Trigger Maru - Ocean Water Color

[Werewolf13]

Trigger Maru is without a doubt the best mod for a sim I've ever used in over 30 years of PC gaming hands down. SH4 with TMO is the way SH4 should have come from Ubi. I applaud the excellent work that has gone into it and most especially the author for sharing it with us.

Even if the one gotcha I have cannot be resolved it's still the best and if it was a stand alone mod that one had to buy to use - I'd buy it.

That said: I imagine that the reader is asking himself, then what's the gotcha?

The water colors used - just aren't right. I served for 10 years in the USN, 8 of 'em on sea duty and in all those years I never once saw water, day or night, the color of the water used in TMO.

Picky, picky right? I suppose - if one had never been to sea and had no frame of reference then one would most assuredly be impressed. To me though who spent lots of time on the deck of 2 destroyers and one cruiser - well - it just makes the visuals - a bit annoying.

The water colors used in stock SH4 - though not perfect are closer to reality than the colors used in TMO which are way, way too blue.

Real ocean/coastal water color as viewed from the deck of a ship, depending on the time of day, the depth of the water, the sky and the makeup of the bottom range from ice blue to a light blue green, to a dirty green in coastal waters, thru mid to dark gray in deeper waters. If the waters are exceptionally deep and clear I've seen them take on a deep, deep royal blue almost black color. Once off the Bahamas near dusk with water depth 18,000+ feet and a sea state of 1 the water even took on a purple hue (once - rare occurence). At night the water is so gray as to be almost black. With a moon the whitecaps become visible. With no moon practically the only thing visible is the irredescent sparkling of the wave at the ships bow and the wake at the stern from the luminescent plankton present.

So what I'd like to know is how to get back the stock SH4 water colors while keeping the rest of the TMO mega mod enabled.

Is it possible?

[Sailor Steve]

It's not only possible, it's easy. If you used JSGME to set up your mods, simply disable TMO. Go into SH4/Env/ and make a copy of everything, and put the copy in a folder on your desktop. Re-enable TMO. Go back into SH4/Env and manually install the original environment files.

Be warned, though - If TMO's visibility function uses those files, it may screw up the way the AI sees things. I don't think it does, but I don't know that much about it.

[Armistead]

Color is preference. Seems each time Duci updates TMO he'll post SS of his color changes for debate and basically go with a group opinion. I think sometimes it's not so much one look is better, but people see something different and it looks better at the moment.

I think caustic has a version of his "improved stock env." for TMO....you could check. Not to mention replacing with the stock scene dat and env files would effect TMO's sensors and adjustments. You could just pull just the env. files, but some settings in env. do effect sensors, mostly anything that adjust light.

It's not so much changing scene dat or env file will mess up your game or even sensors, just that he tweaks them for certain sensor ranges, you adjust certain values, it could have much impact of his view of what sensor ranges should be. When I say sensors, that's sonar, radar and visuals. Any changes you make could effect either or all 3.

Many of us make our own envs. I also prefer a more neutral ambiance that the blue of TMO. You can see what many of us do in the Screenshot thread. If you want to change water colors, just copy the scene dat and Env. files from TMO into a file, make a mod. All you need out of the Env. files is the Env. atl.dat. Unless you want to do a lot of testing, the only thing I would change in scene dat is the light and dark water colors, although they're are several files you can adjust without effecting the sensors of TMO. When you open the Env.atl dat you basically see 3 weather types, each with numerous values based on time of day/sun angle. You could change the waterlight and waterdark colors to progress as the you like during the day. Just know several other values must be considered that effect water color, clouds, sun brightness, ambiance, etc...


If you need help, you can PM me.

Edit:
Here is caustics ISE mod for TMO

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...=194657&page=7

[Werewolf13]

Thanks for the quick replies and the information.

If changing the .env files can impact the way sensors are setup and thus impact gameplay then I think I'd rather not mess with changing them.

TMO gameplay just feels too right to me to risk messing it up to get different colored water.

Again thanks for the good info and quick responses.

[Armistead]

Changing the water colors won't effect sensors. Just saying they're many other values that effect overall water color and effects in scene.dat file. However, you can change water color in the env.atl file and be OK. As far as I know, the only values in env. files that effect sensors is light values, like sun to sky, but not so much during the day as night.

For instance, I like more moonlight at night with lots of light reflections of the clouds near the moon, why the opposite horizon stays dark. Since light brightens, it will change the color of the water. This is a change you adjust in the Env. file. Plus you can adjust width of reflection, etc....Of course more light at night means better AI visuals, but I think that realistic and prefer it.



Same as above, just opposite of moon.



My advice is to try caustics Improved Stock Env. mod I gave you the link for, that will probably give you what you want.

[Werewolf13]

I reviewed the ISE mod. Looks good and there is a TMO version that Caustic says doesn't impact AI sensors.

Thanks for the advice Armistead.