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

[urfisch]

nice find, hans! i will give it a try too!...already spend days on this. so, whats a night...





and i guess, the pic is not read well when resized, cause of a fixed defined size somewhere in the dat. so the game looks for a 512x...and therefore cannot read a 1024x...but thats just an idea.

update:

i think the mesh of the water is defined with a 512x... texture. so the game exspects a 512 texture. dont know where to look for this data. EnvSim.act hasnt it stored.

[Hans Witteman]

Originally Posted by urfisch

nice find, hans! i will give it a try too!...already spend days on this. so, whats a night...





and i guess, the pic is not read well when resized, cause of a fixed defined size somewhere in the dat. so the game looks for a 512x...and therefore cannot read a 1024x...but thats just an idea.

update:

i think the mesh of the water is defined with a 512x... texture. so the game exspects a 512 texture. dont know where to look for this data. EnvSim.act hasnt it stored.

Hi mate,

Yes i suspected that this sprite plate is hardcoded and maybe there is no way to make it bigger but since i am no hexeditor guru i can't look at it to see if it possible to re-size it, could also be a simple line in code defining the plate as 512x256 and could required only changing value.

Take note also that my reflection test did not included a spherical graphic and the reflection is not looking correctly when near the hemisphere skydome but i just did some test so for a final version it would be inside a circle with smooth blending on edge.

I am convinced that we can at least be able to have a nice fake reflection and i think it would be better than a real shader because of performance because the more advanced the shader is the more impact it have on GPU.

I will do other test since i have other ideas to achieve our goal.

Best regards Hans

[Hans Witteman]

Hi mate,

Some more test i did and this time i am starting to be excited with this technique, this one is made with the smallest possible pixel because of the size limitation and it turn out not bad at all so it is confirming my theory that with an image double the size we then have gorgeous waters for sh3.



Best regards Hans

[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]

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?