[REQ] Howto assign "Bumpmap/texture" to the water

[urfisch]

sure! with an image with smaller pixels on the water, we will get real good looking reflection dots. i tried your method yesterday and i am also returning to deal with it today.

but as to the limitations of the texture size and the reflection effect itself (looks like a mirror), i prefer to test a bumpmap on the water. but this is not possible until someone of the codergurus help us to access the foam-definitions of the water mesh.

if we are able to change the value of the water hight where a foam is created to 0, the water will always show foam. and there are also definitions, which foam is used. so we might could also define a certain, bumpmapped texture.

this would be a very good result, i am very convinced of! and using the texture animation from anvart, we could have glittering reflection effects, like of real water!

so, where are you?...coder gurus! please help!

[Hans Witteman]

Originally Posted by urfisch

sure! with an image with smaller pixels on the water, we will get real good looking reflection dots. i tried your method yesterday and i am also returning to deal with it today.

but as to the limitations of the texture size and the reflection effect itself (looks like a mirror), i prefer to test a bumpmap on the water. but this is not possible until someone of the codergurus help us to access the foam-definitions of the water mesh.

if we are able to change the value of the water hight where a foam is created to 0, the water will always show foam. and there are also definitions, which foam is used. so we might could also define a certain, bumpmapped texture.

this would be a very good result, i am very convinced of! and using the texture animation from anvart, we could have glittering reflection effects, like of real water!

so, where are you?...coder gurus! please help!

Hi mate,

After some more test tonight i am close to stop experimenting with it because if no one want to give us a hand with some heavy duty hex work i think we will go no where.

Also i am pretty satisfy with the look i already have.

For your bumpmap i think it is a controller that work only for interior i don't botter with it because bumpmap where not implemented for outside and don't confused the water bump system it has nothing to do with that controller.

I think the only good solution is to have the reflex_atlantic.tga texture in a bigger resolution and i did some search with hex editor and i found nothing.

Or if someone is capable of implementing shader model 2 in Sh3 and this someone is surely not me.

Interesting fact that i noted on testing: You can have 2 different envsim controller in scene.dat i also try to link a shipwake controller to the cloud nod and it show on water but there is no value to make it cover the entire patch of ocean mesh and maybe it would be too much on the fps.

Best regards Hans

[urfisch]

yes, you can also have many different subcontrollers in the envsim node. its quite interesting, but not very helpful, til now. for further actions we need some help for this. you are right, hans.

here my new success so far, some nice, noisy light reflections on the water:





and type II on the atlantic...



more waves...

[Hans Witteman]

Originally Posted by urfisch

yes, you can also have many different subcontrollers in the envsim node. its quite interesting, but not very helpful, til now. for further actions we need some help for this. you are right, hans.

here my new success so far, some nice, noisy light reflections on the water:





and type II on the atlantic...



more waves...

Hi mate,

Nice work but try to play with the fresnel coeficient to get it darker a bit and it should greatly improved it.

Best regards Hans

[urfisch]

interesting point, anvart. will try this! thanks!

[Anvart]

Originally Posted by Anvart

I wrote already ... You can create additional object such as SkyColor, and use this object as sky reflection model (reflection in the water)... mesh of this object must have a slightly
smaller radius than SkyColor object... and this object (we call it SkyReflection) should not
be visible... then you texture this object (texture with noise, glare and so on... and
with alpha blending!!!)... and then you can even animate this texture and/or make slow
rotation of this object... may be.

May be bad idea,... because, i think, the new object will close reflection of SkyColor's object ... even if the new object is invisible and with a-blend?? or not bad??? can't test it...

[urfisch]

Originally Posted by Anvart

May be bad idea,... because, i think, the new object will close reflection of SkyColor's object ... even if the new object is invisible and with a-blend?? or not bad??? can't test it...

dont know either, will test tomorrow. but the key of better water is not only the reflection map, its the surface map of the water, like the foam is. that was my initial idea: having the parameters of the foam creation set to wave high "0" and add a certain foam to these parameter. the new foam is a bump map, which scatters the surface, so we have better looking light reflection.

but i have no skills for that. havnt found the source-parameters of the foam creation either.

[Anvart]

@urfisch
First let play/experiment with SeaFoam parameters in EnvSim controller in scene.dat file.
... and term bump of water it's not texture bumping...

[urfisch]

already done all the stuff which is possible in the scene.dat.

this is how i managed to get these more rough looking reflections on the water. but the bump map is only a texture thing, not a real bump map, which is normally used for real looking surfaces with light reflecting roughness on it. the bump controller of the scene dat makes the waves have more or less dark (and bigger and smaller ones) areas, but does not cause reflections! so "bump controller" is not the right name for this entry. its a "fake bump map", useless for the reflection thing.



the possibilities of the scene.dat modding are already at their limit.

one problem, which we cannot solve, is increasing the reflections on one hand and have them not rendered in distance on the other hand - or have them rendered smaller and in less appearance. this makes the nicer looking effect of better reflections in the closer view (around your boat) looking odd in the far distance. it results in an unreal "blinking" ocean surface all the way to the horizont. already tested changing the "LOD" factor...but no success.

CONCLUSION

as to all my experiments (which have taken several days, over 100 hours) with the scene.dat parameters, i am definitely convinced the only way to real better water is adding the shader technology of sh4 OR giving the water "fake shaders" by having a new foam texture, which is always rendered onto the water as a real bump map AND having this texture not rendered in far distance (LOD)!

[Kapitanleutnant]

There's some gorgeous looking water in this thread. I'd love to see some really high quality stuff like this in game, considering how much time we spend staring at the sea.

[Anvart]

Originally Posted by urfisch

already done all the stuff which is possible in the scene.dat.

this is how i managed to get these more rough looking reflections on the water. but the bump map is only a texture thing, not a real bump map, which is normally used for real looking surfaces with light reflecting roughness on it. the bump controller of the scene dat makes the waves have more or less dark (and bigger and smaller ones) areas, but does not cause reflections! so "bump controller" is not the right name for this entry. its a "fake bump map", useless for the reflection thing.



the possibilities of the scene.dat modding are already at their limit.

one problem, which we cannot solve, is increasing the reflections on one hand and have them not rendered in distance on the other hand - or have them rendered smaller and in less appearance. this makes the nicer looking effect of better reflections in the closer view (around your boat) looking odd in the far distance. it results in an unreal "blinking" ocean surface all the way to the horizont. already tested changing the "LOD" factor...but no success.

CONCLUSION

as to all my experiments (which have taken several days, over 100 hours) with the scene.dat parameters, i am definitely convinced the only way to real better water is adding the shader technology of sh4 OR giving the water "fake shaders" by having a new foam texture, which is always rendered onto the water as a real bump map AND having this texture not rendered in far distance (LOD)!

Sorry.
I badly understand you...
On the one hand you say the obvious things... on the other hand, as i think, you strangely understand the work of water program. May be to blame the language barrier...

[urfisch]

hmmm...maybe the language. but which "understanding of water" do you mean?

fact is: we have no real bump controller in the scene dat. its a fake "bump" only for dark/bright areas on the water. not a reflection. normal bump maps are for rendering light reflections, this one in scene.dat works different.

i tested everything the scene.dat lets us change. result is better reflections on the water, with a slightly more rough looking surface as shown in this thread.

PROBLEM and LIMITS

when reaching a real good looking reflecting surface nearby the boat, it looks odd in the distance, cause there is no accessable parameter for changing the render distance of the water surface effects. so the water shimmers and blinks heavily in the distance -> ugly.

---

so, conclusion for a better surface of the water is: getting a new foam texture added, used by water with wave height "0-2 -> normal state" or linked to different wind conditions EVEN UNDER 6, where some foam is beeing created. this texture should contain water surface noise and be defined as "bumpmap" -> giving us better, rough looking reflections -> as bumpmaps seem to work nicely on the u-boat hull. same should then work on the water surface, right? or am i wrong?

[Hans Witteman]

Hi mate,

Finally after almost a week of testing every possible combinations i did achieve the look i was after and it was no ride in the park!

I had to think outside the box for this one because the parameters we have for reflective materials in our 3d software is not related at all with the reflective materials in SH3 so i tried thinking in reversed mode.

First everything had to work in combination like the reflex_Atlantic.tga i did a lot of blending in paint program to achieve a very subtle effect almost invisible to the eyes in the program but that was the key to avoid too much flickering in SH3.

After that i crank the FresnelCoe to high value and raised the reflection distorsion to brake the pattern from showing on top of breakink wave and to finish i adjust clouds reflexion to get this :













I am totally satisfy with this kind of ocean for SH3 with stock shader i will adjust it further a bit but this one truly work and have zero impact on frame rate.

Edit: I forgot to mention that i forced my antialias setting to 4xx on video card.

Best regards Hans

[urfisch]

looks not bad, hans! nice shader. could you send me this one via pm? will have some test with it also.