Here's my pics...;)

http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/...57980c382g.jpg

http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/...187dd0972g.jpg

Postponed that trip :p

Is there a setting that blocks the lightning with solid objects?
The more we crank up the opacity the more you see the lightning trough the boat, but on the other hand, if the value is to small we can't see the lightning in fog and heavy rain, especially when its dark. There must be a setting or at least some good balance for this.

http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/1076/opacityze6.jpg

Any thoughts?

looking good, guys. :up:

Geniuses! :rock:

weird...
 

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but seems like when you start to see stars you also start to see the lightning...i used capt.Cox's heavy weather mission which starts at 18.00... tried tc and maybe 10-15 min before 19.00 i started to see the stars as well as the lightning....are they somehow related..????.....


edit:...i have no problems with lightning showing through solid objects....dunno if it has something to do with hardware and drivers settings...few days ago i got brand new 7600 gt ,my old g-card was radeon 9700 pro and with that i could see sun shining through the conning tower sometimes......must have something to do with shaders support maybe....

I think it has to do with the Opacity/Transparency you have set there. If you try the settings that Leo posted earlier, you will also see the lightning during daylight. I mean the stars are supposed to come at night ;) lightning however should be visible when ever there is a thunder storm around.

Those bolts through solid objects are still haunting me here. Will have another stab at it:p

When testing this stuff you could set the
Precip=0
to
Precip=2

In the SM12 rain doc in that Misson I did.
This will make it rain heavily, its more realistic to what actually happens in game (carrer wise), and then you will see that there is a slight problem with our previous settings. The lightning become barley (if at all ) visible, if we don't crank up that Transparency...but with the side effect of seeing it through objects as i show in my previous post.

If someone find a sweet spot, please post here.

Just wondering...has anyone actually tested these changes by staring a career and then driving around using TC untill heavy weather appears?

Well ..I have... and.. (not sure this is bad news)..but it seems that the combination of heavy precip with heavy fog = NO LIGHTNING. Still hear thunder though.

I've never encounterd heavy precip without there being heavy fog present and I've tested this out about two dozen times, i think.
I'm not sure about other combinations , ie..light precip/light fog...medium precip/light fog..etc. Seems to me these combinations need to be included in any testing too.

I guess it's one thing to have ideal conditions in a test mission and another thing to try to duplicate it when the variables are all in play.
Food for thought, maybe.:hmm:

Very good points there. My thinking was to get it visible at worst possible conditions, and take it from there.
Just if you guys want to try this out

In the Mission folder you have these parameters to play with (these are just the setting I happened to have at the mo)
If you want to play with the settings etc.

Fog=2
FogRand=0
Clouds=2
CloudsRand=0
Precip=2
PrecipRand=0
WindHeading=0
WindSpeed=15.000000
WindRand=2
WeatherRndInterval=2
SeaType=0

But my biggest prob at the mo is that Transparency prob through solids...

CC..I think jaketoox is maybe right about this being a graphics card situation.
You have an 8800....try turning on the Gamma AA in the nHancer control.

In the game you'll see that having that ON...makes the sun halo disappear...BUT...
it also eliminates the sun being able to be transparent through solid objects.
I suspect this may also apply to the lighning, as well

Hm... have had that set to Coverage Sample x16 all the time :hmm:
Running some tests here, so far inconclusive. I wonder how this stuff looks in SH3?
I might just set me up a test mission and check it out, maybe it has the same prob.

Actually CC.. the setting is called gamma correction. Should be a little check box next to it.

This is an added feature that enhance's your AA setting, no matter what that might be..2x,8x..etc.

BTW..an UPDATE....turning it on has NO effect on lightning transparency though solids.


My concern is the apparent inability for the test mission results to be duplicated in actual game environment. So far, I have not seen the lightning when in career mode.. out on patrol.. in heavy weather. Athough I still hear thunder.
I wonder...WHY! :damn:

maybe you are way too far too see it? Try to get closer to the sound, if you can make out from where it comes :hmm:

I just ran a Stock mission in SH3, set it up like we have it set up in SH4. Same thing! The lightning is sort a localized. I took off south and no lightning, only sound.
:hmm: I used the Courageous Mission, simply put the
Tried to see if the lightning is as visible through solids as it is when we set the Opacity high. But cause the German Subs dont have the tall structures its hard to catch. Will do some more tweaks so the lightning is visible longer and try to catch one behind the boat.

@Canonicus Cheers for checking the AA there ;)

Pretty crappy SS but it shows that this works as it should in SH3
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4...291copyjw2.jpg

Now...well lets start digging :p I think also the new enviroment engine/code in SH4 might have a lot to do with our problem here.

to make sure I could first see and work on the lightning
 

I raised the density levels but I have a feeling as I lower those little by little it will no longer bee seen through the subs and structures. BTW C.C. I sent you what I have set up now. I will finish my work on it today.

As it stands right now with what I sent you C.C. I have the lightning at a pretty close to realistic level just needs a little more tweeking.

I got the lightning to randomize a lot more and show up at night time as well as day time. Got the lightning to do slight rotaions to make the children branches show up differntly from time to time. Also got the lightning to appear at differn't distances and sometimes it will actualy walk it's way accross the sky as it strikes. Evend out the thunder better to match it new strike work. Also got it to change from time to time the speed of the strikes to get differn't effects.

Just need to tweek the number of repeat strikes from a single lightning class.

http://static.filefront.com/images/p...r.thumb250.jpg http://static.filefront.com/images/p...m.thumb250.jpg

Unfortunatly these photo's don't do the work justtice because in game they look fantastic. But as you can see I got the branch children to randomize more in shape and lighting. But it is now hard to capture a screen shot with them appearing a lot more realisticly.