!

[The General]

@SWDW

Wow, SWDW sure sucked the fun outta this thread :-? . Instead of coming up with lame metaphors involving fruit why don't YOU have a look at what I said again. Pay particular attention to the part where I ask if it's a hardcoding problem. If you'd read and understood that the first time you would've realised that it makes most of what you've said redundant.

[Will-Rommel]

Hi Seeadler and Wclear,

The colours are different in the pacific, so it would be a shame to say that it's to blue or another colour is better than another, the blue in the pacific can be green and dark blue and allmost purple sometimes.

I can't make the mod use all of the colours, so I decided to make something like these pictures from RL:
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/8075/bluepacificed1.th.jpg (http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bluepacificed1.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4: (yes the clouds is modified a little from the PE4 that is out for testing, I couln't resist on trying the "modders challenge" thread ;)
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/15/pacifcbluepe4or9.th.jpg (http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcbluepe4or9.jpg)

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/9637/hires071108n4774b046subwh2.th.jpg (http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hires071108n4774b046subwh2.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4:
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5066/pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.jpg)

Allso the blue should shift in PE4 from a blue in the morning like your pic wclear to a more bright blue like the above picture, when it's midday.

Hi
please look:

http://img216.imagevenue.com/loc437/th_87978_SH4Img62008-08-10_21.22.48_468_122_437lo.jpg (http://img216.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87978_SH4Img62008-08-10_21.22.48_468_122_437lo.jpg)http://img162.imagevenue.com/loc936/th_87980_SH4Img52008-08-10_21.24.48_343_122_936lo.jpg (http://img162.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87980_SH4Img52008-08-10_21.24.48_343_122_936lo.jpg)http://img213.imagevenue.com/loc550/th_87987_SH4Img22008-08-10_21.20.25_015_122_550lo.jpg (http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87987_SH4Img22008-08-10_21.20.25_015_122_550lo.jpg)

Hi Clear, is that from E4.6 or a new version you are working on?

[Seeadler]

A small request to the beta testers:
Can you please post your PC's hardware configuration beta test runs on:

1. PC:
- 22'' TFT Samsung Syncmaster 226BW
- Core 2 Quad Prozessor Q6850
- GeForce 8800 GTX + ForceWare driver 175.19 64bit
- 4 GB Ram
- Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit

2. PC:
- 19'' CRT Samsung Syncmaster 957P
- AMD 6600+
- GeForce 7800 GTX + ForceWare driver 169.28 XP 32bit
- 2 GB Ram
- Windows XP SP3 32bit

[ReallyDedPoet]

Show off ^^^ :lol::lol:


RDP
Well, I can't show of my skills (because they've gone walk-about), so I have to show off the scenery:rotfl:.

As far as any FPS hits for me, nothing noticeable except the usual (fog, harbors and HUGE convoys). Occasionally the game starts with a low FPS (don't know whether that's mod related or a stock problem) and I alt-tab out and then back into the game and all is well again. Don't have a clue what's going on there, but I don't care, either, since it's so easily solved and doesn't seem to come back once it's solved.

You and I both on your first part :lol::lol::oops:

I meant to post again with regards to the fps, I should have clarified, it is more the usual suspects then PE ( I think ) with regards to fps.


RDP

[swdw]

@ kriller

The pitch and roll look great. I set up some test missions with differing wind conditions. Next thing I do is set the rudder at 10 degrees for a large turn and run the circle at different speeds to see what it looks like.

Nice response to the waves and swells when running into, at angles and with the swells coming broadside at the boat.

Still would prefer a little more grayish tint for the water in heavy cloud cover with rain and fog, but I understand that would mess up the colors in the other weather conditions (which is where most of the game occurs anyway). Considering this, It looks like a good compromise.

Like the seafoam too.

PS, at first I thought the sea was too deep of a blue, but then I realized I hadn't restored the brightness on my monitor after turning it low because of a headache.:damn:

Things looked much better after having the correct monitor settings.;)

[swdw]

@SWDW

Wow, SWDW sure sucked the fun outta this thread :-? . Instead of coming up with lame metaphors involving fruit why don't YOU have a look at what I said again. Pay particular attention to the part where I ask if it's a hardcoding problem. If you'd read and understood that the first time you would've realised that it makes most of what you've said redundant.

All I will say is you asked a 2 part question and got a 2 part answer. If it seemed redundant and sucked the fun out of it for you, I apologize.

[kriller2]

@ kriller

The pitch and roll look great. I set up some test missions with differing wind conditions. Next thing I do is set the rudder at 10 degrees for a large turn and run the circle at different speeds to see what it looks like.

Nice response to the waves and swells when running into, at angles and with the swells coming broadside at the boat.

Still would prefer a little more grayish tint for the water in heavy cloud cover with rain and fog, but I understand that would mess up the colors in the other weather conditions (which is where most of the game occurs anyway). Considering this, It looks like a good compromise.

Like the seafoam too.

PS, at first I thought the sea was too deep of a blue, but then I realized I hadn't restored the brightness on my monitor after turning it low because of a headache.:damn:

Things looked much better after having the correct monitor settings.;)
Hi Swdw,
That's a response im happy to receive! :D , I have been anxious waiting for you and Nuc's response regarding that part of PE4, as the only real experience I have is from sailing small sailing boats :lol:

Regarding the colour of the sea in storm it is possible to remove some of the sun reflecting on the sea, by decreasing the sun light on the waves, but then we will loose some of the detail on the waves.

If you want me to, I can reduce the blue colour some more, but I have seen pictures and videos from the pacific ocean in storm, where the ocean colour is in a blue shade as in PE4, but maybe it's still to much?

About the colours of the sea, I have found out that to make the sea more lifelike, it is nescesary to not use to bright textures for the sea, if I do that the sea becomes dull and some strange reflection-effects appear on the tip of the waves, so yes it does look a little better when turning up the gamma or brightness of the monitor a little ;)

BTW do you have all the bells to max, post process filtering should be set to on as alot of the shader work and colours where developed with that in mind.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Hi k2, will be doing some more testing a little later :yep: Should be able to report back in tonight.


RDP

[kriller2]

Hi Seeadler and Wclear,

The colours are different in the pacific, so it would be a shame to say that it's to blue or another colour is better than another, the blue in the pacific can be green and dark blue and allmost purple sometimes.

I can't make the mod use all of the colours, so I decided to make something like these pictures from RL:
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/8075/bluepacificed1.th.jpg (http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bluepacificed1.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4: (yes the clouds is modified a little from the PE4 that is out for testing, I couln't resist on trying the "modders challenge" thread ;)
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/15/pacifcbluepe4or9.th.jpg (http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcbluepe4or9.jpg)

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/9637/hires071108n4774b046subwh2.th.jpg (http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hires071108n4774b046subwh2.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4:
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5066/pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.jpg)

Allso the blue should shift in PE4 from a blue in the morning like your pic wclear to a more bright blue like the above picture, when it's midday.

Hi
please look:

http://img216.imagevenue.com/loc437/th_87978_SH4Img62008-08-10_21.22.48_468_122_437lo.jpg (http://img216.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87978_SH4Img62008-08-10_21.22.48_468_122_437lo.jpg)http://img162.imagevenue.com/loc936/th_87980_SH4Img52008-08-10_21.24.48_343_122_936lo.jpg (http://img162.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87980_SH4Img52008-08-10_21.24.48_343_122_936lo.jpg)http://img213.imagevenue.com/loc550/th_87987_SH4Img22008-08-10_21.20.25_015_122_550lo.jpg (http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87987_SH4Img22008-08-10_21.20.25_015_122_550lo.jpg)

Hi Wclear,

It looks nice as allways :) Do you want me to take a look at the colour? or shall I send you the latest PE4-scene so you can take a look at a problem I have with the new scene.dat, where the sea looses it's detail when going to TC - I think it's a stock bug which we can't correct :damn: , as the stock SH4 had the same problem, but you just didn't notice it with the lower detail of the waves.

Anyway the solution is to save the game when it happens and reload it again, it's a shame, because if we could make that bug go away ? :cool: we would have solved a problem that is a bit anoying.

[swdw]

Regarding the colour of the sea in storm it is possible to remove some of the sun reflecting on the sea, by decreasing the sun light on the waves, but then we will loose some of the detail on the waves.

If you want me to, I can reduce the blue colour some more, but I have seen pictures and videos from the pacific ocean in storm, where the ocean colour is in a blue shade as in PE4, but maybe it's still to much?

The problem here is you can't duplicate (in game) every possible combination of lighting and cloud cover. The more light that pokes through the bluer it can be. When a ships in a storm, but the edge of the storm is still visible and letting light through you see a lot more blue. Then there are others where it's completely overcast with a thick cloud cover and the sea turns gray and may have a hint of blue in the crests. I think looking for an average is the best you can hope for. on

I should add that I'm referring to a mission where I have 15m winds, Heavy cloud cover, Medium rain, Medium fog.

Will run some testing of the fog strengths (density) under different weather conditions later. Curious to see how light and medium fog look with everything from clear skies to heavy cloud cover.

BTW do you have all the bells to max, post process filtering should be set to on as alot of the shader work and colours where developed with that in mind.
Yes, here they are in case you spot anything I missed.

From the main.cfg
[VIDEO]
Resolution=1280,960,70,22
DynamicShadows=Yes
FullScreen=Yes
Synchronized=No
TextureResolutionHigh=Yes


From GFXsettings.cfg

[Current]
DepthBufferEffects=1
Filters=1
Glare=1
UnderwaterDispMap=1
LightShafts=1
3DShipWakes=1
DetailedWaveRipples=1
UnitNormalMaps=1
ShipCausticsEffects=1
Ship3DDamage=1
CharacterDetail=1
ParticlesDetail=8
TerrainObjectsDensity=8
TerrainObjectsLODSize=8
GammaCorrection=54
VolumetricFog=1

[W_clear]

I am very willing to help you do a good job PE4, you can send PE4 to me to test.:up:

[W_clear]

Hi Seeadler and Wclear,

The colours are different in the pacific, so it would be a shame to say that it's to blue or another colour is better than another, the blue in the pacific can be green and dark blue and allmost purple sometimes.

I can't make the mod use all of the colours, so I decided to make something like these pictures from RL:
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/8075/bluepacificed1.th.jpg (http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bluepacificed1.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4: (yes the clouds is modified a little from the PE4 that is out for testing, I couln't resist on trying the "modders challenge" thread ;)
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/15/pacifcbluepe4or9.th.jpg (http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcbluepe4or9.jpg)

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/9637/hires071108n4774b046subwh2.th.jpg (http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hires071108n4774b046subwh2.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of PE4:
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5066/pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacifcsunrisepe4ph8.jpg)

Allso the blue should shift in PE4 from a blue in the morning like your pic wclear to a more bright blue like the above picture, when it's midday.

Hi
please look:

http://img216.imagevenue.com/loc437/th_87978_SH4Img62008-08-10_21.22.48_468_122_437lo.jpg (http://img216.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87978_SH4Img62008-08-10_21.22.48_468_122_437lo.jpg)http://img162.imagevenue.com/loc936/th_87980_SH4Img52008-08-10_21.24.48_343_122_936lo.jpg (http://img162.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87980_SH4Img52008-08-10_21.24.48_343_122_936lo.jpg)http://img213.imagevenue.com/loc550/th_87987_SH4Img22008-08-10_21.20.25_015_122_550lo.jpg (http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=87987_SH4Img22008-08-10_21.20.25_015_122_550lo.jpg)

Hi Clear, is that from E4.6 or a new version you are working on?

Not E4.6,it's for Killer2 to look.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Hi kriller,

Doing some more testing tonight. Again I have a Nvidia ( XFX )7600GT 256mb VC.
Screens at Standard Resolution.

One thing I noticed was the orange colored spray during sunrise ( thought I took a screen :damn::damn: ), I remember this from before, but that was a while back, thought it was fixed.

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/695/weirdlinestcwm5.jpg

Coming out of TC, the lines go away with a re-load as has been mentioned. To bad it cannot be fixed, but understand why.

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/546/sungt7.jpg

A bit of a sun reflection after sunrise, nothing major.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/2671/greenwaterhn0.jpg

Like the new color of the water.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/9362/earlyej3.jpg

Early morning.

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/7443/middayqz2.jpg

Mid-day.

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/3555/eveningvl7.jpg

Later in the evening. I didn't notice as much color seperation between mid-day and early evening.

Anyway, some more input for you, enjoying giving this a go :yep:


RDP

[Syxx_Killer]

Hi Syxx.
This shouldn't be a problem in the new PE4, because of the new way the sub sits deeper in the ocean and I haven't experienced anything like that while testing PE4, @anyone of the testers, experiencing the above with PE4 ?

After some more testing with a plain stock game, I think it is a bug with the IXD2. I hate to bring these up in this thread, but could someone testing PE4 download my UBM Mission Pack and see if there is still an issue with the IXD2 riding high? If no one wants to download it, simply create a test mission with the sub at -14m and surface. That's the IXD2's periscope depth. If someone downloads the UBM Mission Pack, just run a mission and surface to see if it rides high.

http://files.filefront.com/UBM+Mission+Packrar/;10097438;/fileinfo.html

[ReallyDedPoet]

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/5272/uboatoi7.jpg

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/6286/uboat2lq0.jpg

Same sequence, different angle.

Seems to be fine with the Beta PE, submerged then surfaced, looks good on this end. Using one of your missions :yep:


RDP

[Syxx_Killer]

Awesome! Thanks reallydedpoet for taking the time to test it! Looks like the riding high issue has been resolved. Those screenshots look great, btw! :yep::rock:

[ReallyDedPoet]

No problem, you can thank k2. When this is completed I am sure folks will be
pleased with what he has done :yep:


RDP

[Digital_Trucker]

A small request to the beta testers:
Can you please post your PC's hardware configuration, GPU driver version and OS, as well as (any) impact on FPS? Cheers!
It's a black box with a window and lots of pretty blue lights. Is that the info you needed?:rotfl:

Seriously,

Processor : AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 Dual-Core Black Edition (O/C to 3.0 GHz)
Mobo : GIGABYTE GA-MA770-DS3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX All Solid Capacitor
Memory : CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
Video : EVGA GeForce 8800GS Superclocked 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Driver Version 6.14.11.7519
HD : WD 80GB Sata x 2 + WD 320GB IDE
OS : XP Pro SP2 32 bit
Monitor : Samsung SyncMaster 204BW
Game resolution at 1680x1050@60Hz (vert synch on to avoid tearing)
Every video setting available turned on
No noticeable FPS hit except the occasional game start low FPS solved by ALT-Tab out and back in.

Tomorrow, I'll try to run some real numbers besides "no noticeable" with and without PE and with vert synch off.

[Defiance]

Maybe a good idea to make a note of what AA settings are being used if any

[The General]

I am very willing to help you do a good job PE4, you can send PE4 to me to test.:up:While you're at it, I'll take a copy too ;o)

I have a:

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
2 Gig of DDR2 RAM
NVidia 7600 GT Card

[kriller2]

I am very willing to help you do a good job PE4, you can send PE4 to me to test.:up:

Hi Wclear, sounds good :D I will send you the PE4 now, check your PM.

BTW my rig and graphics settings:

Amd X2 OC 5200 + 2 x 880 (dual) mhz ram.
Radeon 3850 AGP

My FPS from 25 - 45 ( 15 in heavy fog )

SH4 video options:
All options set to the highest.

Graphic card options:
2 x Antialiasing
16 X Anisotrphic filtering, tripple buffer, 24 bit Z - buffer.
and EATM with Alphasharpenbias, Alphasharpenmode and Alphasharpenscale
enabled with ati tray tools, "tweaks" / "advanced tweaks" / "New AA and AF methods" if you have an ATI card try this! it realy makes a difference in SH4

[kriller2]

Hi kriller,

Doing some more testing tonight. Again I have a Nvidia ( XFX )7600GT 256mb VC.
Screens at Standard Resolution.

One thing I noticed was the orange colored spray during sunrise ( thought I took a screen :damn::damn: ), I remember this from before, but that was a while back, thought it was fixed.

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/695/weirdlinestcwm5.jpg

Coming out of TC, the lines go away with a re-load as has been mentioned. To bad it cannot be fixed, but understand why.

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/546/sungt7.jpg

A bit of a sun reflection after sunrise, nothing major.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/2671/greenwaterhn0.jpg

Like the new color of the water.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/9362/earlyej3.jpg

Early morning.

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/7443/middayqz2.jpg

Mid-day.

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/3555/eveningvl7.jpg

Later in the evening. I didn't notice as much color seperation between mid-day and early evening.

Anyway, some more input for you, enjoying giving this a go :yep:


RDP

Hi RDP,
thanks for testing the new PE4 :up:

Yes I see the red colour spray, but thought it was being removed :hmm: so will look into why this happens.

BTW do you have the post process filters on?

[AVGWarhawk]

Looks excellent Kriller. I like the new ocean colors. I just got back from the ocean all be it the Atlantic I was swimming in that has a greener color then the area of patrol in the PTO so that not withstanding, it looks very real. Specifically the black night time ocean color. My girls and I went to the beaches at night in search of sand sharks. The ocean is very black in color just as you have it. Also, the water action looks real as well. The new underwater color is done well. I see you left some floating particles in the water. Thanks! Removing the particles in the water is the wrong way to go IMO. The horizon is excellent in all the views. (naked eye, binocs and TBT). My all time favorite shot is the sub just under the surface. With the water reflection and new water action, it is fantastic. I have not seen clouds yet but I'm sure they are good as PE3 they were good. BTW, I loaded up RFB and RSRD after the beta of yours. No ill effects notices. All seems in order. More testing later:D

Oops, one more thing. The water motion effect lost after high TC. I only go to 2048 TC as my highest. I did not run into the water motion effect being lost as a result. So, perhaps 2048 is the highest TC without losing the water effect.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Yes I see the red colour spray, but thought it was being removed :hmm: so will look into why this happens.

BTW do you have the post process filters on?
Yeah I do, a few of those pics look a little grainy don't they, especially the submergerd one,
not sure why :hmm: It seems to occur in certain situations, or times in the day ( early morning, late evening ).

Edit: I am wondering if running at SR has anything to do with it.


RDP

[kriller2]

Yes I see the red colour spray, but thought it was being removed :hmm: so will look into why this happens.

BTW do you have the post process filters on?
Yeah I do, a few of those pics look a little grainy don't they, especially the submergerd one,
not sure why :hmm: It seems to occur in certain situations, or times in the day ( early morning, late evening ).

Edit: I am wondering if running at SR has anything to do with it.


RDP

Yes they look a little grainy as if SH4 is runnning in a lower colour resolution or something :hmm: what is your resolution and graphics setting?

...and what is SR? :lol:

[ReallyDedPoet]

Yes I see the red colour spray, but thought it was being removed :hmm: so will look into why this happens.

BTW do you have the post process filters on?
Yeah I do, a few of those pics look a little grainy don't they, especially the submergerd one,
not sure why :hmm: It seems to occur in certain situations, or times in the day ( early morning, late evening ).

Edit: I am wondering if running at SR has anything to do with it.


RDP
Yes they look a little grainy as if SH4 is runnning in a lower colour resolution or something :hmm: what is your resolution and graphics setting?

...and what is SR? :lol:
1024x768 or Standard Res. for my SH4 :) With my current system that is all I can run. Planning to upgrade the CPU, VC and Ram ( adding another gig or two ) maybe later this year. I think AA and AF are both at x4.


RDP

[swdw]

Looks excellent Kriller. I like the new ocean colors. I just got back from the ocean all be it the Atlantic I was swimming in that has a greener color then the area of patrol in the PTO so that not withstanding, it looks very real. Specifically the black night time ocean color.
The comment on night time color brings up something I was thinking about. In the past, people have asked for things to be lightened up at night so they can see ships, etc.

For the heck of it, I tried running at night with the room lights off using darker night colors and you know what- just like real life, it made a huge difference in the ability to see objects (my computer is in a basement room so it can get pretty dark). I think the problem with the night colors causing spotting issues is they are very realistic, and room light washes out the ciew and makes it appear even darker. Because people want to do silly things like see their keyboards :D, it makes it difficult to see things on the screen with the lights on.

Not that this had anything to do with all the extra buttons added to the RFB order bar (looking at ceiling and whistling nonchalantly).

Anyway, this may be something that needs to be taken into consideration for the night colors as turning off all the lights in a family room may not go over well with the rest of the family.:doh:

[kriller2]

Yes I see the red colour spray, but thought it was being removed :hmm: so will look into why this happens.

BTW do you have the post process filters on?
Yeah I do, a few of those pics look a little grainy don't they, especially the submergerd one,
not sure why :hmm: It seems to occur in certain situations, or times in the day ( early morning, late evening ).

Edit: I am wondering if running at SR has anything to do with it.


RDP
Yes they look a little grainy as if SH4 is runnning in a lower colour resolution or something :hmm: what is your resolution and graphics setting?

...and what is SR? :lol:
1024x768 or SR for the my SH4 :) With my current system that is all I can run. Planning to upgrade the CPU, VC and Ram ( adding another gig or two ) maybe later this year. I think AA and AF are both at x4.


RDP

Okay, now I see what you mean with SR, it's a good thing to test the mod with lower resolution allso :yep:

if you have ok CPU (2 ghz ?) you should consider upgrading the graphics card as the first thing and then later on add a new cpu and ram, the graphics card is the main reason for not being able to run games in a higher resolution.

BTW have you experienced better performance with PE4 than PE 3.3 ? - because I have made the sky texture which sorrounds the player in a lower resolution 1024 x 512 instead of 2048 x 1024.

EDIT: and how is the indoor hockey going ? ;)

[kriller2]

Looks excellent Kriller. I like the new ocean colors. I just got back from the ocean all be it the Atlantic I was swimming in that has a greener color then the area of patrol in the PTO so that not withstanding, it looks very real. Specifically the black night time ocean color.
The comment on night time color brings up something I was thinking about. In the past, people have asked for things to be lightened up at night so they can see ships, etc.

For the heck of it, I tried running at night with the room lights off using darker night colors and you know what- just like real life, it made a huge difference in the ability to see objects (my computer is in a basement room so it can get pretty dark). I think the problem with the night colors causing spotting issues is they are very realistic, and room light washes out the ciew and makes it appear even darker. Because people want to do silly things like see their keyboards :D, it makes it difficult to see things on the screen with the lights on.

Not that this had anything to do with all the extra buttons added to the RFB order bar (looking at ceiling and whistling nonchalantly).

Anyway, this may be something that needs to be taken into consideration for the night colors as turning off all the lights in a family room may not go over well with the rest of the family.:doh:

Yes! now I finaly have an excuse to my wife to turn all the lights down and wearing a head lamp so I can see the keyboard when I play Silent hunter 4 (only turn it on when I absolutely need to offcause :rotfl: ) , it's good to hear you like the night colours swdw :up: so that is why there are so many buttons in RFB :yep:

BTW have you been experiencing any problems running pe4 with RFB?

[ReallyDedPoet]

Yes I see the red colour spray, but thought it was being removed :hmm: so will look into why this happens.

BTW do you have the post process filters on?
Yeah I do, a few of those pics look a little grainy don't they, especially the submergerd one,
not sure why :hmm: It seems to occur in certain situations, or times in the day ( early morning, late evening ).

Edit: I am wondering if running at SR has anything to do with it.


RDP
Yes they look a little grainy as if SH4 is runnning in a lower colour resolution or something :hmm: what is your resolution and graphics setting?

...and what is SR? :lol:
1024x768 or SR for the my SH4 :) With my current system that is all I can run. Planning to upgrade the CPU, VC and Ram ( adding another gig or two ) maybe later this year. I think AA and AF are both at x4.


RDP
Okay, now I see what you mean with SR, it's a good thing to test the mod with lower resolution allso :yep:

if you have ok CPU (2 ghz ?) you should consider upgrading the graphics card as the first thing and then later on add a new cpu and ram, the graphics card is the main reason for not being able to run games in a higher resolution.

BTW have you experienced better performance with PE4 than PE 3.3 ? - because I have made the sky texture which sorrounds the player in a lower resolution 1024 x 512 instead of 2048 x 1024.

EDIT: and how is the indoor hockey going ? ;)
CPU is fine, 3.2ghz for the time being. But as mentioned plan to upgrade hopefully later this year, though home renovations and a new 42" LCD TV and Home Theatre may put a damper on that :oops: One question, would an older LCD Monitor affect video quality much. Edit: Just hooked up an older monitor and now running the game at Max Res with no slow-downs, it was that old LCD at least for res.

Yeah, indoor hockey with the boys is non-stop, and actually playing on the ice this summer with about 20 lads. Ahhhh, going to the rink in the summer, nice way to get cheap air conditioning, plus the beer is awesome :yep::D

Edit: I'll report back on the performance question later.


RDP

[Digital_Trucker]

These benchmarks were done with the following settings in nVidia control panel:

Anistropic : 16x
Gamma corr : off
AA mode : Override
AA : 8x Multisampling
Vsynch off
Mid ocean test done at high noon, Pearl Harbor done at 8 AM
No weather = no wind, no fog, no preciptation, no clouds
heavy weather = highest settings for all of above

User vessel only mid ocean:

____________________No weather________Heavy weather____
________________ w/o PE _____ w PE ____ w/o PE ____ w PE
Bridge cam............. 63 ............... 72 .......... 39 ........... 47 ....yes those numbers are in correct order
External cam.......... 56 ............... 63 .......... 35 ........... 39 ...and so are these



Pearl Harbor :


____________________No weather________Heavy weather____
________________ w/o PE _____ w PE ____ w/o PE ____ w PE
Bridge cam............. 28 ............... 29 .......... 34 ........... 30
External cam.......... 28 ............... 27 .......... 33 ........... 30
Free cam aimed at.. 16 ............... 16 .......... 18 ........... 16
buildings in harbor

Will try to do clear day different cloud settings later

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice report DT, great break-down there :yep::up:


RDP

[Ishigami]

If you got an HD-TV why not use this?

I’m using my 42” FHD-TV to play.

Resolution: 1920x1080
Game Detail Settings: Max. Details
Visual Mod: PE 3.3

AA: 16xQ
AF: 16x
Transparent AA: Supersampling
Filter Quality: High Quality

Slightly compressed Screenshot (2MB): http://server.imageparadise.net/~web/image/pics/6449f39580480cea068a94ba0fcfec3d.png


FPS are usually around 30~60 (V-Sync is on) on my PC: 8800GTX, EE6600, 4GB DDR2-800

[Digital_Trucker]

Nice report DT, great break-down there :yep::up:


RDP
'Preciate it. :D

Here's the "rest of the story" (clouds and wind)

Clouds (all from the bridge):

__________ w/o PE __ w PE
Medium........ 57 ......... 68
Heavy.......... 57 ........ 45


Wind (all from free cam):

__________ w/o PE __ w PE
0................. 48 .........58
5................. 48 .........55
10............... 46 .........55
15............... 46 .........55

Going back to double check the cloud figures. Will edit if anything comes out differently.
Edit : Nope I wasn't imagining it, those numbers check out.

[kriller2]

Nice report DT, great break-down there :yep::up:


RDP
'Preciate it. :D

Here's the "rest of the story" (clouds and wind)

Clouds (all from the bridge):

__________ w/o PE __ w PE
Medium........ 57 ......... 68
Heavy.......... 57 ........ 45


Wind (all from free cam):

__________ w/o PE __ w PE
0................. 48 .........58
5................. 48 .........55
10............... 46 .........55
15............... 46 .........55

Going back to double check the cloud figures. Will edit if anything comes out differently.

Nice DT:up: This graph represents how the game runs with and without PE4 and you can see that sometime PE4 runs better than stock SH4, I think that the optimization I did with resizing some textures and save them in a better DX format doest the trick, but allso I have removed the clouds-shadows, since they were wrong made by the devs, which mean that you could see a shadow from the clouds on the sea in stock SH4, but if you watched closely it had a very weird shape not matching with the clouds! :o After examining it more closely with Seeadler we found out that the devs simply have "forgot" to make a vertex shader for the clouds, instead they made a pixel shader, so there is no chance to get it working the right way.

Allso those "cloud shadows" were causing some of the black sea when cloudy and windy..

Phew! that was a long story, but now you know ;)

[Digital_Trucker]

Yay, I learned something new today, I can quit thinking for the rest of the day:rotfl:

Thanks for sharing some of the "inner workings". It's good to know these things. Well, it's good to know for folks like me who have lots of spare room in their heads to fill up:88).

[DeepIron]

I just wanted to chime in here... I noticed an fps increase of 10-15% using PE3.x over the 'stock" settings as well. Very cool! Improved visuals with an attending increase in fps to enjoy them with! :up::up:

[AVGWarhawk]

Looks excellent Kriller. I like the new ocean colors. I just got back from the ocean all be it the Atlantic I was swimming in that has a greener color then the area of patrol in the PTO so that not withstanding, it looks very real. Specifically the black night time ocean color.
The comment on night time color brings up something I was thinking about. In the past, people have asked for things to be lightened up at night so they can see ships, etc.

For the heck of it, I tried running at night with the room lights off using darker night colors and you know what- just like real life, it made a huge difference in the ability to see objects (my computer is in a basement room so it can get pretty dark). I think the problem with the night colors causing spotting issues is they are very realistic, and room light washes out the ciew and makes it appear even darker. Because people want to do silly things like see their keyboards :D, it makes it difficult to see things on the screen with the lights on.

Not that this had anything to do with all the extra buttons added to the RFB order bar (looking at ceiling and whistling nonchalantly).

Anyway, this may be something that needs to be taken into consideration for the night colors as turning off all the lights in a family room may not go over well with the rest of the family.:doh:


Yep, I play with very little light. If I play in the day time I have the shades drawn. I can not play with any type of background lighting because I can not see ships when it is night time in the game. Also, my wife says I do my best work in the dark.

Anyway, I forgot to mention my FPS went up a notch or two with this beta.

[AVGWarhawk]

Looks excellent Kriller. I like the new ocean colors. I just got back from the ocean all be it the Atlantic I was swimming in that has a greener color then the area of patrol in the PTO so that not withstanding, it looks very real. Specifically the black night time ocean color.
The comment on night time color brings up something I was thinking about. In the past, people have asked for things to be lightened up at night so they can see ships, etc.

For the heck of it, I tried running at night with the room lights off using darker night colors and you know what- just like real life, it made a huge difference in the ability to see objects (my computer is in a basement room so it can get pretty dark). I think the problem with the night colors causing spotting issues is they are very realistic, and room light washes out the ciew and makes it appear even darker. Because people want to do silly things like see their keyboards :D, it makes it difficult to see things on the screen with the lights on.

Not that this had anything to do with all the extra buttons added to the RFB order bar (looking at ceiling and whistling nonchalantly).

Anyway, this may be something that needs to be taken into consideration for the night colors as turning off all the lights in a family room may not go over well with the rest of the family.:doh:

Yes! now I finaly have an excuse to my wife to turn all the lights down and wearing a head lamp so I can see the keyboard when I play Silent hunter 4 (only turn it on when I absolutely need to offcause :rotfl: ) , it's good to hear you like the night colours swdw :up: so that is why there are so many buttons in RFB :yep:

BTW have you been experiencing any problems running pe4 with RFB?


No need for a head lamp to see the keyboard. Get one that lights up! I have a Saitek keyboard that has three different colors of light to choose and it has a reostat to dim the board lights if need be. I keep my board set to red light. All lights off around me. No problem :up:

PE 4 seems to run fun with RFB.

[Peto]

Red LED lights work great :yep:. Until the cops show up asking what I'm doing :nope:.

:lol:

[LukeFF]

No need for a head lamp to see the keyboard. Get one that lights up! I have a Saitek keyboard that has three different colors of light to choose and it has a reostat to dim the board lights if need be. I keep my board set to red light. All lights off around me. No problem :up:

I have the similar Logitech G15 with the blue lights. Wouldn't want any other keyboard, that's for sure! It's perfect for gaming, no matter what the game is.

[Nisgeis]

Kriller, I know this is too late for the initial release, but do you have any requests for particle effects changes. I want to re-do the Marge Simpson oil fire, but if you'd like anything else done as well then just let me know.

That goes to everyone else as well. I changed the depth charge effect for PE 3, is it better, or needs more adjustment? Would anyone like to see any new special effects included in PE 4.1?

Nisgeis.

[kriller2]

Roger that!

I haven't been on holiday though, perhaps you're thinking of Dr.Beast, who seems to be on eternal holiday :D.

EDIT: Oh yeah and why didn't you just PM me, that wouldn't have bored the 50 people who have already read this. Of course, I could have replied in a PM, so I'm just as silly :-)

Hi Nisgeis, welcome back. That doesn't sound nice about the redundancy process, that's a nerve wrecking process, we had a similar one for some years ago.

Well I was trying to make some extra attention for you ;), I have some ideas I would like you to take a look at, check your pm in sec. and it's not to late, the PE4 mod is under alpha testing at the moment, so there is still room for some extra eyecandy.

[kriller2]

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/420/watertransparencyhz2.th.jpg (http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?image=watertransparencyhz2.jpg)

This is WIP I think I have found a way to make the water more transparent, but need some help make it work so that you can't see the bottom 200 m down! :o allso right now it's only around the camera the transparency works so don't get your hopes high, im not a coder.. maybe it can't be done :hmm: , but is it a good idea?

[TDK1044]

Personal opinion; the quality of your work is in the fact that you've managed to create a much more realistic and stunning looking environment than the stock game ever offered. I think if you start to add 'artistic license' to your mod by creating unrealistic, artificial transparency, however pretty it is, the essence of the mod will be lost. :D

[AVGWarhawk]

The more transparent water in the shallows does look great Kriller but is all the time and effort for this worth the payoff in the end? That is a question you have to answer yourself. Your latest effort I'm testing is just terrific.

[DrBeast]

You know, I look at the FPS reported, and the hardware configuration of the users, and I'm pretty baffled. Even after my computer upgrade, my FPS rate is nowhere near the ones reported by most users, except maybe RDP.

My rig:

Intel C2D E8200 2.66GHz o/ced to 3 GHz
2x1 GB Kingston DDR2 RAM @ 800MHz (o/ced to 913 along with the CPU)
Asus P5K Mainboard
WD 320GB SATA2 Hard Disk with 16MB buffer
Asus EAH3450 PCI-E 256MB DDR3 graphics card, slightly o/ced, running on either latest Omega or ATI drivers (released May/June, that was the last time I played SH4)
Samsung DFX753 (I think?) 17in CRT monitor
Windoze XP Pro Greek 32-bit

Game settings:

All the bells & whistles, resolution 1024x768 @ 85Hz, NO V-sync (makes for a VERY choppy ride unless FPS is already around 85)

Graphics card settings:

Range from no AA/AF to 8xAA/16xAF, using ATi Tray Tools

I can honestly say, I've never, EVER seen any higher FPS rate than 50-55, either on vanilla game (1.4) or with PE (I was a beta tester of 3, so I've seen quite a few versions of it), and regardless of AA/AF settings. Foggy conditions were extremely taxing, as is the general consensus (dropped to 18-20 FPS with PE3 and 4xAA/8xAF, but still playable), but the most baffling thing, to which a permanent solution was never found, was a random and EXTREME slowdown whenever a ship was hit...and I'm talking about an FPS drop from 30-35 to 6-8! Kriller2 must be groaning as he's reading this, Gods know I nagged his ears off with this problem, and everytime we *thought* we had found a solution, it would randomly reappear! The only short-term solution which worked was disabling Ship 3D Damage whenever it occured, and until the stricken ship had fully disappeared. This glitch happened regardless of mods in use and graphics card settings, and I'm suspecting either a graphics card or driver problem...or even greek Windoze!

Once I'm back home (yup, still using netcafes to get in touch with you guys!) and the obstacle of moving has been overcome, I'm gonna format the hard drive and install English Windoze and, of course, the newest set of drivers available, either ATI or Omega. I really can't wait for PE4, this vacation is starting to bore the hell out of me! :p

[kriller2]

Hi AvgHawk,
I think it would be nice if we could make only the shallows have more transparency, but you are right it is alot of work as it would probaly mean alot of work on the way the shaders work, so I have PM'ed Nisgeis what he thinks about it.

btw. thank you for the nice review you gave PE4 some posts back :up: I will look for a new keyboard soon :)

@Dr. Beasts, oh no don't mention the dreaded "¤#"¤" bug with the slowdowns :damn: I had forgot about it!, but still having the problem when a torpedo hits the ship, but it seems pe4 produces a smaller fps hit?, maybe it's because of the lower resolution sky texture.

EDIT: have anyone noticed the above issue testing PE4 btw?

Enjoy the "vacation", we can shift places if you like? you could take my place and I could go to greece ? :rotfl: just kiding, I like the rainy europe :88)

[DrBeast]

@Dr. Beasts, oh no don't mention the dreaded "¤#"¤" bug with the slowdowns :damn: I had forgot about it!, but still having the problem when a torpedo hits the ship, but it seems pe4 produces a smaller fps hit?, maybe it's because of the lower resolution sky texture.

EDIT: have anyone noticed the above issue testing PE4 btw?

Enjoy the "vacation", we can shift places if you like? you could take my place and I could go to greece ? :rotfl: just kiding, I like the rainy europe :88)

Things like lower-res sky and sea textures (especially foam) do help, but once the performance hit happens, it happens! Quite a mystery, perplexed by the randomness of its occurence.

Hey, I'll take cool weather over this bloody heat anytime! I may be Greek, but I was not built for greek climates! I much prefer the cool temperatures of Scandinavia ;)

[Syxx_Killer]

Hi AvgHawk,
I think it would be nice if we could make only the shallows have more transparency, but you are right it is alot of work as it would probaly mean alot of work on the way the shaders work, so I have PM'ed Nisgeis what he thinks about it.


I know it must be a lot of work, but in the end if it could be accomplished it would truly be epic. Something like that would take PE to a whole new level. Anyway, keep up the great work! :rock:

[Will-Rommel]

Water transparency is interesting, but only if it still have a blue color. White water doesnt look appealing.

[Nisgeis]

The more transparent water in the shallows does look great Kriller but is all the time and effort for this worth the payoff in the end? That is a question you have to answer yourself.

We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

[Nisgeis]

Well, I loaded up SH4 for the first time in a couple of months and I've spent a good few hours tonight looking at the shader that controls the water from above. The transparency is presented as a rendered refracted texture available for use in the pixel shader. There are a few oddities with it though. If the sea is too deep then the game engine doesn't draw the sea floor, so the refracted light appeard as a black section.

The 'depth' of each pixel is really the amount of water between your eye and the sea bed, so that's why you can see your sub from directly above sometimes, but moving to the side makes it disappear. At the moment, the depth you can see your sub from is about 20m, or 60 feet. Kriller would like it so that you can see the sub through 60m, or 180 feet of water.

I think this is possible to alter and I think it would be a good thing, as I always felt that the water was slightly too murky.

The effect works by blending the refracted texture with the water colour texture, so the effect will appear clear with objects just under the surface and will get more and more blue in it the deeper the object goes, as the blending is a linear interpolation between the refracted colour and the surface colour, so yes it will have a blue shift in it, just like real water. Bluer the deeper the object is.

At the moment, I have worked out what everyone does, but it's a matter of what scale things are. I know which variable has the water depth information in, but I don't know what values mean what in it. Is 400 massively large, or laughably small? It's quite hard to test when you can't see what values the variables passed have!

I am hopeful though that I can get it working.

[kriller2]

HI Nisgeis, that's fantastic news, I wasn't sure if this would be possible, nice if you can make a thing that have annoyed me for quite some time, a submarine can be seen very deep in the water when looking at it from above, especialy in the pacific if the water is calm you should be able to see a submerged submarine from f.ex. 30 - 60 meter.

I know the feeling when yo know what to do, but can't quite get it right, but keep up the great work! :rock:

[ReallyDedPoet]

a submarine can be seen very deep in the water when looking at it from above, especialy in the pacific if the water is calm you should be able to see a submerged submarine from f.ex. 30 - 60 meter.



Ducimus models this well with Trigger, at least gameplay wise, be nice to see the graphics match this, if they look realistic that is :yep:


RDP

[DeepIron]

Guys, 60M would be exceptional visibility with an almost completely calm surface, no clouds and fairly deep water as in open ocean. Even a slight wind like a Force 1 (causes small ripples) can reduce visibility by up to 40% from the surface...

I've been a scuba diver for 20+ years and only experienced visibility approaching 60M only a few times from the surface on exceptionally calm days with little plankton bloom. Visibility is even worse as you get closer to the coastal areas due to increased turbidity from along shore currents and sediment run off from land masses.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the visibility model closer to realistic but again, I think you estimate is a little optimistic.

Cheers!

[AVGWarhawk]

The more transparent water in the shallows does look great Kriller but is all the time and effort for this worth the payoff in the end? That is a question you have to answer yourself.

We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

A good challenge is always good for the soul:up: Conquering that challenge is even better!

[Orion2012]

Does anyone know if it's possible to edit the volumetric fogs effects or the shader used?? I'm tired of having a ghost crew, and have 3 weeks vacation so I thought I might play around with it to see if it can be remeded.

[W_clear]

I have just finished testing PE4, the whole, very good.I believe PE4 that most of people will be like.

[W_clear]

I think the color of the underwater PE4 unrealistic. These different times of the screen shot for you reference.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9:00 12:00 15:00
http://img192.imagevenue.com/loc585/th_09330_SH4Img72008-08-14_14.22.18_796_122_585lo.jpg (http://img192.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09330_SH4Img72008-08-14_14.22.18_796_122_585lo.jpg)http://img237.imagevenue.com/loc435/th_09334_SH4Img02008-08-14_14.22.57_046_122_435lo.jpg (http://img237.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09334_SH4Img02008-08-14_14.22.57_046_122_435lo.jpg)http://img12.imagevenue.com/loc799/th_09336_SH4Img92008-08-14_14.24.19_468_122_799lo.jpg (http://img12.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09336_SH4Img92008-08-14_14.24.19_468_122_799lo.jpg)

17:00 18:00
http://img109.imagevenue.com/loc955/th_09345_SH4Img22008-08-14_14.24.37_625_122_955lo.jpg (http://img109.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09345_SH4Img22008-08-14_14.24.37_625_122_955lo.jpg)http://img193.imagevenue.com/loc182/th_09350_SH4Img72008-08-14_14.25.03_546_122_182lo.jpg (http://img193.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09350_SH4Img72008-08-14_14.25.03_546_122_182lo.jpg)

[Nisgeis]

Guys, 60M would be exceptional visibility with an almost completely calm surface, no clouds and fairly deep water as in open ocean. Even a slight wind like a Force 1 (causes small ripples) can reduce visibility by up to 40% from the surface...


The way the engine builds up what you see is to take all the different elements of the scene and layer them all together, so for example you have the different parts that make up the water: refraction layer, which is everything crystal clear through the water; the reflection layer, which is everything that is reflected, like the sky; the foam layer; the wake layer; the Fog layer; there's a specular highlight part and a sun diffuse colour part. All of these parts are blended together using linear interpolation to adjust the colour of the water. So at 60 meters, although the sub would be just visible, there would be the reflection and specular highlights on top of the refracted underwtaer part, all interfering with what you can see, so it wouldn't be a crystal clear picture at 60m, it would be barely visible.

But if it looks wrong, we can change it, after all the hardest part is getting it to change and work, after that it's easy :D .

[kriller2]

I think the color of the underwater PE4 unrealistic. These different times of the screen shot for you reference.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9:00 12:00 15:00
http://img192.imagevenue.com/loc585/th_09330_SH4Img72008-08-14_14.22.18_796_122_585lo.jpg (http://img192.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09330_SH4Img72008-08-14_14.22.18_796_122_585lo.jpg)http://img237.imagevenue.com/loc435/th_09334_SH4Img02008-08-14_14.22.57_046_122_435lo.jpg (http://img237.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09334_SH4Img02008-08-14_14.22.57_046_122_435lo.jpg)http://img12.imagevenue.com/loc799/th_09336_SH4Img92008-08-14_14.24.19_468_122_799lo.jpg (http://img12.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09336_SH4Img92008-08-14_14.24.19_468_122_799lo.jpg)

17:00 18:00
http://img109.imagevenue.com/loc955/th_09345_SH4Img22008-08-14_14.24.37_625_122_955lo.jpg (http://img109.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09345_SH4Img22008-08-14_14.24.37_625_122_955lo.jpg)http://img193.imagevenue.com/loc182/th_09350_SH4Img72008-08-14_14.25.03_546_122_182lo.jpg (http://img193.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09350_SH4Img72008-08-14_14.25.03_546_122_182lo.jpg)

Hi Wclear, thanks for testing. Your colours looks strange, there should be a green light from the above so that the submarine get alot more green reflecting.

Have you enabled lightshafts and post process filtering? - this is important to see the new effects :hmm:
Allso you should enable the "#3_PE4_c_Submarine_Stock_caustics_rolllpitch_deepe r" to see the new underwater bubbles from the submarine.

BTW: here is my inspiration for the underwater part of the PE4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3OGS7_qiSA&feature=related

[kriller2]

I have just finished testing PE4, the whole, very good.I believe PE4 that most of people will be like.

Thanks my friend, if not people have a very good alternative in EE 4.7.

[AVGWarhawk]

Kriller, I had clouds on my last patrol. I like'em! The rough seas look great and my S class did not do the flying sub. It all looks great.

[vickers03]

@Nisgeis
do you know why some objects can't be seen through the transparent water, especially torpedos and plants?
:hmm:

[W_clear]

PE4 has a greatest strengths ,it is ------- compressed time does not affect the shape of the waves.:up:

[Nisgeis]

@Nisgeis
do you know why some objects can't be seen through the transparent water, especially torpedos and plants?
:hmm:

I never really thought about it, so haven't looked. The game engine knows when the camera is underwater or not and uses two sets of rendering techniques for above and below water. The above water renderer renders a refracted scene of what is below the surface, plus the waves, plus the ships on the surface. I would imagine that the above water renderer knows not to render objects with a negative height origin, simply to reduce the load. Even rocks that should stick up out of the water are not rendered above the surafce, so there is some sort of culling going on.

Ships are rendered on the refracted scene, so some objects are drawn if they are below the surface. The only difference between the ships and the rocks is that there are different controllers on them in the .dat and .sim files etc to tell the game what to do with them. As the engine renders submarines and ships, but not torpedoes, plants and rocks, there must be a controller responsible for whether the object is drawn if it is underwater. My best guess would be that it was the unit_ship and unit_submarine controllers.

I'll have a look tonight, if I finish the transparency. Try adding the unit_ship controller to the torpedo and see what happens. Don't balme me if you get a blue screen of death though :D .

[Nisgeis]

OK, Kriller's got the code for the increased transparency mod to try. I've been having terrible trouble with SH4 1.5 not responding to what nHancer is telling it to do. I've been getting the white outline round the submerged parts of the submarine that I have seen other people post about. I can only assume this is because SH4 is using its poor graphics choices, whilst ignoring nHancer - e.g. no anti aliassing. As I'm getting this problem in stock, I'm going to assume that the code I have given Kriller, which also gives me a problem, will be alright on his, if he doesn't get the white outline on stock, like I do.

Anyone else get the white outline on submerged parts? Anyone have a fix? As far as I rememeber, 1.4 didn't do this.

[DeepIron]

FWIW, I abandoned nHancer and just favor using the nVidia control panel. I don't know why, but I was getting some artifacts and glitchy framerates when I tweaked with nHancer. Just setting the graphics parameters using the control panel, along with whatever you guys are doing to the shaders and texture files is getting me good frame rates (around 30-32 fps, stock was 21-25 fps) on the 7600GS AGP 256M card I use. :up:

[Syxx_Killer]

Anyone else get the white outline on submerged parts? Anyone have a fix? As far as I rememeber, 1.4 didn't do this.

I have been experiencing that glitch since 1.4 stock. I still get those white lines with PE and EE. It only seems to happen when in shallow water. I don't notice the lines in deep water.

[kriller2]

ship from above water:
http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/421/pe4newtransparencyfromagv6.th.jpg (http://img353.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4newtransparencyfromagv6.jpg)

Sub from above water high and looking down, the sub is at 120 ft on this picture:
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/9237/pe4newtransparencyfromaxp4.th.jpg (http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4newtransparencyfromaxp4.jpg)

Sub seen from the periscope:
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/2271/pe4newtransparencyvb1.th.jpg (http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4newtransparencyvb1.jpg)

[Nisgeis]

Anyone else get the white outline on submerged parts? Anyone have a fix? As far as I rememeber, 1.4 didn't do this.
I have been experiencing that glitch since 1.4 stock. I still get those white lines with PE and EE. It only seems to happen when in shallow water. I don't notice the lines in deep water.

Thanks for the feedback DeepIron and Syxx_Killer.

Stupid Silent Hunter. Now I'm going to have to stay sober long enough to find a fix.

Kriller says that it's a stock thing too. Now, whilst it probably isn't a secret that I am probably the MOST unobservant person in the SH community, which is a bit worrying, seeing as I work mainly on graphics, but does everyone have this problem with the white lines on the side closest to the camera?

I could perhaps find a fix, if it's a stock problem.

[Nisgeis]

Sub from above water high and looking down, the sub is at 120 ft on this picture:
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/9237/pe4newtransparencyfromaxp4.th.jpg (http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4newtransparencyfromaxp4.jpg)


To me, that just looks awful with the white pixels. Is that stock? I rellay don't remember ever seeing it like that, except for SH 1.5.

[kriller2]

Sub from above water high and looking down, the sub is at 120 ft on this picture:
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/9237/pe4newtransparencyfromaxp4.th.jpg (http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4newtransparencyfromaxp4.jpg)


To me, that just looks awful with the white pixels. Is that stock? I rellay don't remember ever seeing it like that, except for SH 1.5.

Yes it's a shame, I have allways had this :hmm: If you can make this bug go away alot of people would be very happy...

[Syxx_Killer]

Sub from above water high and looking down, the sub is at 120 ft on this picture:
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/9237/pe4newtransparencyfromaxp4.th.jpg (http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4newtransparencyfromaxp4.jpg)

To me, that just looks awful with the white pixels. Is that stock? I rellay don't remember ever seeing it like that, except for SH 1.5.
Yes it's a shame, I have allways had this :hmm: If you can make this bug go away alot of people would be very happy...
I forgot to mention that I get the white lines while submerged no matter what the depth of water is. If that issue could be fixed I would be the happiest person on the forums! :lol: It has always drove me crazy. :dead:

[swdw]

BTW have you been experiencing any problems running pe4 with RFB?

Going through the files, when the next RFB release comes out, we'll have to release a set of subs for use with PE4.

There are a number of modifications to the boats beyond graphics that will be lost. If these changes are lost, then it will mess up the play balance in RFB and cause a number of the new damage mods and others to be lost.

So I'm going to work on combining the changes so there will be a folder with the combined files that can be used with PE4.

Haven't checked out any other possible confilcts yet.

[Nisgeis]

I forgot to mention that I get the white lines while submerged no matter what the depth of water is. If that issue could be fixed I would be the happiest person on the forums! :lol: It has always drove me crazy. :dead:

Is that no matter what the depth of water under the sub was? The lines I have seen are only visible between 0 and 25 m (depth os the submarine) in the stock game, where you can still see the submerged submarine and the lines are always on the side that the camera is on. E.G. if the camera is on the starboard side of the sub, the starboard parts of the sub will have a white outline, but the port side will not. It's quite pronounced around the railings. is that what everyone else sees? I swear I am the most un-observant person ever.

[Syxx_Killer]

Yes, that is what I am seeing. In shallow water if I am surfaced, I will see white lines around the bottom half of the sub, especially the stern areas. When submerged near the surface where I can see the sub with the camera there will be those white lines, mostly around the railings like you mentioned.

On a similar subject, is it possible to get rid of that light outline around the sub that appears at night (as well as other ships)? I think this was introduced with 1.4 actually. That has been annoying me as bad as the white lines mentioned above.

[frenzied]

Try downloading Nvida Tray (AKA NVTray), and using it to set your AA. It's a small application that sits in your taskbar and lets you manually set the basic things, like level of AA, AF, etc., without opening the Nvidia control panel. I've found that setting a profile in the Nvidia control panel for SH4 does nothing, but forcing AA with NVTray makes a big difference.

http://nvtweak.laptopvideo2go.com/

[extraterrestrial]

a submarine can be seen very deep in the water when looking at it from above, especialy in the pacific if the water is calm you should be able to see a submerged submarine from f.ex. 30 - 60 meter. Hm
Guys, 60M would be exceptional visibility with an almost completely calm surface, no clouds and fairly deep water as in open ocean. Even a slight wind like a Force 1 (causes small ripples) can reduce visibility by up to 40% from the surface...

I've been a scuba diver for 20+ years and only experienced visibility approaching 60M only a few times from the surface on exceptionally calm days with little plankton bloom. Visibility is even worse as you get closer to the coastal areas due to increased turbidity from along shore currents and sediment run off from land masses.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the visibility model closer to realistic but again, I think you estimate is a little optimistic.

I totally agree with DeepIron


Sub from above water high and looking down, the sub is at 120 ft on this picture:120ft are 40 Meters?? I think this is too much.
I can only imagine such views in very clear (mountain) lakes. I dived in the philippines this summer and we did not have any visibility like this. Maybe with perfect circumstances you see a silhouette.

€: Am I right that horizontal view is nearly the same as vertical view in real life? Ok, 40m visibility in the water IS possible, but rare, so it should be the ultimate limit (looking from above).

[Sailor Steve]

I agree. I usually argue for clarity in the water, since I've seen the bottom from the bridge of a destroyer when it was well over 100 feet deep.

BUT...at extreme angles I think reflection kills clarity. I don't think the bow of the sub could be seen like that from the periscope. It's a tough question, since I guess it's one or the other. Clear so you can see the cool sights in external views, or not clear so the periscope doesn't become a magic mirror, seeing all and knowing all?

[Orion2012]

I agree. I usually argue for clarity in the water, since I've seen the bottom from the bridge of a destroyer when it was well over 100 feet deep.

BUT...at extreme angles I think reflection kills clarity. I don't think the bow of the sub could be seen like that from the periscope. It's a tough question, since I guess it's one or the other. Clear so you can see the cool sights in external views, or not clear so the periscope doesn't become a magic mirror, seeing all and knowing all?

I agree with Sailor Steve. Unless my periscope lens is polarized I'd think the reflection would make it impossible to se the sub through the periscope.

Maybe the camera file for the scope could be modified to not see through the water??

[DrBeast]

BTW have you been experiencing any problems running pe4 with RFB?
Going through the files, when the next RFB release comes out, we'll have to release a set of subs for use with PE4.

There are a number of modifications to the boats beyond graphics that will be lost. If these changes are lost, then it will mess up the play balance in RFB and cause a number of the new damage mods and others to be lost.

So I'm going to work on combining the changes so there will be a folder with the combined files that can be used with PE4.

Haven't checked out any other possible confilcts yet.

You guys are working on a new sinking mechanism that will surely involve changes in zones.cfg, right? I'll take a good look at that when the new RFB is released and make the necessary changes as soon as I can, so don't worry about that. :up:

[Wilcke]

BTW have you been experiencing any problems running pe4 with RFB?
Going through the files, when the next RFB release comes out, we'll have to release a set of subs for use with PE4.

There are a number of modifications to the boats beyond graphics that will be lost. If these changes are lost, then it will mess up the play balance in RFB and cause a number of the new damage mods and others to be lost.

So I'm going to work on combining the changes so there will be a folder with the combined files that can be used with PE4.

Haven't checked out any other possible confilcts yet.
You guys are working on a new sinking mechanism that will surely involve changes in zones.cfg, right? I'll take a good look at that when the new RFB is released and make the necessary changes as soon as I can, so don't worry about that. :up:

Good man, case of your favorite beverage via FedEx!

[DrBeast]

Good man, case of your favorite beverage via FedEx!

Hope FedEx keeps that Guinness cool enough! :D

[Nisgeis]

BUT...at extreme angles I think reflection kills clarity. I don't think the bow of the sub could be seen like that from the periscope. It's a tough question, since I guess it's one or the other. Clear so you can see the cool sights in external views, or not clear so the periscope doesn't become a magic mirror, seeing all and knowing all?
Yes, but not quite. If you are directly above the water, then you will see all of the things below, depending on the clarity of the water. As your eye moves from directly above to hozinon and the angle on the water's surface increase, so does the distortion due to refraction and also the amount of reflection incresases, along with a decrease in the amount of light being refracted.

A certain portion of light passes through the water and into the air and a certain portion is reflected back under the water. The steeper the angle, the more light is reflected from the boundary between air and water.

At a certain angle, the light from beneath the water will no longer be refracted through the water to the air and will instead be in total internal refraction, which is where none of the light rays at a steep angle can make it through the boundary layer between water and air and all of the light gets bent back down.

Conversely, the steeper the angle above water, the more light is reflected to your eye from whatever objects there are above the surface. The reflections are blended with the refractions to give a realistic water shader, based on fresnel calculations (calculations about what level of refraction or reflection is taking placed, given the angle of the water and the angle of the eye (camera)).

These things are modelled in SH4, but how well, nobody knows!

[Nisgeis]

On a similar subject, is it possible to get rid of that light outline around the sub that appears at night (as well as other ships)? I think this was introduced with 1.4 actually. That has been annoying me as bad as the white lines mentioned above.

Can you post a screenshot showing these lines? I have not noticed them myself, but then I'm not very observant.

[Nisgeis]

€: Am I right that horizontal view is nearly the same as vertical view in real life? Ok, 40m visibility in the water IS possible, but rare, so it should be the ultimate limit (looking from above).

No, the amount of light reflected or refracted depends on the angle from the normal (flat) that you are viewing the surface. Looking straight down into a lake you will see further down than if you are looking almost horizontally, in which case you will get much more reflection. Look up 'fresnel' for a quick explanation of why.

[Nisgeis]

Yes, that is what I am seeing. In shallow water if I am surfaced, I will see white lines around the bottom half of the sub, especially the stern areas. When submerged near the surface where I can see the sub with the camera there will be those white lines, mostly around the railings like you mentioned.

OK, after much experimentation I now know what is causing this. As far as I can tell there's some sort of glitch regarding the depth of water, which makes the shader blend in the sea bed at full strength around the very edge of the submarine. The sea bed is only renedered on the refrected part of the textures if the sea bed is 200m or less deep. This is why the problem only occurs when you are in shallow water. Also, rotating the camera, so looking at your sub with deep water in the background should get rid of the white lines.

Now I know what is causing the problem, I'm that one step closer to resolving it. It should only affect subs in shallowish waters though. Everyone else should be alright.

[kriller2]

Yes, that is what I am seeing. In shallow water if I am surfaced, I will see white lines around the bottom half of the sub, especially the stern areas. When submerged near the surface where I can see the sub with the camera there will be those white lines, mostly around the railings like you mentioned.

OK, after much experimentation I now know what is causing this. As far as I can tell there's some sort of glitch regarding the depth of water, which makes the shader blend in the sea bed at full strength around the very edge of the submarine. The sea bed is only renedered on the refrected part of the textures if the sea bed is 200m or less deep. This is why the problem only occurs when you are in shallow water. Also, rotating the camera, so looking at your sub with deep water in the background should get rid of the white lines.

Now I know what is causing the problem, I'm that one step closer to resolving it. It should only affect subs in shallowish waters though. Everyone else should be alright.

HI Nisgeis,

That sounds great, we now have a explanation to why it happens, now we are a little step closer to a solution :up:

Now I better get back to testing the new shader.. I have seen something strange when looking at a ship after a torpedo hit it, nothing serious but I need to test it some more to see if it's my texture making the problem or our water shader...

Will take a screenshot of it so you can take a look at it.

EDIT: here it is:

Now I got a snapshot of it:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/6095/bugpe4hu2.th.jpg (http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bugpe4hu2.jpg)

I have never seen this before :hmm: is it our shader or is it the damage texture? - the strange thing is that if there is a explosion near by it looks like this, the screenshot is from the submarine torpedo school.
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/8229/pe4bugexplob7.th.jpg (http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4bugexplob7.jpg)

BTW your PM is full :lol:

[Syxx_Killer]

On a similar subject, is it possible to get rid of that light outline around the sub that appears at night (as well as other ships)? I think this was introduced with 1.4 actually. That has been annoying me as bad as the white lines mentioned above.
Can you post a screenshot showing these lines? I have not noticed them myself, but then I'm not very observant.
Here's a screenshot from the stock game, but I noticed the issue yesterday running PE3. That's what made me think to bring it up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/Syxx_Killer/SH4%20Shots/SH4Img2008-05-17_214501_156.jpg

See that outline around the sub? This is also seen around ships and things like docks. It only happens at night.

[Orion2012]

On a similar subject, is it possible to get rid of that light outline around the sub that appears at night (as well as other ships)? I think this was introduced with 1.4 actually. That has been annoying me as bad as the white lines mentioned above.
Can you post a screenshot showing these lines? I have not noticed them myself, but then I'm not very observant.
Here's a screenshot from the stock game, but I noticed the issue yesterday running PE3. That's what made me think to bring it up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/Syxx_Killer/SH4%20Shots/SH4Img2008-05-17_214501_156.jpg

See that outline around the sub? This is also seen around ships and things like docks. It only happens at night.
Kind of looks like a rim lighting effect.

[Nisgeis]

I have seen something strange when looking at a ship after a torpedo hit it, nothing serious but I need to test it some more to see if it's my texture making the problem or our water shader...


Hmmm, when the hole is applied to a hull, the damage mask is multiplied against the hull texture to make the damage appear. The 3d model is still the same, and I'm not sure where it gets the colour to apply to the masked off section... perhaps it's the water fog colour? Not sure about this one, will have to have a look at what it does with stock and compare it to see where it's getting that colour from.


BTW your PM is full :lol:

People keep filling it up! There's space now.

[Nisgeis]

On a similar subject, is it possible to get rid of that light outline around the sub that appears at night (as well as other ships)? I think this was introduced with 1.4 actually. That has been annoying me as bad as the white lines mentioned above.
Can you post a screenshot showing these lines? I have not noticed them myself, but then I'm not very observant.
Here's a screenshot from the stock game, but I noticed the issue yesterday running PE3. That's what made me think to bring it up.

<SNIPPED PICTURE>

See that outline around the sub? This is also seen around ships and things like docks. It only happens at night.
Kind of looks like a rim lighting effect.

That outline is there during day time as well. It's like a little hull wake effect. It's noticable at night like that as it's probably a bit too bright. It's definitely meant to be there. I could perhaps see if I can make it a bit less bright?

[Syxx_Killer]

That outline is there during day time as well. It's like a little hull wake effect. It's noticable at night like that as it's probably a bit too bright. It's definitely meant to be there. I could perhaps see if I can make it a bit less bright?

If it could be less bright, that would be good. It looks brighter in game than in screenshots. It just doesn't seem "natural".

[Nisgeis]

I have seen something strange when looking at a ship after a torpedo hit it, nothing serious but I need to test it some more to see if it's my texture making the problem or our water shader...


I took a look at this and I am fairly happy that it's a stock thing. Can you try testing it with stock? It's not something you would normally notice, as usually the damage hole is on the side of the ship. In that screen shot, it just so happened that the unusually shaped hull meant there was a blank part. It's quite noticable if you place a torpedo at the bow of a ship, then it becomes quite obvious.

Could you try it in stock and see if you get the same result as I did? That goes for anyone else too :D.

Thanks.

[Nisgeis]

I agree. I usually argue for clarity in the water, since I've seen the bottom from the bridge of a destroyer when it was well over 100 feet deep.

BUT...at extreme angles I think reflection kills clarity. I don't think the bow of the sub could be seen like that from the periscope. It's a tough question, since I guess it's one or the other. Clear so you can see the cool sights in external views, or not clear so the periscope doesn't become a magic mirror, seeing all and knowing all?

After another seven hours slaving over a hot text file, I've discovered that the game engine only used the amount of water between the camera and the submarine's hull (or whatever object was being viewed) to calculate how clear the image was. I've managed to get it to now take into account the angle the light is striking the water as well as the amount of water between the camera and the object and I think it now blends much better.

You can now see you sub quite deep if you are looking straight down at it, but you can't see it from the side so easily. At very low angles, you can no longer see very much beneath the surface, even a ship's hull just below the water. I think this looks more realistic. You can still see a bit of your sub's bow from the periscope though.

Kriller has a range of experimental shaders to test and will no doubt get back to me with what settings work and what don't.

[kriller2]

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/6922/pe4wipnewshadernp2.th.jpg (http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4wipnewshadernp2.jpg)

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/3167/pe4wipbluenewshaderii3.th.jpg (http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pe4wipbluenewshaderii3.jpg)

HI Nisgeis, I like your new shaders so made some more work on the environment colours and textures, is there any way we can make the water less transparent? so that the water have a colour between the surface and the bottom, (see the last picture)