[REL] Thomsen's Water V4.0 (10/12/2008) - The Pool results go live - NEW VERSION!!!

[VikingGrandad]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

Yeah, it's NVidia settings. I don't know if ATI has that setting. It something that gives a little "wormth" to the screen, more vivid colours.

Thanks for the info. I can't find a similar setting in the ATI control panel, but I don't mind too much as OLCE2 does a great job of providing realistic ambient coloured light effects at different times of the day and night.

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm still not 100% satisfied with this mod. I wanned the waves to be even SMALLER, but if I do that, two bad things happen: 1) the patter waves will get even worse, and will make the water look ugly. 2) the video card and processor wont be able to render the amount of waves, and 99% of the community won't have a computer able to cope with it. So this is the best we can have, until GWX 4.0 is finished for sh4. Of course that the mod is not just about that. It fixed a lot of other stuff, important stuff. Like that sun reflection on the water that I always hated, now it looks more realistic. I have a new version to upload already, better colours at dusk/morning, the water was looking a little bit weird, futuristic. Gonna release it after some more tests.

SH3 is giving you some very tight constraints with what you can and can't do with this project, but you're certainly pushing at those boundaries and the results are encouraging. I've just tried out the mod for myself, which I'll report on in a separate post...

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

Also I'm planning to set the waves back to 320, and balance that with the other setting, so we can use the SH3 Commander "set wave height" and "sesonal waves" with this mod. I noticed a lot of people use that feature, so I want to make it compatible.

That would be good if it's possible. I really like the seasonal waves feature in SH3 Commander.

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

Tell me, which screenshots didn't you like? And which did you like? I'm thinking of replacing some of the screenshot on the first page for better ones. There's still 2 or 3 screenshots of the first version of the mod in the first page, and they don't look as good as the latest version.

The last 5 screenshots in your first post - they just look too strange, and some of them look like the water is made of mercury/quicksilver! The first 3 shots look much more realistic


I'll now put together a post or two containing the screenshots I've just taken during a test patrol with your mod...

[VikingGrandad]

My specs:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 2.40GHz
• ATI Radeon HD 4870 PCS Extreme 512MB GDDR5
• 2GB PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition Dual Channel DDR2

[ all thumbnails link to larger pictures ]

First impressions leaving port in good weather, morning light - superb!! It's hard to appreciate in static screenshots, but the water really does look and move like it is WET! This is a big step forwards!




Now, the sun reflection:



I do like this effect very much, but is there any way to shorten it a bit, so that it fades out as it comes into the foreground? I'm comparing it to these pictures:

http://www.free-wallpaper.co.uk/wall...sunset-sea.jpg

http://www.free-wallpaper.co.uk/wall...sunrise-18.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3230/...8fcfc50d_o.jpg

http://www.ebibleteacher.com/backgrnd/sunshore020.jpg


Now for some reflections from different ships. I notice that the realism of the reflections does vary a bit, according to the camera angle. For example, these two angles look very realistic to me:



...but at this angle, the reflection pattern perhaps looks a bit too fragmented?




More ship reflections:






Overall though, the ship reflections are a big improvement!


For some reason, this destroyer has no reflection - maybe a problem with the ship model files?




Underwater - all looks fine to me!




Part#2 coming up...

[VikingGrandad]

OK, so now it is dusk, plus there's a little wind to change the sea texture.




The pink-purple reflection in the sea looks strange, because there is no similar colour in the sky at the same time.




These shot were taken at the same time in the game. As I panned the camera through 180 degrees, I noticed how much light is reflected when looking away from the direction of the remaining sunlight. Not sure about this, it looked odd to me!

Also, the sea texture in the above 6 shots doesn't look quite right: too soft, and there seems to be one or two 'creases' or sharp lines on the sea surface:




I also notice that the spray effect is a grey-brown colour, which doesn't fit with the colour of the sea:




Part #3 coming up...

[VikingGrandad]

Now it is night:






The problem with the grey-brown spray seems to have gone.

The band of blue light on the horizon looks good sometimes, but other times I think it looks too strong.


Part #4 next...

[VikingGrandad]

I was very keen to see how the mod looks in rougher seas...



Perhaps some tweaking needed to the crests of the waves (a little too pointed?), and the U-boat reflections sometimes look weird (see shot #2 above).

The motion of the water is really good! And I also like how the boat moves through the waves - somehow the action of the bow spray against the waves seems more natural



Part #5 next!

[VikingGrandad]

When I eventually found a merchant ship, I noticed something strange. You can't see it in the screenshot, but the movement of the reflection around the ship was vibrating/shaking.



I've seen a similar bug in SH4.


One more batch to go...

[VikingGrandad]

When I looked through the attack periscope at night - I was blown away by how real the sea looked! It's AWESOME! It's hard for anyone who has not tried this mod to appreciate, but all I can say is it reminded me of periscope scenes in Das Boot



I also waited a few hours for the sunrise and checked through the scope again in the morning light:



I'm not sure if the wind had changed speed, but I noticed again that the wave crests look too pointed.

Er... another batch to go...

[VikingGrandad]

This was a good test - to attack a ship and see how explosions, smoke and fire reflect in the modified sea!

I should mention first that I saw that weird effect with vibrating/shaking reflection again when looking at the merchant with the target camera:




When the torpedo hit, the reflections in the water looked excellent!






Actually, one FINAL post to go... sorry

[VikingGrandad]

No more screenshots!

One other problem to report: I can't remember what the wind speed was (I think it was fairly windy but not stormy), but there was one instance when I was using the target camera to look at my U-boat, which was running at 2/3 ahead, but the speed of the boat looked more like 25-30kts, even though the reported speed was the usual 6 knots or so!

I wonder if somehow the sea texture was animating too fast which made the boat look like it was travelling much faster! (yes I checked that TC was set to x1 )


One other very small glitch I noticed is that when switching from, for example, the map screen to an external view, for a split second the sea texture appears to run backwards, then immediately looks normal. Perhaps that's related to the above issue?


I should have mentioned earlier what graphic card settings I'm using:

• Anti-aliasing x8 (filter: 'box' - whatever that means?)
• Adaptive Anti-aliasing: Enabled, Quality
• Anisotropic filtering x16
• Catalyst AI: Standard (whatever that means?)
• Mitmap detail level: High Quality

Frame rates never dropped below 25 fps and most of the time were 55-60fps.


PT - overall, this mod is really good, and I don't think there are too many problems left to fix. I hope you found my feedback useful, and that my criticisms don't seem too harsh!

I'll gladly test again when you release the next update.

Does Mr Thomsens fab water mod work with the periscope and binnoc changes that OLC made in his OLC 2 Env + GUI pack ?

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Good lord, VG!

That's a lot of review to review!

Ok, let's start with number 1.

1) About the way the sun reflects on the water

Yeah, I'm working on it. This third version of the mod was the first version with sun reflections, so if you stop to think, this is the first version of the sun reflection. As for being the first version, isn't it quite ok? I'm sure the sun reflection will look great on the second or third version. Just that my modding style is not spend months testing and finally releasing. I like to keep releasing as I'm modding, so I can have the help and the criticism of the community. You have no idea how much this criticism helps me improving my mods, I just love it!

2) Ship's reflections

The controller of the ship's reflections is the same controller that gives the water texture. So if I change that to make the ship's reflection to look better, I'll also change the way that the water looks. This is complicated to balance, and requires a little further study from my part. I don't know if I'll worry about that for the next release, cos I'm more worried about my new ideas of moon & stars reflection on the water, after all, the ship's reflections are not looking too bad. Let's fix what's worse first. About ships with no reflection: My mod changes nothing but the water, so if a ship has no reflection, that has nothing to do with my mod. You have to question the ship's creator about that issue. Are you using my mod installed on top of the latest version of OLCE2? This is EXTREMELLY recommended!

3) Underwater

I didn't change ANYTHING on the underwater. I'm planning on giving a shot about that on later versions of the mod. I don't really bother too much about that cos after all, when the hell are you looking underwater? I only use realistic cameras when I'm playing the game, so I don't ever look to things like underwater and ship's reflection looking strange at certain angles. This mod is designed to look good on cameras attached to the uboat, cos worrying about every single detail on every camera would take a lot of extra time, which currently I don't have. I don't even have time to play the game. To be honest with you, I never had the time to go past 1941 in campaign. Always modding more then playing, and once in a while a new version of gwx comes out, which sends my campaign to smitherinies and I have to start all over again. I'm not complaining tho, just explaining. I love new version of mods, specially super-mods like gwx, they're full of surprises. Besides, every time gwx launched a new version, I had to install and rebuild my mods so they get compatible with the newest version. It's a lot of hard work, I tell you.

4) Strange colours on the water at sunrise/dusk

Yeah, at some times of the day the light makes the water look strange. I have already half-fixed that in my computer, I just need some time to finish testing and modding, it's a pretty easy fix. I'm mainly putting my efforts in making the water looks darker, as blue as possible. From a lot of pictures of the ocean I've seen, that's the way to go. You can really rely on what the sea looks like on the beach, cos in the middle of the atlantic the things are a little different. I don't know if you're already aware of this, but I'm colour-blinded. Yeah, a colour-blinded making a environment mod... sounds like a joke. My main deficiency is with blue (and derivants) and green (and derivants). Sometimes brown makes me dizzy too. So it's a little more complicated to find the right colours, but I'll get there. That's why I do what I do, about this modding'n releasing constantly.

5) Sun light reflection on the water on the oposite side of the sun light direction

I never thought about it. Honestly, I'll have to check some pictures to see what it really looks like in real life, but yeah, it's a pretty easy fix. If you can post some pictures on a real ocean condition about that, would help a lot. Also, remember that the ocean is not flat, there're tons of waves, constantly changing shape, so no matter in what direction you look, you will always have sun light reflection.

6) Spray in green-brown colour

Yeah, I noticed it too... Whatta hell is that? I don't know if my mod did that, but I'll see if I can find the cure.

7) Night colours

I noticed the band of blue colour on the horizon too. It made me curious... :hmm:
I'm not sure what is causing that, this game is just too weird. I'm gonna try to find the cause and the solution to that dilema, but not as a priority, it doesn't look that bad.

8) Pointed crests

Do you think they look too pointed? From some videos I've seen, the waves really look pointed in high wind conditions, so pointed that they break all the time. We don't have how to create the effect of breaking waves, but I really like my pointed waves. I personally think that it gives a more realistic look then rounded non-edged waves. Maybe that's only my opinion alone here. I'd like to hear some opinions of other members of this community about this issue, if someone pleases!

9) Uboat reflections of high waves

Complicated to work with reflections of high waves, but I'm working on that.

10) Vibrating/shaking water around vessels

I've noticed that this issue only happens on ships, and never in uboats. I don't have any idea on what's causing that, if anyone could give me a hand? I'll later on change the wave height back to 320 and re-balance that increase by decreasing other wave controller, to make the waves look exactly what they are now, and hopefully this will correct the issue.

11) Fast looking seas

You have to remember this: The waves you was used to play were 2.5 times bigger then these ones. So now, you have the feeling that you're cutting thru water 2.5 times faster. The actual real-life waves are even smaller then in my mod, so you can imagine. I'll change a controller what might help with that part, but maybe this can have some bad effects on other stuff. Let's hit and see what happens. I've always been more curious than careful.

12) Map screen to external view issue

I have no idea what are you talking about, but maybe it has to do with the issue above. Or maybe not. This is a crazy game with a crazy engine, sometimes it looks marvelous, sometimes looks like sh!t. One does what one can, but lets see if I can break all those issues with one controller that I have in mind. As I said before, you guys are going to find zillion more issues then me, cos I just don't have the time to play. I really wish I had.


To all the other things you said that were not criticism: Thank you very much! Nothing beats a good compliment once in a while.

Thank you very much for this long review. At the same time it's great to have all this info about "where to fix and how to fix", and at the same time, makes me very happy to know that you're enjoying the mod enough to spend your time with a review as complete and excited as this.

Fantastic!

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Originally Posted by Uber Gruber

Does Mr Thomsens fab water mod work with the periscope and binnoc changes that OLC made in his OLC 2 Env + GUI pack ?

What OLC fixed is part of the file "Cameras.dat" if I'm not mistaken. My mod doesn't touch that file.

That mod is great, and fixes a very disturbing stock issue, about the pancake waves, but at the same time it makes the pattern waves much more easily spotted. The pancake wave effect is ugly, but at least it helps hiding the pattern effect on the waves. Both effects are ugly, and you have to choose between one or another. We cannot elininate both due to the game's engine restriction. Besides, that mod restricts the zoom level of the periscopes, which is not realistic, and kinda bugs me.

I've opted for the pancake effect, but that's only a personal taste. To each his own, I believe.

So does that mean your mod wont work with his mod ?

[Konovalov]

Well having downloaded the fixed night colours version 3.1 I am very very happy. It really adds to the environment and makes you feel even more part of the SHIII world. Thanks Philipp_Thomsen for your hard work on this mod.

Wow what a thorough review by VikingGrandad. Very constructive thoughts there.

[VikingGrandad]

Thanks PT - I'm really glad you appreciated my review (I was worried I'd maybe been too critical!)

So here's my responses to your review of my review!


1) About the way the sun reflects on the water

Yep - it's a very good start for the sun reflection. The effect works, just needs refinement!

I think it's a good idea to test a mod like this one in public, as different players' hardware performance/settings and personal preferences are critical factors.


2) Ship's reflections

I understand, and agree that it's a lesser priority because it's close to perfect anyway.

I'm not using any additional ship mods, so I guess the missing reflection with the Zerstorer is a minor issue with GWX 2.1.

Damn, I thought I was using the latest version of OLCE, but I wasn't. Just checked - I'm using 2.4.2 and the latest is 2.4.3. Hopefully that didn't make any difference!?

I forgot to say in the review - I definitely followed your instruction regarding the wave height setting in SH3 Commander, just so you know.


3) Underwater

I only included the underwater shot because someone earlier in the thread mentioned they had a strange problem when viewing under the surface.

Your focus on the U-boat camera view is sensible. I think I forgot to mention that the view from the conning tower (moved forwards to look down over the fore-deck - thanks to SB's superb Camera Mod) is a real treat too. However, I do jump on the external free camera a lot cos I'm addicted to taking screenshots! I'm a sucker for any new eye candy that might give me new things to 'photograph', which is why I was drawn to your new mod in the first place.

I've read before how you modders spend so much more time modding than playing. I don't quite understand it but will gladly reap the benefits of such dedicated craftsmanship!


4) Strange colours on the water at sunrise/dusk

Darker/bluer water sounds good.

I read earlier in the thread that you're colour-blind... I can't even imagine how much more tricky that makes tweaking this mod! :hmm:


5) Sun light reflection on the water on the opposite side of the sun light direction

Maybe I was over-analysing this aspect. When I get time to play SH3 at the weekend, I'll re-assess this and perhaps compare it to OLCE2 without your mod. I'll try to find some photos for reference too (not beach shots!).


6) Spray in green-brown colour

Actually it was grey-brown! (or is that gray-brown in US English?)


7) Night colours

Ha! I thought the band of blue on the horizon was deliberate, because in some conditions it looks pretty cool! (when there is more ambient light - not so good when everything is almost pitch black)


8) Pointed crests

Perhaps I'm being over-analytical on this one too. I noticed it immediately when the wind speed increased, because it's so different to what I'm used to seeing in SH3. I need to study some videos of real sea because in the last 4 years I've seen SH3's sea 100 times more than the real sea, so maybe my perception of reality is a bit distorted!


9) Uboat reflections of high waves

I can imagine that's a tough one to crack... Good luck with that!


10) Vibrating/shaking water around vessels

I didn't see many ships in motion during my test, but I'm sure this issue only happened with the two merchants I saw in open seas - and not with the German minesweeper sailing out of my home port when I started the patrol. I'll double-check that on my next test.


11) Fast looking seas

Just to clarify - I spent a lot of time watching the U-boat move through the water in different conditions, and 99% of the time the speed looked 100% right. There was just one occasion when I had the uber-fast speed issue. I think it corrected itself when I switched from camera view to the map screen and then back to camera.


12) Map screen to external view issue

To further clarify this one too... It wasn't just the map screen, it was when I switched to camera from any other 2D screen. The sea motion appears backwards for less than half a second and then automatically corrects itself without me having to do anything.

I think it would be useful for me to record some video during my next test to show you things like this. I've not done any video recording in SH3 before though... Any tips on the best way to do this?


I should have time at the weekend for another in-depth review... This time with the latest OLCE version and hopefully some videos!