[WIP] Longer wake.

[Hmuda]

Looks like I chose a good time to come back. Something to look forward to. Keep up the good work Vikinger, looks awesome.

well dont forget thats a newer high speed ship so maybe the game shouldnt be as white maybe, but the size and shape will give you a great guide to match

[Vikinger]

Yeah you are right webster, That ships on the picture goes at full speed 30+ knots.
There is other smaller pictures on the site that more reflect normal speed and thos wakes is not so dramaticly

I looked into the front and back.tga files a bit and i found out that iam not gona redo any of thos. The modders that have done thos have made a good work and i cant do it much better.

So its just for me to change a bunch of values Hopefully i can make it so it looks descent.

Originally Posted by Vikinger

Yeah you are right webster, That ships on the picture goes at full speed 30+ knots.
There is other smaller pictures on the site that more reflect normal speed and thos wakes is not so dramaticly

I looked into the front and back.tga files a bit and i found out that iam not gona redo any of thos. The modders that have done thos have made a good work and i cant do it much better.

So its just for me to change a bunch of values Hopefully i can make it so it looks descent.

well it depends om proportion too, a battleship wont be that fast but the water it churns probably would look like that picture but without the capping on the wave.

the bigger the beam the more foam you get but i dont think you can do differently just one class of ship, arent you dealing with all at the same time?

[Vikinger]

Well so far i have been working on the navy ships.

Battle ships, heavy crusier, light cruiser, Carriers, escort carriers, auxil ships and some other smaller ships.

Thos larger ships differs so much in both lenght and in width so i have to go through them all. but il guess thos ships are the ones that takes most of the time.

Iam soon rdy to start to do the destroyers. The last navy ships and many of them have same characteristics so i can hopefully use same values.

Then there is the merchant ships left. But that wont take so long either cuz there is just small, medium or large, and the tankers.

Ohh and the subs

Since iam using TMO+ RSRDC so will only thos ships be affected that i have from thos mods. But its about 150 entries. Many other mods use same ships anyway.
I have not yet decided if iam gona do the sub for Opmonsun.

Only file i change is the .val file and i will not send away all ships files there is. Only the file iam changing, mostley so it wont be so large file. And there is no point to send a full ship folder that is not on the roster anyway. it simply wont show up in the game

That means it will be compatible for any mods that use thos ships and even stock. And thos that dont have them wont be affected at all even if the mod will create a ship folder whit the .val file.

wow, so you have to do each ship join the club brother

i had the same fun with my manuvering fix. which by the way you might want to test the effect it has on them but i dont expect it to effect what your doing it only changes acceleration not speeds but it could become the next must have mod.


well val files are only 1k or 2 so it will never be a big file lol the folder is bigger than the file

what you can do is make a stock version that includes the rsrdc ships because most people use it, then do a rfb patch to add the ones missing and do the same for tmo and fotrs

that way as new ships are added you can just slip them in whatever patch it goes in or just call it the new ships patch and update it now and then

[Vikinger]

Yeah that is what i have for plans. try to release this whit the ships i have first and then do a patch so it is compatible whit any mods.

Here is an explaination on the variables iam working on and the complexitiy in it, as far as i have got it

I provide a little drawing also ( Dont say anything about my drawing skills)

Stern ship wake.
All values are in metric and All 3 wakes have this values to play around whit. So i just explain the stern one in detail.


StartOffset=0.0 This value start the wake from the stern starting point. Higher value means it will start closer to the bow. a negative value , it will start after the stern.
I had to high value here cuz its linked to the Fixed lenght. If i set high value here and low value on fixed lenght the wake starts to bend to early under the ship and it look horrible.

Lenght= 200.0 The lenght of the wake. To long wake will make the angle after the stern to be real narrow and that looks bad. it can somehow be adjusted by changing the fronthwidth and aperture angle.

Fixedlenght= 2.0 The wake will start to bend after this value In metric. To high value it means the wake will be straight untill it starts to bend when you do a turn after this lenght.

Frontwidth= 8.0 is the width of the wake at the starting point. This is something i change for every ship to match thier width. And also to adjust the angle to match the length of the wake.

ApertureAngle=6.0 The value in degrees that adjust how wide the wake will be. works toghter whit frontwidth.

Maxopacity=15 High values means the wake become more transparent. Side effect is that to high value the wake become invisible at medium speed for fast ships. But i still experiment a bit whit this cuz all 3 wakes ( or 2 ) overlap each other a bit and to reduce the milky effect i can adjust this for each wake
When a wake overlap they enhance each other and i want to reduce that.

Middle wake, if the ship has one, or if its a ship whit only stern and front wake then i adjust the front wake so it also looks like the middle wake.
But most important thing here is to stretch out the wake in lenght so it fill the gap from the arrow in the aperture angle from the stern wake. se the red lines. And also to adjust the frontwidth so the wake is visible a bit on the side of the ship. So it looks like they are one wake in width.

I had also to high value here for the fixed lenght. I had to adjust that so the wake started to bend at the stern wakes starting point.

And i dont change much in the Geometryshipwake. just the aperture angle for some larger ships. And the lenght so it match the lenght of the stern wake.




So every values must be adjusted so it fits the different ships in lenght and widht if i want the wakes to show up as i want them
And biggest problem iam facing atm is to adjust the fixed length for each ship so the front and middle wake starts to bend at stern wakes starting point when a ship do a turn. And for that i really must se the ship ingame when they turn.

I was lucky today on a patrol that i came up whit an US taskforce whit most larger ships in just when they made a turn so i have that saving point as reference

Gona look into some single missions also and se if they are to any use for me.


Vikinger.

midway mission is perfect, large tast force followed by a couple of battleships and escorts

you'll have most of the jap fleet right there and US air raids makes them do evasive manuvers for you

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

well dont forget thats a newer high speed ship so maybe the game shouldnt be as white maybe, but the size and shape will give you a great guide to match

The basic shape of warships that size hasn't really changed all that much in the past 50+ years. Not to mention just about ALL DDs of WWII vintage did 30 knots or more.

[JREX53]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

wow, so you have to do each ship join the club brother

i had the same fun with my manuvering fix. which by the way you might want to test the effect it has on them but i dont expect it to effect what your doing it only changes acceleration not speeds but it could become the next must have mod.

Don't count on it.

Originally Posted by JREX53

Don't count on it.

and you really felt that comment was necessary....

[Vikinger]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

midway mission is perfect, large tast force followed by a couple of battleships and escorts

you'll have most of the jap fleet right there and US air raids makes them do evasive manuvers for you

Ahh gona fire up that mission later when ive got some sleep

5 AM now, darn the time just fly by

[Vikinger]

I found a better solution than wait for "right" moment in saved games or single missions to test the ships out. I simply make a "mini" single mission whit the mission editor and by that i can work whit 3-5 ships at same time and that speed up the time when i can finish this of.

Its quite fun to do own single missions and when iam done whit this wake project i think iam gona do some missions.

Iam thinking of doing an observation mission where you dont play any part of the naval battle. Its more to watch the scenery.
I want to try and set up an air attack followed by an surface attack and also try to make the jap planes to do kamikaze attacks on ships.

And iam gona try to use real naval battle as reference that i found on this page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._.281939-45.29


Or try to make something out of this battle where Submarines where involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...Philippine_Sea

Some cool reading there.



Here is the latest picture about the wake project.

Its an Aux Cruiser at full speed that make a turn.

Note the wake that "draft" from the ship hull as the ship turn. I tryed to "simulate" the ships momentum in the wake when they do a hard turn.



Vikinger.

looking great



and a note on mission building, only the players sub will move.

its a game thing where subs added to mission sit stationary and do nothing you tell them to.

i dont believe they even shoot back at you with AA or deck guns if i remember correctly. so keep in mind any added sub is just eye candy in missions.

[Vikinger]

A little update.

Ive been working every day on this and i encounter problems every time.

However i have to take a "medium" path so i can finish this of.
There is so many variables that affect the wakes specialy on the submarines.

So far iam done whit all the ships from Stock game and TMO and that is about 125 ships that all have been tested individualy in test missions.
However some ships dont have the .val file and thos ships are linked to another ship. I have not tested thos ship that is linked and can not guaranty how they look ingame. But thos linked ships are based on the other ships hull that have a .val file so il guess you wont have any problem whit it. Iam only tweaking thos ships that have a.val file attatched.
I have the submarines left and about 40 ships from OPMonsun.

The submarines characteristics affect the wake a lot. I noticed this when i thought a had a finished wake for the S-18 sub and then used RFB subs characteristics and the wake looked different. it was not bad but it was not good.

Since iam only working on the .val file i try to make the wakes so they fit the characteristics from stock+TMO and Op Monsun. It wud take forever to change every aspect in every mod.
Things that also affect is the subs turnrate. How much wind there is. The subs draught etc.

I also found an odd behaviour from the subs. it seams when they do a full rudder turn the subs start to turn around its own center of the sub. The turn does not start at the stern. To change that charateristics its possible to change some values in the .sim file that handle the drifting but iam not going into that. As i said different Mods gives a little different Characteristics for different subs, so i had to take a middle part in this.
Iam only testing this in test missions whit windspeed 5.

And this mod will not be perfect at all. the main purpose was just to make longer wake, but of course the wake have to look descent also.

Some rescent screenshoots. All pictures are re-scaled to 60%

This is from stock+TMO



And here is the modded wake.




Here is a picture about that odd behaviour that a submarine start to turn around its own center rather than the stern. For a breif moment the wake look odd when a sub start a full turn in full speed. The wake bends first to right when i do a full left turn before it goes back to normal.



Here is same boat in same turn just a few sec later.



Like i said, am not gona do anything about that. Cuz it require more testing and changing in other files that i dont intend to release it wud also make the mod less compatible for other mods. For my self i can live whit that little problem in my game


And here is a picture i took when i made a test mission whit all the US battle ships against JAP BBships.
It was a massive battle and fun to watch
At the end the water was packed of lifeboats from all sinking ships

You can se some of the battle ships wake also from the picture.




Vikinger.