I looked these TWOSv1.06 Buoys over and tried many different thing with them and until that lens is cut from the body and made into its own 3D Object there really is anything we can do to improve them.
The way the Model is right now, I think added a reflection would actually cause problems. The reflection controller is suppose to be on its own hidden 3D Object model.
We can easily add another hidden copy of the buoy without halo to each buoy and add the reflection controller to it.
I do recommend removing the the old caustic caustic controller. Once the lens is its own 3D Object model we can add the UnifiedRenderCtrl to the Buoy body. The UnifiedRenderCtrl is a SH5 controller that has Caustics built in to it.

Kudos' on cleaning these up.

Regards!
TheBeast

Hi guys, :salute:

if Vecko is still wanting to add a further improved version of the light buoys to TWOS, I might take some of your suggestions into consideration and create some new nagigation buoys.

Things I have in mind:

- having just one model/unit for each buoy shape (pillar, spar, can, etc), that can be customized through roster cfg (for color) and eqp files (for any accessory part).

- putting the shared "accessory parts" (top marks, lanterns, bells, maybe a rigging chain, similar to mines) in one or more external library files.

- trying to import all the models mentioned above into one or more GR2 files. This change, and the two above, might release some memory, making the game overally more stable.

- I can try adding an object pendulum controller to bells and chains (if we decide to add them). Povided that it wont make the game to stutter or to be unstable, it would be nice seeing those objects swinging as their parent buoys pitch/roll in the waves. It would also be nice connecting bell's sound to their swinging, but I dont think this is possible with the available soun controllers :hmmm:

- I can try simulating different light patterns for the buoys whose lanterns have a pulsing light. Doing that would require the creation of several light halo particle generators (though obtening the desired effect might involve some work, and those particle generators can be CPU/GPU killers if they are not used wisely).

- I can make provisions for having in game the four cardinal buoys, the two lateral buoys (red an green), isolated danger (black/red) buoys, and safe water (white/red) buoys. We can combine those buoy types with different shapes, according to real usage. Doing that would offer a big variety of combinations, by still containing memory usage (see what I wrote above). The "only" work for Vecko would be adding the new buoy types in campaign where appropriate, and testing how they will affect the overall game stability.

Recently Kendras has released a SHIII/GWX-compatible buoy mod offering various improvements (reproportioned buoy models, better sounds, added ray-traced ligh effects to lantern halos, etc). If you are into the tweaks I am suggesting, I can ask Kendras for permission to use some of his improvements in our work. What do you guys think? :)

EDIT: I just had a look at one of the current buoy models into Wings3D... compared to its modest in-game dimensions, that mesh contains zillions of faces/vertices. No surprise that used near land those buoys are hanging the game :o :doh:
I am pretty sure that by halving (or more) the number of their faces, buoys can still look pretty good, but with a lesser impact on PC performance :yep:

EDIT2: "superdetailed" buoys are the ones of the type "2": Buoy_D2_FL, Buoy_G2_FL, and Buoy_R2_FL, the other type has a much more acceptable vertex-size (774 vs. 1303 vertices) :03:

Sounds good to me Gap...:up: Any improved object which can pass "All Air/Sea/Env/Playable units rendering test" is a GO for the megamod. and I will be happy to implement it...:yep: