[WIP] OLC Environment for GWX 2.0 (BETA)

[onelifecrisis]

The beta test is now closed to applications. Thanks to all who have offered to help!

This is a complete environment (graphic) upgrade for GWX 2.0. It changes lighting (and, by extension, lighting effects) and reflections, and all the environment colours, among other things. As well as making the game look nicer, the mod includes a lot fixes. As most of these simply make things look better I won't list them all, but some notable fixes are:

• The sun and the moon are now the correct size.
• The sky no longer flickers when water washes over the scope at night.
• The horizon in the 16km Atmosphere has been fixed (the sea goes all the way to the horizon and the sky has haze).

This mod will not affect any sensors. However, tiny adjustments have been made to the visual range of the player to bring it closer to the visual range of the crew. For example, in 8km mode your crew can see ~8.1km, but you can (normally) see about ~9.4km, making your crew seem blind in comparison. In OLC Environment you will be able to see ~9.0km (and your crew, being unaffected by the mod, will still see ~8.1km).

The beta is currently underway. The screenshots below were taken using the beta. They're unaltered in-game screenshots (no photoshopping ). Click on an image to enlarge it.

Cheers
OLC

[Mikhayl]

Now that sounds interesting ! The only reason why I didn't install your night fix is precisely because I like watching the stars, but that blinking thing is still damn annoying.
Oh well now you make me wondering about how and what, can't wait for some shots

[Wilcke]

Looking forward to it!

[Alex]

Quite interesting, Sir ! :hmm:

Let's see what you can come up with !

[Graf Paper]

OLC, you are indeed a genius!

With all the brilliant mods being done around here lately, I'm going to need to have a scorecard just to keep up with it all!

I'd have to say that you're easily in the top ten modders list, at least in my book.

Could you do a more naturally dark night sky version as well? I'm not sure if it's simply due to the North Atlantic latitudes or GWX having a "light night" mod built in but it sure seems awfully bright during the night for me, like the sun has just set.

I would take a shot at darkening the sky, but I have absolutely no idea where to begin.

Perhaps you could document your knowledge for the benefit of the community.

I just draw u-boat emblems. No matter how much I study it, all this "hex" and other esoteric matters of modding remain pure witchcraft to my calcifying neurons.

[Adriatico]

100% supported OLC...

After years of Env. tweaking, sharpening the clouds(?),...etc, we could barely say that latest Environment achievements look better than "original" ones...

With a full respect to technical achivements of GWX, we could hardly say the same for "meteorology" side

Looking forward to your effort... if you make 30% visual success compared to your sea textures - I'll be happy...

Go for it mate

[Adriatico]

Like your night sea

Are these "compared screens" in the same weather condition, or you have sacrified clouds density ?

[Venatore]

Good luck with this matey, I hope it works to your intent

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Adriatico

Like your night sea

Are these "compared screens" in the same weather condition, or you have sacrified clouds density ?

The screenies are taken in the *exact* same time/place/conditions as each other. As I said the cloud texture is stock which, yes, is less dense than the GWX texture. However, dense clouds suffer a problem in SH3 which is the all-too-visible line between the normal coloured clouds at the top and the fog-coloured clouds near the horizon. This is very visible in the screenies on the left, especially the one in the middle and the one at the bottom.

However I'm working on an alternative solution to this which may allow the best of both worlds... will keep you posted.

Edit: Thanks Ven!

[Mikhayl]

That looks most promising, the clouds in daylight look pretty real :hmm:
The night may be too blue as you said, but still way better looking than the original. I don't know if it's the screenshot or what but I like the "hazy" feel.
Very different bit of work than the GUI stuff but looks like it's also gonna turn into an "indispensable"

[3Jane]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

• The moon in the 16km version is twice as big as it should be.

Does this make the moon larger or smaller than the one in 2.0, or more or less the same size.

[onelifecrisis]

Adriacto, I've changed some of the twilight colours quite a bit. I'm not sure if its what you wanted as I'm still not sure what it is you wanted but they look better to me. I'll post screenshots at some point.

Originally Posted by 3Jane

Does this make the moon larger or smaller than the one in 2.0, or more or less the same size.

The OLC 16km Env moon is smaller than the GWX 16km moon yet still larger than my intended moon size. Double-checking this is on my to-do list.

[onelifecrisis]

I'm working on the horizon and thought I'd put up a preview. You can see the beginnings of this work (some changes to the horizon cloud color) in the alpha but a lot more has been done since then. I'll let the pics do the talking.

Left/Right = GWX 8km / OLC 8km

All four pictures are taken in the same place at the same time (just after sunset) in the same conditions (partial cloud, no fog) and looking in the same direction etc. etc. That's the same convoy you can see on the horizon (exactly 8km away).

Click on the picture to enlarge it.




Now for a bit of a technical ramble.

The 16km horizon is something I've wanted to fix for a while, but... SH3 has an horrendous fudge for trying to simulate ships being over the horizon i.e. partially obscured at long range, so that you can see only the masts and smoke. This is how it does it:

The ships are always rendered on a perfectly flat plane. The sea itself is on an inverted sphere, so that it is rasied up near the horizon. Shrink the sphere enough, and you get this:



By setting the sphere to the same size as the earth (something which I've yet to see in stock or in any mod, btw) you will get exactly the right amount of ship occlusion for a camera at sea level i.e. for a scope, but you will also get the sea itself rendered part way up into the sky, so that the ship doesn't look at all like its vanishing over the horizon, it just looks like its sinking into the sea.

There are some things that can be done to mitigate this problem but not enough. The sea itself can be both fogged (to merge with the sky) and clipped (at a certain height) but these things just make ships look like they're floating in fog instead of sinking into the sea. This is how its been implemented in the 16km mod and that's part of the reason why the horizon looks so unconvincing there.

Speaking of floating ships, you can invert the sphere but like I said the ships are rendered on a flat plane regardless, so you end up with floating ships again (and a gap between the sky and the horizon to boot).

So anyway...
When your eye level is 5m above sea level (as it is when you're surfaced and standing on the bridge) the horizon is almost exactly 8km away. So in the 8km version, I've just made the sea flat. Problem solved. But in the 16km mod I'm :hmm: :hmm: :hmm: over what to do. The only nice solution I can think of is to again make the sea flat. This would look alright (certainly better than what we have now, especially when combined with my other horizon fixes) but it would also be rather unrealistic.

Cheers
OLC

[onelifecrisis]

Meh, I'm being too picky. Even at 16km a ship would only have 5m of its hull obscured, so a flat ocean wouldn't be that unrealistic.

Cool. Sometimes it's good to just write stuff out - clears the mind and all that.

[Adriatico]

Great work OLC

* * *

Be carefull when adding red colour...

It always turns out to be "more red than intended", on a big surface, when you add "a little bit"...

Very agressive colour...