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/al...6238353535.jpg

Vista PC
http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/al...6164333036.jpg

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

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

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

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.

Hi K2
 

I think this a more realistic color.
http://img216.imagevenue.com/loc137/..._122_137lo.jpg
http://img249.imagevenue.com/loc213/..._122_213lo.jpg
http://img247.imagevenue.com/loc568/..._122_568lo.jpg
http://img16.imagevenue.com/loc1165/...122_1165lo.jpg

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/img292/8...ificed1.th.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/img183/1...epe4or9.th.jpg

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/9...6subwh2.th.jpg

Here is a screenshot of PE4:
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5...epe4ph8.th.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.

Sub Physics
 

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

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...317#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:

Hi
please look:

http://img216.imagevenue.com/loc437/..._122_437lo.jpghttp://img162.imagevenue.com/loc936/..._122_936lo.jpghttp://img213.imagevenue.com/loc550/..._122_550lo.jpg

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

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:

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!

Oh NO you didn't!
 

@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.

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

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

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

@ 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.;)

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.

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.

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


RDP