Pacific environment 4 RELEASED

[swdw]

Bow wave still visible until the conning tower goes underwater :hmm:

Does this affect surface ship bow waves too? Working on some changes, the Mogami bow wave and prop spray seemed a bit overdone.

[kriller2]

Originally Posted by swdw

Bow wave still visible until the conning tower goes underwater :hmm:

Does this affect surface ship bow waves too? Working on some changes, the Mogami bow wave and prop spray seemed a bit overdone.

Hi swdw, I think it has allways been that way, but before you didn't notice it. I havent edited how long the bow wave should be seen, but only the speed and angle of which the water/foam should be sprayed and the shape/texture of it.
Yes there are alot of the ships which bow-wave looks realy weird, try the "philiines single mission" and zoom in on some of the ships, the kongo f.eks. have a bow wave which starts away from the bow and the fleet carier have bow wave that is way to long :hmm:

EDIT: or maybe not..?
http://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/narmain/narm.../nimitzcl.jpeg

It seems as we try to improve on the game some more work needs to be done...! :rotfl: It's the same thing with the new water shader, now that we can see the bottom of the sea it's allso very visible that the depth of the sea somewhere is allmost random....

[kriller2]

Originally Posted by Uber Gruber

Thats a lot better Kriller, a lot better. I can still see a little bit of fluffyness in the center of the wave splash but i'm sure thats only noticable in screenies. Do you have a quick vid taken from captain's angle on bridge in a storm so we can see it in action.

Yes, I know, i'm a demanding fellow but your work deserves good feedback cos its ground breaking stuff.

Good to hear Uber Gruber I will try to capture the new bow wake on youtube later.

[TDK1044]

Do we have a rough eta on this mod, K2?

[kriller2]

Originally Posted by TDK1044

Do we have a rough eta on this mod, K2?

Yep! We have some problems with the new shader and the depth of the water as I wrote further up in this thread and Nisgeis has contacted one of the devs, but if we can't fix it, then I will release PE4 next weekend and then later a patch if we get it working later on, this mod has been long enough underway allready, but the main reason is that we have discovered alot of nice things which we wanted to include in PE4.

[GlobalExplorer]

I'm testing different environmental mods with my new system (that can finally handle SH4) and I am most convinced by 3.3, it has the most realistic look overall, especially during the evenings.

I am looking forward to PE4 when it comes out and hope to be able to test it!

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by kriller2

Yep! We have some problems with the new shader and the depth of the water as I wrote further up in this thread and Nisgeis has contacted one of the devs, but if we can't fix it, then I will release PE4 next weekend and then later a patch if we get it working later on, this mod has been long enough underway allready, but the main reason is that we have discovered alot of nice things which we wanted to include in PE4.

Yes, there are quite a lot of improvements, but there is a problem with the shallow water colour change and a limittaion of what may be the engine. Ref has given some help with this and has suggested contacting the devs, which I have done. Many changes for the better will be included with this release, but there may be a couple of things that don't make it.

I don't think major changes to the particle effects will make it into this release, perhaps a later 4.1 release, but as it stands, people want PE 4 and they want it now!

I for one wouldn't be happy releasing something that I knew had flaws, no matter how insignificant. Still, Kriller and I have got the lid off the engine now and we can see all the bits that make it work.

This, as they say, is only the beginning. If you're impressed by the way graphics look now, then there's more to come, isn't there Kriller?

[kriller2]

Sounds good Nisgeis. Yes there should be something to look forward to after PE4, but lets take one step at a time and concentrate on making the release as good as possible, then later we can work some more on our ideas

[Syxx_Killer]

You guys are just to much! I thought you had reached the ceiling with the SH4 engine, then you say you just opened the lid. I can't wait to see what you guys got cookin down the road!

[DeepIron]

Um... <DI shuffles feet and looks generally sheepish> Does this mean a public release.... er, soon?

[Task Force]

Great job on this mod. SH has never had such Good enviormental effects.

[The General]

K2 & Co's work is amazing and I, like many others, cannot wait for the big unveiling of PE4. I do have one question though, sorry .

I have recently tried 'Fall of the Rising Sun' and have to say that it has the best configuration for the way the sub behaves in swells I have yet seen. I just wondered what we can expect from PE4 on this front?

[GlobalExplorer]

Thanks to kriller for giving me access to the beta.

Before I go into nitpicking, I was very impressed. With the right hardware and PE4 SHIV really begins to shine. Let me also say that I had very few problems with the mod. It works excellent with most seastates. I would give it 10/10 for esthetics and 8/10 for consistency, which is much better than any other environment mod I have tried (there is always the danger of going overboard with photorealistic effects and ruin the balance).

I generally consider this a keeper.

It was already stated by the creators that the mod is not perfect yet, and here are some minor issues I had:

Ship wakes glow red during sunsets. This is not nice, probably well known. I would think the problem is that white areas reflect sunlight and ship wakes are white, couldnt this be improved by making them more blue?



There was one seastate that I particularly did not like, and that was when the sea was very calm and slow moving. There was an unrealistic reflection, which looks like flashes/lightnings underwater. It stayed during a whole day, so I think it is related to the seastate. Maybe the screenshot helps to understand what I mean:




Subjective experiences:

Everything (waves, ripples) moves a tad too fast.

Underwater view: transition is often unrealistic. I have done SCUBA diving in a lot of places around the world, and I can say water is more blue, and less cyan. I think SHIII was about right in that respect.



I also find the ocean at bright days is too bright and too cyan, maybe you got a bit carried away with photographs that show lagunas and such?

Now here some more nice things:



I think this mod gets better when the sea gets worse. My favourite was this seastate, that should work right in any oceans, atlantic ocean or arctic seas too.






Fog generally worked like a charm.






The following screens also show that calm sea does not always look bad, in fact it often looks spectacular:







I found this mod works practically flawless during sunset / dawn. Sunsets look extremely well, and never over the top!





Final comment, I already like this for its understated effects, but in the end I think it would work even better if everything is toned down a little bit.

I also followed krillers instruction for PE3.3 of enabling dynamic shadows, I hope that is right.

[DrBeast]

*DrBeast collapses on the floor*

Damn I need a vacation!

Yes, I know I just had one, but I need another one! Moving is tiring business! It's doubly tiring business when you combine two households into one, like I just did with my g/f (and soon-to-be fiancee!)!

Anyway, we found some really cool new digs, and I'm back to the Uni, as of today. My research for my PhD thesis will once again consume most of my time. However, I now have access to a computer again, and an internet access from the Uni (no internet at home yet, but it's on the to-do list), so in my spare time I'm thinking of picking up SH4 again.

Having read all the previous posts though, with regards to the PE4 WIP, I wonder if it's no longer 1.4-compatible. Does any of the beta testers use 1.4? If not, and if there's still time before the release, I'd gladly test it out to see how it performs on 1.4.

[kriller2]

@Global Explorer
Thank you for the nice review, yes there are some things which needs changing, but it's getting there.
BTW did you run TC over 2048 ? - it will make SH4 go nuts and produce the strange ocean you posted about, the issue has allways been there and it's a shame, because it wasn't in SH3.

@Dr. Beast.
Welcome back.
I need you onboard again , when you have time to take a look at the special effects for Trigger Maru. After alot of testing it seem "something" is making SH4 go nuts when using PE, so to ensure compatibility with TM I have excluded the zonefile untill we found out what's causing the error.

The RFB team has made a zonefile for RFB and will write about how to use PE4 with RFB.

The above change allso means that you can now run TM + Om without any problems.

@ to testers of PE4
There are 3 issues with the new pack I send to you guys, which I have been PM'ed about I willl try to fix before the release.
1. the new detailed clouds had some pixel - errors, this is now corrected.
2. the sub seems to jump to much in high seas, so I will try to use the storm settings from the first alpha.
3. Bug in the bow-wave, when the submarine have 2 engines, there is 2 bow wakes.

is the ocean better with the less reflective water ? that was the only thing I changed in the scene.dat, that's why im a bit confused how that can affect the submarines behavour in high seas anyway will go back to use the settings from the first alpha which most of you liked