Pacific environment 4 RELEASED

[Ishigami]

Holy **** this really is amazing!

I hope you find a way to see the torps running from above the surface. That would be awesome.

[Orion2012]

Wow...

[kriller2]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

I think Kriller and I are going to decide what we want to accomplish for this release and then stick to that. We could just keep improving things, but then we'd never get anything out, so time to call for a freeze and hopefully there'll be no more feature creep. You never know though, there's always that killer effect you want to get in at the last minute, but for testing better to freeze.

There are many things I have changed and then Kriller has changed other things to compliment my changes and then I've changed some more stuff and he's changed it a bit and we're both pulling in the same direction, so that's good. To the shaders, I've added in refraction, so the viewing angle now has a bearing on what you can see, whereas before it was just the depth of water between the object and the camera. I've also changed reflections so they give much more wave details, you can now see more levels of wavelets, Kriller has adjusted the brightness of the reflections to match the new pattern. Increased viewing depth down to your sub (from above due to refraction). You can now see the sea floor, if you are close to the shoreline. Kriller and I have been working on making torpedoes visible from above the water, but no luck so far.

Most important for some, I'm almost certain the white line around the sub at shallow depths effect has been fixed, with no side effects, but testing will make sure.

Lastly, I'm almost 100% sure that Project Top Secret is workable without any serious errors. I didn't want to give any details before we were sure it was possible and I'm almost 100% sure that it is bug free, but testing will make sure.

Project Top Secret is:











Now, even I, as unobservant as I am, can see there's a difference there. It only works close to the shore, I'm hoping I can get it to work at all depths, but I don't know yet. I've obviously chosen the best angles to take screenshots of, so in some angles it doesn't looks as good, like flying up 1,000 feet in the air for example.

Fantastic work on the shaders Nisgeis!, I think that both me and this community owe you one for the amount of work you have put into making this wish come true

I am making some more adjustments to the mod after the new shader have arrived to match Nisgeis work on the shader, so the beta testing should start sometime next week.

[Ishigami]

So if no serious problems occur we may see it for download in two weeks? – Sweet!
Can't wait!

[Nisgeis]

The large explosion stock special effect seems to be getting a bad press at the moment, but is there something that you think should be changed?

Previous things that have been complained about have been changed, for example the deck gun impact effect was re-done, so was the depth charge effect. No one seemed to notice the depth charge change, even though it is quite different, so perhaps that wasn't altered enough?

Anyway, you have your say, what special effects (think smoke/fire and explosions) would you like to see done differently?

So, have your say... oil fire effect looks like Marge Simpson's hair? Depth charge a bit weedy? Explosions too violent? Cavitation effects too cartoony? Flak gun explosions have no smoke and vanish too fast? Tell us and we (possibly) will change it to something (that may or may not be) better.

Remember that I used to play text adventures and that was all the graphics that I needed, so I'm relying on you to tell us what needs to be improved.

[Digital_Trucker]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

Tell us and we (possibly) will change it to something (that may or may not be) better.

That's got to be the best disclaimer I've ever seen

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by Mikhayl

I have a question not regarding special effects but another annoyance
Did you guys looked at the drawing distance for the harbours ?
I did some attempts a few weeks ago, with all the basic settings maxed out the harbours fade out at 3km, it's a real killer
I tried a few things but came up with no result at all.

Hi Mikhayl,

What's the killer bit? There are different draw distances in the various files, what is it you think we should have looked at? Is it on approach that you don't get the harbour defenses? I know Kriller made sure that the reflections are all there.

[Carotio]

Regarding the harbours, which I don't know is related to PE, but I suppose so.
Some of the buildings on the docks in Europe (I haven't noticed this with Far East ports, since it's a while since I last played there) dissapears, when turning and zooming in/out with the camera both seen from bridge and free move.

[Will-Rommel]

Nisgeis, i think all you mentionned should be looked at!

Importance giving to the Flak and cavitation first i think.

[Syxx_Killer]

I've been meaning to ask, are the lifeboats in the game suppose to be empty most of the time? Could they have some more people placed in them? I just find it odd to sink a large ship and a bunch of the lifeboats be totally empty. I can understand a small ship where the crew may not have enough time and all, but a large ship should have some people in the boats. I suppose it is a general setting, though, that regulates the number of people in the lifeboats? Here is how I have PE3 installed if that matters:

#1 PE3 Install
#2a PE3 Special effects for Stock
#3a PE3 Submarine bubles and caustics and roll pitch
#4 PE3 Ship_debris_SH4_with bodies
#5 PE3 real reflections for harbour and objects

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by Syxx_Killer

I've been meaning to ask, are the lifeboats in the game suppose to be empty most of the time? Could they have some more people placed in them? I just find it odd to sink a large ship and a bunch of the lifeboats be totally empty. I can understand a small ship where the crew may not have enough time and all, but a large ship should have some people in the boats. I suppose it is a general setting, though, that regulates the number of people in the lifeboats?

It's an individual setting in each ship's CFG file (Survival Rate and Survival Percentage). The former determines the chance of lifeboat crew being rendered, and the latter determines how many of them will be rendered.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

Anyway, you have your say, what special effects (think smoke/fire and explosions) would you like to see done differently?

So, have your say... oil fire effect looks like Marge Simpson's hair? Depth charge a bit weedy? Explosions too violent? Cavitation effects too cartoony? Flak gun explosions have no smoke and vanish too fast? Tell us and we (possibly) will change it to something (that may or may not be) better.

The oil fire effect indeed needs to have more dispersion, yes.

Also, don't know if it's anything you can change, but the animated ship crew isn't rendered until one is very, very, very close to the ship. It results in odd things like seeing flak guns rotating and firing without any crewmen on them.

[swdw]

Feedback: New bow wave issue.

While working on the IXD2 dive times, I noticed the bow wave was still being rendered even though the boat was at >30ft.

[kriller2]

thanks for reporting swdw I am currently testing and have found out a way to make the sky and clouds impact the sea alot more, which adds alot to the feeling of being on the sea, allso now the storms have some more violent waves, but without the sub on rails issue.

@Nisgeis check your Pm

[kriller2]

Hi all,

Here you can see a preview of PE4's new sunsets:





This one is dedicated to you swdw, because of the help on getting the colours right




I will try to upload some more videos later, btw the colour may seem a little odd (the storm is more grey and the sunset is more yellow in sh4), but that's because of the change I did with the shaders, it looks good in realtime.