[REL] OLC Ubermod v2.4.3 for GWX 2.1

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

There are missing some textures, is it not? The water is looking like silk. It appears to be a fabric silk throwed over a table. It's very complicated to make water look like water when you increase the waves height like this. Makes the game look realistic, but makes the game look ugly. The other pictures looks good. I was playing with OLCE and I noticed that the waves are never never never calm. Can't be like that all the time, depending on the wind yes the ocean can look like a lake sometimes.

If I could throw you a wrench, this would be it. Too many waves, waves too high, looks ugly. But the general idea is brilliant, keep it up!

First off let me point out that the waves in OLCE are exactly the same size and shape - in all weather conditions - as they are in GWX 2.0 (8km). They may look more "three dimensional" because of the changes I've made to reflections, but that's entirely graphical and entirely intended.

As for the ocean never being flat, I can't understand what you're talking about... check out the first screenshot in the OLCE thread. That's 0m/s and it looks pretty flat to me. :hmm:

Now as for the "silky waves" yes I know what you mean, I noticed it too, and set about fixing it when the combimod was in development. What I found is that I can change it so that the distant waves look better and more textured, but at the cost of making nearby waves look awful in a normal (non-zoomed) view. There doesn't seem to be a way around this, so I went back to the normal OLCE wave bumps and reflections (that's what you see in the screens on post #1 of this thread) and while I agree that those distant waves don't look as good as they could, they still look (to me) ten times better than the normal flat-as-a-pancake view.

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

First off let me point out that the waves in OLCE are exactly the same size and shape - in all weather conditions - as they are in GWX 2.0 (8km). They may look more "three dimensional" because of the changes I've made to reflections, but that's entirely graphical and entirely intended.

As for the ocean never being flat, I can't understand what you're talking about... check out the first screenshot in the OLCE thread. That's 0m/s and it looks pretty flat to me. :hmm:

Now as for the "silky waves" yes I know what you mean, I noticed it too, and set about fixing it when the combimod was in development. What I found is that I can change it so that the distant waves look better and more textured, but at the cost of making nearby waves look awful in a normal (non-zoomed) view. There doesn't seem to be a way around this, so I went back to the normal OLCE wave bumps and reflections (that's what you see in the screens on post #1 of this thread) and while I agree that those distant waves don't look as good as they could, they still look (to me) ten times better than the normal flat-as-a-pancake view.

Did you tried doing that and also darkning what water color a bit? IMHO they are just too grey. A dark blue, more close to black (that direction, not that color) would look a lot better. I was over the water thousand of times already in real life and the water looks VERY much darker then that. Besides, I think that if you cut down the reflections on the waves, it will look much less silky and much more realistic. Its a silky "mirror" the way it is now.

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

Did you tried doing that and also darkning what water color a bit? IMHO they are just too grey. A dark blue, more close to black (that direction, not that color) would look a lot better. I was over the water thousand of times already in real life and the water looks VERY much darker then that. Besides, I think that if you cut down the reflections on the waves, it will look much less silky and much more realistic. Its a silky "mirror" the way it is now.

Again we're thinking alike (though as an aside, this all seems much more like OLCE critique than combimod critique to me :hmm: ... but anyway... ) and yes, I tried darkening the water and "lessening" the reflections. These things sound good in theory but don't look right in practice, at least not to me. The reflections can't really be "lessened"... for example if I make the reflections semi-transparent, all you see "through" them is the fog colour, not the water underneath them. If I make the water darker it increases the amount of percieved "geometry" (those ugly squares) on the reflections. If I decrease the amount of reflectivity by increasing either the fresnel coefficient or the normal scale (which amount to the same thing) you end up losing percieved texturing on the waves, because most of the "texture" is actually distorted reflection.

I know OLCE doesn't look like real life. It just looks as good as I've been able to make it look within the constraints of the engine (and the constraints of my skill :p).

I just captured a combimod vid... should give you a better idea than the screens, so you can throw more wrenches :p

Uploading to youtube now...

[onelifecrisis]

YouTube res is rubbish as always but here it is.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nHdvxwDUkdM

BTW, wind speed is 9m/s in that video.

[Kaleu. Jochen Mohr]

its looking good and sounding good but....

"no thanks, i prefer grass"

(must stop quoting wierd texts)

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Kaleu. Jochen Mohr

its looking good and sounding good but....

(must stop quoting wierd texts)

Oh, it's you.

[Philipp_Thomsen]

This is more the kind of stuff I was talking about. First time I looked at this water, I said to myself "this looks wrong"... But after comparing with some RL shots, this looks more realistic then that reflective gray. But still, this looks like sh!t, I'm not happy with the color, a little more black is necessary (actually a little less blue, a little more black). But what can I say, I never tried screwing around with Env Colors or scene.dat, this was my first attempt, and it was kinda lucky, coz I was not sure what I was doing on those 2 minutes of tweaking. You are right, there are inifinite colors to tweak, its insane. I'm Glad I've chosen to make sound packs.

[Kaleu. Jochen Mohr]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

Oh, it's you.

but i put it on WaW for the one's that do use it
good luck on your project

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

YouTube res is rubbish as always but here it is.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nHdvxwDUkdM

BTW, wind speed is 9m/s in that video.

Man, I've got to say, it looks amazing.

Now I think I found the problem to silk like water. Take a look on your video. Observe that when you start spinning the binoculars away from the sun, the water over there have no reflection at all, so it REALLY looks like a freakin ocean. I've got all wet here. Now when you look towards the sun, theres much reflection on the water, almost 100% of it is covered with this silky reflection, looks wrong. Perhaps tunning down the reflection could get you closer to perfection.

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

Man, I've got to say, it looks amazing.

Now I think I found the problem to silk like water. Take a look on your video. Observe that when you start spinning the binoculars away from the sun, the water over there have no reflection at all, so it REALLY looks like a freakin ocean. I've got all wet here. Now when you look towards the sun, theres much reflection on the water, almost 100% of it is covered with this silky reflection, looks wrong. Perhaps tunning down the reflection could get you closer to perfection.

Yes, that could work... it would be a lot of work, though... I'd have to draw new reflection maps (currently, OLCE has reflection maps derived from stock SH3 images). That in itself wouldn't take that long, the first time. It's the second, third, fourth, fifth... times (getting it right) that concern me. Deniftely doable, though... :hmm: ...we'll see.

[jmr]

Are you willing to push out what you have now and then add the reflection tweaks later if you decide to go down that route?

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

Yes, that could work... it would be a lot of work, though... I'd have to draw new reflection maps (currently, OLCE has reflection maps derived from stock SH3 images). That in itself wouldn't take that long, the first time. It's the second, third, fourth, fifth... times (getting it right) that concern me. Deniftely doable, though... :hmm: ...we'll see.

If you want any help with that, I've got a lot of free time, a lot of creativity, a big and fast will of learning and a lot of lack of skill too!

[Wolfehunter]

LOL I can't keepup with you dude. :rotfl: Every other day I open this page up and something new in the cookie jar. Thanks OLCs

[treblesum81]

No kudos to me: it was like that since stock.
I'm getting plenty of both kinds of weather playing the Ubermod. Maybe you were just (un)lucky? :hmm:

Could be, as for all I know the rain existed but a few miles away so I could experience the storm, but not the rain...

These changes mean that simply raising your scope and looking at your map will still be a valid method of checking for enemy aircraft (which somewhat reduces the need for a lower zoom level on the observation scope) but the same tactic will no longer provide you with instant, highly accurate torpedo targeting data for enemy ships (especially those sailing in convoys). Meanwhile, tracking the overall movements of enemy shipping remains a straightforward matter, and the situational awareness provided by your sonar man is not lost.

So does this mean I won't have enough map contact accuracy to plot the course lines of individual lines in a convoy? I ask because my favorite convoy attack tactic at this point in time is to arrive ahead of the convoy and infiltrate between the lines (usually the center for the best targets) to make my attack and then use the convoy ships as both sound masking (not sure how well this is modelled, but in theory it should work... if its not modelled, I think it should be... your quiet electric engines and small props should be almost completely drowned out by the big blades of the merchants...) and as obsticals to impede the escorts from easily tracking in on me.

Greg

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by treblesum81

So does this mean I won't have enough map contact accuracy to plot the course lines of individual lines in a convoy? I ask because my favorite convoy attack tactic at this point in time is to arrive ahead of the convoy and infiltrate between the lines (usually the center for the best targets) to make my attack and then use the convoy ships as both sound masking (not sure how well this is modelled, but in theory it should work... if its not modelled, I think it should be... your quiet electric engines and small props should be almost completely drowned out by the big blades of the merchants...) and as obsticals to impede the escorts from easily tracking in on me.

Yes and no. Basically you'll have to work a bit harder to determine the indivdual lines, but all the info you need to do that can be obtained from a combination of your map contact updates and the use of your periscope and/or hydrophones.

BTW, sensors in SH3 are obscured when a ship is directly between you and another ship, but AFAIK there is no generalised degradation of hydrophone sensors in the area around/inside a convoy.