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Old 02-25-13, 06:34 PM   #1
gap
Navy Seal
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: CJ8937
Posts: 8,214
Downloads: 793
Uploads: 10
[REL] Dynamic Environment SH5



Description:
Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.9

Authors:
Subsim SH5 Modding Community

About this mod:
The weather randomly generated by Silent Hunter 5, as it is out of the box, tends to be quite static. This mod addresses the problem, aiming to enhance the game experience. Not only it offers better looking and immersive environments that push game’s graphical engine to its limits, it also affects the general playability, by adding in SH5’s world several new climatic zones, each with its characteristic colors, seasons, and dynamic weather conditions. For doing so, real data on ocean’s main temperatures and turbidity, season’s alternations, weather variability, wind speeds, etc, were collected and combined, resulting in an highly variable environment. From now on, planning carefully your patrols based on seasons and locations will be a key factor for succeeding in the campaign, making the difference between the newbie and the experienced U-boot Kaleun!

Main mod features:
  • added 9 new environment color zones, bringing the total to 12 (stock game features only 3 env_coloros configuration files), each with completely new colors, matching the real ones as close as possible according to footage and pictures available on internet and/or beta testers reports;
  • added 9 new climate zones for a total amount of 15 (stock game features only 6 climate zones), each representing realistic seasonal alternations for polar, sub polar, cold temperate, warm temperate, hot temperate, dry tropical and wet tropical climate (for both northern and southern hemisphere), plus equatorial climate (symmetrical);
  • added 84 new weather type configuration files for a total amount of 87 (stock game features only 3 climate zones), each with realistic weather variation intervals, and wind speed ranges changing based on climatic zones and seasons;
  • ClimateZones.tga completely reworked for representing as precisely as possible on the global map 183 different combinations of the featured color, climate and weather zones; no more “fixed” combinations are given, as it was in stock game.
  • replaced stock caustics with better HD ones;
  • many other graphical improvements, 3D textures and effects, etc.
Optional mods features:
  • Low Resolution Patch: replaces main mod’s textures with smaller/more compressed ones.
    NOTE: the enabling of this submod is highly recommended on average systems, as it might reduce the occurrence of random crashes caused by low available memory;
  • Enhanced Visibility: increases underwater transparence, decreases underwater impurity and fog density. Available in two versions (medium and high) for different degrees of visibility;
  • Camera Filters: affects colors dominance. It comes in two versions: Vivid Colors (increased saturation for blue component) and Realistic Colors (balanced saturation);
  • Ambient Settings: changes various environment color settings. Available in three versions: Darker Nights for reduced nocturnal ambient luminosity and darker night skies, No Murky Waters for setting back the grayish-greenish coastal waters featured in some areas by the Main Mod to a more classical blue color, Darker Nights-No Murky Waters for a merge of the previous versions;
  • Sleet for Winter Campaigns: changes rain into sleet-like precipitations;
  • Clear Water Surface: increases water surface transparency, making seafloor and underwater parts of SHIII/IV imported units visible from above water;
  • Wave Mechanics: improves waves at various wind speeds. It comes in three versions: Breeze, for improved low-height waves (recommended for low spec systems), Gale for increased wave height, and Hurricane for very high waves (only for high-end computers);
  • Seafloor: replaces stock seabed textures. Available in three versions: high resolution, medium resolution and low resolution.
  • Sea Plants: replaces stock sea plants and rock textures. It is available in 3 versions representing different undersea ecosystems (Atlantic Kelp Forests, Med Posidonia Meadows and Coral Reefs), each with 3 different resolutions (high, medium and low);
  • Sounds: it changes stock environment sounds (wind, wakes, thunders, etc.) with better ones;
  • Sobers Best Ever Tweaks: includes a selection of the best environmental mods by sober compatible with Dynamic Environment.
Change log:
  • Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.9:
    - removed the distinction between realistic, normal and light main mod versions used until v 2.1. The realistic version is now the sole Main Mod, whereas normal and light versions were made into two optional sub-mods, called respectively Enhanced Visibility (medium) and Enhanced Visibility (high);
    - Brighter nights optional mod removed;
    - various optional mods featured in the previous versions of Dynamic Environment renamed with more intuitive names. The new names include numbers and letters corresponding with their suggested installation order;
    - added low resolution textures to the Main Mod and to several optional mods, for users playing on low detail settings (SH5 graphical settings menu); further reduced/compressed textures introduced as optional mods;
    - Sobers NO water drops v1 merged into Enhanced Visibility (high) optional mod.
    - Dynamic Environment SH5 Shallow Waters V2.1 Patch merged into Clear Water Surface (old Shallow Waters) optional mod;
    - Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.1 - Winter Hotfix #1 merged into the main mod;
    - Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.1 - SkyColor-MurkyWaters Hotfix # merged into the main mod;
    - Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.1 - SkyColor-MurkyWaters-DarkerNights Hotfix #1 made into the Darker Nights optional mod;
    - Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.1 - Skycolor Hotfix #1 and Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.1 - SkyColor-DarkerNights Hotfix #1 made respectively into the new No Murky Waters and Darker Nights-No Murky Waters optional mods;
    - increased underwater diffraction FX for the main mod and, to a lesser extent, for Enhanced Visibility (medium) optional mod;
    - Sobers Best Ever Tweaks, including DOF v4, Base Sky Mechanics v1, Better Terrain v3, Lights Cfg v5 and Waves Mod v9, introduced as optional mod.

  • Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.1:
    - fixed an error with incorrect wind speed ranges in some of the weather type zones .cfg files;
    - fixed a small error with a missing average wind speed area in ClimateZones.tga map;
    - decreased minimum wind speed value for calm wind areas from 1 to 0;
    - added a new version of the optional mod Dynamic Environment SH5 – Undersea, to be used into the Mediterranean Sea.

  • Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.0 (beta):
    - increased the number of weather type zones .cfg files from 15 to 87, in order to reflect detailed information on real annual and seasonal wind speed averages measured in different areas of the planet;
    - reworked ClimateZones.tga map, in order to include the new wind information; increased number of different combination of color, climate and weather types represented on it, from 36 to 183;
    - included Dynamic Environment SH5 (realistic version) patch into realistic version of the main mod, in order to have more realistic visibility, fog distances and sky saturation;
    - new water pixel shaders by TheDarkWraith included as optional mod.

  • Dynamic Environment SH5 (first release):
    - main mod made in 3 versions with different underwater visibility, fog, filter, etc. settings;
    - changed vanilla settings to have new environment colors zones for a total amount of 12;
    - changed vanilla settings to have new climate zones for a total amount of 15;
    - changed vanilla settings to have new weather type zones for a total amount of 15;
    - replaced vanilla ClimateZones.tga with a new map featuring 36 different combinations of color, climate and weather types.
    - replaced vanilla caustics effect.
    - included other effects, textures, etc.
    - optional mods included: Nights (2 versions), Colors (2 versions), Sleet for Winter Campaigns, Sounds, Waves (3 versions), Floor, Undersea (2 versions).
Compatibility:
  • this mod is compatible with any version of Silent Hunter 5;
  • it is not compatible with any mod affecting the following files: ClimateZones.cfg, ClimateZones.tga, EnvColors_*.cfg, Weather_*.cfg (beware CTD’s).
Known bugs and limitations:
  • low precipitations occurrence, excessive medium fog occurrence, presence of fog even during wind storms, stars visible during foggy and/or cloudy nights, weather resetting to foggy after loading a save game (whatever was the weather before saving), and Navigation Officer reporting the wrong weather after a save game reload, are known SH5 limitations that cannot be addressed with the present mod;
  • feel free to report any other issue that might be related with this mod in its dedicated thread.
Installation:
  • install JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler if you have not done it yet, and configure it to the SH5 installation path (detailed instructions on how to configure it found here);
  • open the Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.9 package using WinRAR or 7-Zip;
  • drop DynEnv v2.9 - 1. Main Mod into the <MODS> folder (inside the main SH5 directory);
  • enable the mod using JSGME;
  • follow the same steps for the optional mods you may want to use, taking care to enable them in the same order suggested by their progressive number. Sub-mods with the same number are alternative version of the same mod (enable only one of them).
    NOTE: Sobers Best Ever Tweaks overwrites Enhanced Visibility, Camera Filters and Wave Mechanics optional mods.
Acknowledgements:
  • main contributors: Ailantd, Captain America, Entheberge, gap, Paris_England, Pintea, sober, stoianm, Stormfly, TheDarkWraith, volodya61, W_clear, yano1966;
  • main beta testers: bart, misha1967, pedrobas, Silent Steel, tonschk;
  • other contributors: the authors of this mod wish to thank all the subsim members who have supported its development with their suggestions and with their encouragement. Among them, a special mention goes to Trevally for his help in uploading the mod to subsim download section.
Disclaimer:
  • this package is not related to or supported by UBISOFT© nor it is intended for any commercial use;
  • the authors of this package take no responsibility for any damage occurred to the data in your computer due to its use;
  • feel free to redistribute this package for free as long as you do not alter it in any part, including this readme;
  • feel free to use this package -as a whole or in part- for your own freely distributed mod, as far as you get explicit consent by its authors (including the authors of mods that the present mod is based on) and you give them credits for their work. Any request can be addressed to stoianm and/or to gap via private message at subsim community forum.


======================================
Dynamic Environment SH5 v 2.9 patches, fixes & updates
======================================


Legend:
blue title = optional update
orange title = critical update


Medium Fog Bug Workaround by archer9 (date added: 12 Jan 2014)
This mod replaces medium fog settings with clear weather settings and light fog settings with medium fog, thus making medium fog to appear much more rarely in game. Undesired side effects: there is no light fog anymore, and transition from clear weather to heavy fog is very sudden.
Enable the DynEnv-compatible version of Medium Fog Bug Workaround on top DynEnv's main mod and, if used, after any version of DynEnv's Enhanced Visibility submod. No campaign restart required.


sobers waves mod V27 SH5 (date updated: 8 Jan 2014)
This is the latest version of sobers waves mod. Waves look more natural now, and big waves will block te view of other vessels. If you plan to use the DynEnv v2.9 - Sobers Best Ever Tweaks submod, you might want to keep it updated by enabling sobers waves mod V27 SH5 on top of it. Screenie available at this link.


sobers best ever fog V25 SH5 (date added: 8 Jan 2014)
This is the latest attempt by sober to rebalance SH5 fog levels. Medium fog visibility is much better now. Let this mod to overwrite DynEnv's main mod and Enhanced Visibility or Sobers Best Ever Tweaks submods if you are using them, and enjoy it!


Rubini's Moon light mod v1 (date added: 3 Dec 2013)
This mod adds a real moon light into the game. The main feature of this mod is that now the night "main light" is aligned with the moon, what is much more immersive. Screenies here and here.
Originally released for SHIII, but compatible with SH5. Better used together with any of the Dynamic Environment's Darker Nights submods and with Sobers Realistic contrast V8. A big thanks to sober for pointing us to this mod!


sobers realistic contrast V8 SH5 (date updated: 3 Dec 2013)
This is the latest version of the mod once known as 'sobers DOF', which enhances game contrast. If you plan using the DynEnv v2.9 - Sobers Best Ever Tweaks submod, you might want to keep it updated by enabling sobers Realistic contrast V7 SH5 on top of it.
Now updated for full compatibility with Rubini's Moon light mod.


sobers storm clouds v1 SH5 (date added: 5 Nov 2013)
Makes clouds to look darker and lower, thus increasing the dramaticity of the skies. Screenies of the mod available in its thread.


sobers better terrain v4 SH5 (date added: 30 Oct 2013)
This mod enhances the resolution of detail maps rendered on the terrain. Enable it anytime either in port or on patrol.


DynEnv v2.9 - Brighter Nights (date added: 19 Jul 2013)
This submod reduces the problem of nights being excessively dark for some users. Available in two alternative versions: Brighter Nights (normal version) and Brighter Nights-No Murky Waters (merge of the two submods).


DynEnv v2.9 - No Glaring Sunlight (date added: 19 Jul 2013)
This submod is an attempt to reduce the excessively bright sun reported by some users, and it is a combination of the lights.cfg settings suggested by Venus with stock hdr_exterior.cfg, as suggested by robbierob2005. There is still space for some finetuning probably, but you should notice a substantial improvement anyway.


DynEnv v2.9 - Wave Mechanics - Gale (Improved) (date added: 9 May 2013)
This is a big improvement over the Wave Mechanics - Gale optional mod featured in DynEnv v2.9, which now contains Fifi's tweaks (thank you again mate!). JSGME ready. Enable it any time in place of any other wave mechanics mod. Compatible with DynEnv v2.9 - Sobers Best Ever Tweaks (enabled DynEnv v2.9 - Wave Mechanics - Gale (Improved) and let JSGME to overwrite the conflicting file).

Screenies: wind speed 0 m/s, wind speed 14 m/s


DynEnv v2.9 - No U-Mark (date added: 20 Mar 2013)
Removes the orange marker denoting U-boat's position in external view.


DynEnv v2.9 - Sobers Best Ever Tweaks - Wakes Fix (date added: 6 Mar 2013)
With some gfx cards, the tweak contained in DynEnv v2.9 - Sobers Best Ever Tweaks corrupt U-boat's wake. This quick fix corrects the issue by restoring stock settings. Enable it after the aforementioned submod, if you are experiencing the described problem. Not required if the Sobers Best Ever Tweaks is not enabled.


DynEnv v2.9 - No Underwater Impurity Patch (date added: 5 Mar 2013)
Removes underwater impurity particles. Enable it after the Main Mod and either of the Enhanced Visibility optional mods, if used.
NOTE: required by the Enhanced Visibility submod high version, to fix a bug which makes impurity to be rendered as solid white squares.


DynEnv v2.9 - No Underwater FX Patch (date added: 3 Mar 2013)
Removes underwater diffraction effects. Enable it after the Main Mod and the Enhanced Visibility (medium) optional mod, if used.
You don't need it if you are using the Enhanced Visibility (high) submod.

Last edited by gap; 11-06-22 at 06:27 PM. Reason: removed Dynamic Environment v2.9 - Addon by U-190 from the list of recommended DynEnv addons.
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Old 02-25-13, 06:35 PM   #2
gap
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: CJ8937
Posts: 8,214
Downloads: 793
Uploads: 10
Default

Hi there,
in this post I will try to explain as clear as I can with my modest english what any SH5 player wanting to use Dynamic Environment should know before enabling it. It is important that you read these explainations carefully, in order to be aware of what you can expect from the mod and to report any issue or malfunctioning. In the first part I will try to explain how SH5 climate/weather settings do work. Skilled modders or experienced players who know better than me this part of the game can jump directly to the second paragraph where I describe the weather system introduced in Dynamic Environment and the process followed for achieving it.

I apologize in advance if in some parts this text will result tedious, obscure, or incomplete, and indeed I wellcome any constructive criticism about our mod and my explainations on it.

here we go:

HOW IT WORKS
All the editable files for SH5 wether generation are located in this path: <Silent Hunter 5/data/Env>. This folder contains several files. The ones whose function I'm going to explain belong to 4 categories:

1) ClimateZones.tga file, representing the global map in Mercator projection. In stock game the map looks like this:



As you can see, sea is represented there by different shades of red. During weather generation, the game engine is compairing our current position with the corresponding red value on the map, and reading it according to 3 different color indices. Incidentally, CTD's caused by some environmental mods were due to colors in the wrong format accidentally introduced in the map, or to colors in correct format but not listed in these indices.

2) ClimateZones.cfg: together with the .tga map, it is the core part of the weather genereting system in SH5. the firts part of the file contains the above mentioned indices, matching any of the red values found on the .tga map with 3 sets of parameters, namely (from their headers):
- Climate Zones settings
- Climate Weather Types settings
- Climate Environment Colors settings

Example from stock SH5:

Code:
[Climate Zones]
DefaultClimateZone=0
Color00=PolarClimateNorthern
Color40=TemperateClimateNorthern
Color80=TropicalClimateNorthern
Color120=TropicalClimateSouthern
Color160=TemperateClimateSouthern
Color200=PolarClimateSouthern

[Climate Weather Types]
Color00=Weather_Polar.cfg
Color40=Weather_Temperate.cfg
Color80=Weather_Tropical.cfg
Color120=Weather_Tropical.cfg
Color160=Weather_Temperate.cfg
Color200=Weather_Polar.cfg

[Climate Environment Colors]
Color00=EnvColors_Polar.cfg
Color40=EnvColors_Temperate.cfg
Color80=EnvColors_Tropical.cfg
Color120=EnvColors_Tropical.cfg
Color160=EnvColors_Temperate.cfg
Color200=EnvColors_Polar.cfg
Climate Zones settings are contained in the second half of the same file. They define seasons for any given area, with their starting and ending dates (numeric format: month/day of the month). These dates are compared with the current in game date, for generating weather conditions based on the resulting season. AFAIK we can have a maximum of 4 seasons (the obvious minumum should be one season). There's no limit to their durations as far as they cover the whole year.
Here is an example taken from stock game ClimateZones.cfg file, belonging to northern temperate area settings:

Code:
[TemperateClimateNorthern]
[TemperateClimateNorthern.Season0]
SeasonName=winter
StartDate=1201
EndDate=0231

[TemperateClimateNorthern.Season1]
SeasonName=spring
StartDate=0301
EndDate=0531

[TemperateClimateNorthern.Season2]
SeasonName=summer
StartDate=0601
EndDate=0831

[TemperateClimateNorthern.Season3]
SeasonName=autumn
StartDate=0901
EndDate=1131
It features 4 seasons equally distributed, but we could remove any season at our wish and/or modify seasons extent over the period of one year.

Another example from stock settings, related to southern polar area:

Code:
[PolarClimateSouthern]
[PolarClimateSouthern.Season0] ; one season for polar zones
SeasonName=winter
StartDate=0101
EndDate=1231
It features just one season (winter) extending for the whole year. Again, we can change this season with any other, or even add other seasons as far as we ensure that their cumulative durations do cover the extent of one year.

I did not carry tests with overlapping seasons, inverted seasons order (for instance summer => spring => winter) or seasons appearing more that once during one year, though, even if possible, I doubt that this kind of settings would help us to render a more realistic seasonal pattern!

It seems logical to me that the occurrence of rain, clouds and fog is generated by game engine pseudorandomly, on the base of current season (defined by in game date and location and ClimateZones.cfg settings). The probability of these occurrences for any given season could be hardcoded. So, unless I'm very much mistaken, the only way to change their chance in game is to play with the presence/absence and relative duration of different seasons, as defined in the .cfg file discussed in this paragraph.

3) Climate Weather Types settings are contained in a set of .cfg files (one file for any weather type we want in game, 3 in vanilla SH5). They define different weather change intervals (min and max values, in hours) and wind speed ranges (again: min and max values) related to the current season. Due to this reference to seasons, it is important to match weather settings with the corresponding ClimateZones area settings. For instance, if we wanted to create/edit a weather type .cfg file corresponding to a climate zone featuring two seasons, we would ensure that it contains entries for the very same seasons.

For example, stock SH5 settings for temperate weather (shared by both northern and southern temperate climate zones) are:

Code:
[Season 0]
SeasonName=winter
MinWeatherChangeInterval=5	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MaxWeatherChangeInterval=96	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MinWindSpeed=1			;
MaxWindSpeed=15			;

[Season 1]
SeasonName=spring
MinWeatherChangeInterval=5	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MaxWeatherChangeInterval=96	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MinWindSpeed=1			;
MaxWindSpeed=15			;

[Season 2]
SeasonName=summer
MinWeatherChangeInterval=5	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MaxWeatherChangeInterval=96	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MinWindSpeed=1			;
MaxWindSpeed=15			;

[Season 3]
SeasonName=autumn
MinWeatherChangeInterval=5	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MaxWeatherChangeInterval=96	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MinWindSpeed=1			;
MaxWindSpeed=15			;
Stock settings for polar weather (only one season, for northern and southern polar climate zones):

Code:
[Season 0]
SeasonName=winter
MinWeatherChangeInterval=5	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MaxWeatherChangeInterval=96	; [minHours, maxHours], interval in which to trigger a random weather change
MinWindSpeed=1			;
MaxWindSpeed=15			;
4) Climate Environment Colors settings are contained in another set of .cfg files (one file for any weather type we want in game, 3 in vanilla SH5). They contain color parameters (in hex color values) for several environmental items (sea, sky, clouds, sun, etc.). In any of these .cfg files, parameters are divided into 3 different sections, respectively for (more or less) sunny, medium overcast and stormy weather. Any section is divided on its turn into several subsections, for different day/night times. Wether/how these colors are merged for intermediate times/weather conditions, or during the transition from a climatic area in the map to the next one (during oceanic passages) is something out of my knowledge. I invite my industrious ;-) friend stoianm to provide us with some clarification on this topic, as this is his undisputed kingdom!

Well, I guess you got enough basics to understand what follows. Time for sticking to the changes introduced with Dynamic Environment:

WHAT WE DID
In stock game we got 3 weather type/environment color zones (Polar, Temperate and Tropical) and 6 climate zone (the former zones x 2, for both northern and southern emispheres). You can spot these zones at first glance by looking at the .tga map posted above.

The first step was adding some new climate/environment colors zones to the map. For doing so, we didn't stick to latitude as main factor for climate change across the globe. As SH5 is a game about people going through the sea, we took oceanic average temperatures as the main factor representing global climate. We are aware that for this arbitrary assuption we are not going to win the Nobel Prize, but after all climatology is a complex science, and we had to simplificate it a lot in order to put it in our game!

This is one of the many maps about global oceanic temperatures we've found on the net:



and this is how ClimateZones.tga map looked like after our first rework:



Red color shades were replaced with custom colors for easing our work. This is the legend:

Black: polar zone;
Blue: subpolar Zone;
Cyan: cold temperate zone;
Green: warm temperate zone;
Yellow: hot temperate zone;
Red: tropical and equatorial zone.

Each of these areas got its own environment color settings.

Next step was adding intermediate areas within the main zones. We could have done it by introducing new color in the map and defining new climate/weather/environment colors zones in .cfg files, but as there's a limit to the zones that could be defined in the .tga map (0 to 255 are the red channel values in RGB color format) and we wanted to have some free space for adding other features, we decided to represent these "in-between" areas by dithering pixel by pixel color values relative to contiguous yet existing zones:



in this image you cannot spot the dithering, as the image itself is a compressed and resized sample. Side effect of this dithering method is that every time you move on your u-boat into intermediate areas, going from pixel to pixel (in game it is equal to a square with side of 40 km), most probably weather will change, providing an higher dynamism during passages and patrols in those areas.

The next step was implementing the intertropical climatic system into our mod:



the two red and blue bands in this image represent the so called Intertropical Covergency Zones with two alternate (wet/dry) seasons. Wet seasons correspond to hotter months: around July for the red band and January for the blue one. The central area between the bands is the equatorial zone, were precipitations are equally distributed during most of the year. Again: we semplified a lot things.
After adding some shadowing effects to our map for representing ITCZ zones, equatorial zone and for distiguishing northern and southern climates, we obtained this:



Notice that I took the area of Indian Ocean between Horn of Africa, Southern Arabic Peninsula and North Western India out of Northern ITCZ and equatorial bands, because the climate of this region tends to be drier than surrounding areas and it is influenced by winds originating in the southern hemisphere.

Now, according to colors in map*, we can define our ClimateZones settings in ClimateZone.cfg file as follows:

Greyed areas outside ITCZ and equatorial bands:
black: polar northern climate
blue: subpolar northern climate
cyan: cold temperate northern climate
green: warm temperate northern climate
yellow: hot temperate northern climate
red: dry tropical northern climate

Areas within ITCZ bands:
Upper ITCZ band (black shadowed area): wet tropical northern climate
Mild band (grey shadowed area): equatorial climate
Bottom ITCZ band (white shadowed area): wet tropical southern climate

Non greyed areas outside ITCZ and equatorial bands:
red: dry tropical southern climate
yellow: hot temperate southern climate
green: warm temperate southern climate
cyan: cold temperate southern climate
blue: subpolar southern climate
black: polar southern climate

* Intermediate colors (orange, lime green, light blue, etc.) don't need to be defined because -as aforesaid- if you could look at them closely you would see that they were actually obtained by dithering two of the main colors.

Our seasons settings for all of these climate zones are resumed in the following chart:



Notice that:
-polar zones got only one season (winter)
-subpolar zones got 3 seasons (winter [6 months], spring [3] and autum [3])
-dry tropical zones got 4 season with long summer (6 months) and short autumn, winter and spring (each 2 months long)
-wet tropical zones got 2 seasons (each 6 months long), inverted compared to real climate (this is for simulating the rainy season that in these regions is corresponding to the hottest months)
-equatorial climate got only one season (spring, for keeping some chance of rain during the whole year without renouncing to sunny days ).

Another aspect that we wanted to simulate in game was the presence of regions where oceanic waters look murky green, as seen in the movie Das Boot. It is something that was discussed extensively on this forum by both detractors, asserting the inconsistency of using a movie as reference for realism, and advocates who experienced this particular sea color outside the cinema! Well, I think stoianm discussed in this thread the existence of a phenomenon called upwelling and happening close to continental platforms when cold waters from the seafloor, rich in minerals and nutrients, reach the surface feeding algal blooms. While in real sea you most probably will never dive in sea waters as green as a swamp (and as seen in Das Boot...), clorophyll content is a well studied parameter in ocenography and marine biology. Here's a map taken from internet:



the areas in red are the ones with the highest contents in clorophyll, hence the murkiest and greeniest in Neptune's realm. The following map represents our designed murky areas. painted on SH5 ClimatZones.tga map:


upwelling zones are represented as plain brown areas

and here's the map with all the other colors:


upwelling zones are represented as brownish shadowings on top of other colors

Including the upwelling, by now all of the environment color zones featured in Dynamic Environment are represented in the map. Hence we have:

black color (no brown shadowing): polar environment colors - blue sea
black color (brown shadowing): polar environment colors - murky green sea

blue color (no brown shadowing): subpolar environment colors - blue sea
blue color (brown shadowing): subpolar environment colors - murky green sea

cyan color (no brown shadowing): cold temperate environment colors - blue sea
cyan color (brown shadowing): cold temperate environment colors - murky green sea

green color (no brown shadowing): warm temperate environment colors - blue sea
green color (brown shadowing): warm temperate environment colors - murky green sea

yellow color (no brown shadowing): hot temperate environment colors - blue sea
yellow color (brown shadowing): hot temperate environment colors - murky green sea

red color (no brown shadowing): tropical and equatorial environment colors - blue sea
red color (brown shadowing): tropical and equatorial environment colors - murky green sea

Notice that despite upwelling and algal blooms are mostly seasonal phenomenes, it is not possible in SH5 to make environment colors dependent on seasons. Hence, green sea waters will show during the whole year in the designed zones.

Finally, the last, most challenging and probably most important part of my tasks for Dynamic Environment was implementing realistic wind patterns. This feature can influence greatly the game play, because during stormy weather can be very difficult to hunt enemy ships.

Once again, internet helped us. Here's a map showing global average wind speeds, used as base for wind datas fetured in our mod:



and this is its simplified version rendered in ClmateZones.tga:


EDIT: missing picture

Legend (wind spees in m/s):

light blue: 4
green: 5
yellow: 6
ocre: 7
pink: 8.25
red: 10.5
grey-purple: 12.5

merging wind speeds information with the remaining colors we obtained this:



and this is our final .tga map after reconverting the rainbowl-like colors in red color values read by the game engine (and after several hours of hard work, while stoianm on the background was singing some old fashioned italian songs with the purpose to enhance my concentration :$ ):



our final task was to create realistic seasonal wind ranges, as the information provided by the first map was relative to annual average speeds, calculated over a period of severale years.
Information on wind speeds seasonal variation was provided by 3 other maps:


EDIT: missing chart





The first map from top is representing wind speeds standard deviations (the deviation from the averages), whereas the other two maps show average wind speeds respectively for the months of January and July.

As you can see, major deviations from average wind speeds are recorded especially at the southernmost and (in an even bigger measure) northermost latitudes. These deviations are reflected by differences in seasonal averages.

By combining this information we were able to set realistic wind speed ranges for winter and summer seasons, while the ranges for spring and autumn were calculated by equating the annual averages for each zone to the values reported in the legend of our simplified wind speeds map. The resulting equations were solved by taking in consideration the duration of each season, as previously defined in the corresponding climate zone settings, and by assuming arbitrarily that autumn and spring averages must be equal. Believe me, saying it was harder than doing it.

Anyway, for all practical purposes, my suggestion is to save the previous maps somewere on your HD and to study them carefully every time you are planning a new patrol. By doing so, remember to compare the annual average for the designed patrol area with the maps showing seasonal averages. Also, take in mind that:

1. Given average wind speeds are... averages : patroling a calm wind area doesn't mean that you will not encounter occasional windy days, but on average the chance of wind storms will be higher for areas having an higher average wind speed.

2. There are chances of high discrepancy between annual and seasonal averages.

3. In general the highest wind speeds are occurring during winter (around January in northern amisphere and July in souther emisphere)

4. In general, the higher the latitude, the higher the difference between seasonal average wind speeds.

5. In general, the higher the annual average wind speed, the higher the difference between it and the seasonal averages.

That's all! Now we rely on your feed-back in order to know wether we have achieved our purposes or not. Again, any bug report, suggestion, technical advise, etc. is very wellcomed!

Last edited by gap; 01-30-20 at 02:21 PM. Reason: changed image hosting service
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Old 02-25-13, 06:36 PM   #3
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Old 02-25-13, 06:37 PM   #4
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Old 02-25-13, 06:39 PM   #5
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Wow, you guys have been busy.

After see the charts one question. Where safety lines modded in so the crews won't be blown overboard?

I'd try it out when you get a link posted but I'd have to start all over again with my campaign. Not going to happen for a while I'm afraid, but I will download it and have it in a safe place for later on.
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Old 02-25-13, 06:42 PM   #6
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Wow, you guys have been busy.

I'd try it out but I'd have to start all over again with my campaign. Not going to happen for a while I'm afraid, but I will download it and have it in a safe place for later on.
Hi Gary,

If you were using Dynamic Environment v 2.1, you can enabled the new version any time
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Old 02-25-13, 06:54 PM   #7
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Congratulations my friend!



It was really Global work!

User guide is similar to the user manual for launching ballistic missiles
I'm afraid I'll need more than a day to read it all

Thank you Gabriele!

PS: why v2.9?
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Old 02-25-13, 07:22 PM   #8
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Congratulations my friend!



It was really Global work!

User guide is similar to the user manual for launching ballistic missiles
I'm afraid I'll need more than a day to read it all

Thank you Gabriele!

PS: why v2.9?
Thank you Volodya for your encoragement and your contributions to this mod!

This new version doesn't contain substantial new features (thus the number version 2.9), but it is aimed to consolidate Dynamic Environment with several improvement which had been released as separate patches since its last "official" release, and to make it more accessible to any player in therms of easy dowload and installation, compatibility with other mods, and good performance on any computer.

Imo, the most important feature is that I and stoianm agreed in making Dynamic Environment into a "community mod" (as stated is 'Authors' section of the readme, we don't consider it anymore as "our" mod), thus making it even more open than before to anyone's contribution. I strongly hope that our modders will accept our invitation

Unfortunately, my convolute English didn't help me in making the user guide as easy as, as I hope, is the rest
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Old 02-25-13, 07:34 PM   #9
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I see new vegetation does not yet implemented in this version?

PS: my contributions? a drop in the ocean
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Old 02-25-13, 07:38 PM   #10
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Gap,

What's the weather change factor? As in ...does the weather change at some random interval....or does it change after X number of hours? Does the Medium Fog reload bug follow the same weather change factor?
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Old 02-25-13, 08:17 PM   #11
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What's the weather change factor? As in ...does the weather change at some random interval....or does it change after X number of hours?
Any given type of weather can last a random number of hours within the range defined by the set Minimum and Maximum intervals. There is a Minimum and a Maximum weather change setting for each season of each "weather zone". When the weather change interval elapses, a new random weather is generated. If you are unlucky, 2 or more foggy weather types can happen in a row. There is no way to change weather type probabilities, other than by setting different seasons.

Dynamic Environment added 84 new weather zones, over a number of 3 set in stock game. This implies that the more the player will move far from the poles, the shorter the winter season, the lower the chance of fog.
Moreover, in order to make the game to shuffle more the weather, autumn, winter and spring weather change intervals were made shorter than in stock game for most weather zones (i.e: 3 to 12 hours).

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Does the Medium Fog reload bug follow the same weather change factor?
I think so. For some reason, medium fog seems to be the standard weather when a savegame is reloaded. If you are lucky, this weather will change within 3-12 hours (DynEnv settings). If you are unlucky, the next generated weather will be equally foggy

The secret? Always save your games while in mid-patrol, or after having dealed with an enemy convoy. Never save before planning an attack
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Old 02-25-13, 08:24 PM   #12
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I see new vegetation does not yet implemented in this version?
No, not yet, but it is still in my todo list.

Implementing this feature implies a lot of graphical work on the raw map used for setting the different ecoregions, and on the textures to be rendered in game (not only tree textures: seabed, terrain and rock textures can be customized as well for each region ).

It means a lot of work. I will consecrate to it once we finish with our other project, which I hope to work on full time, now

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PS: my contributions? a drop in the ocean
drops is exaclty what oceans are made of. Many drops. Any singular drop may appear insignificant, but it is not
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Old 02-25-13, 08:37 PM   #13
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I think so. For some reason, medium fog seems to be the standard weather when a savegame is reloaded. If you are lucky, this weather will change within 3-12 hours (DynEnv settings). If you are unlucky, the next generated weather will be equally foggy

The secret? Always save your games while in mid-patrol, or after having dealed with an enemy convoy. Never save before planning an attack
I know one more remedy.. always save the game near the ports and after reload you will get the same weather as before..

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It means a lot of work. I will consecrate to it once we finish with our other project, which I hope to work on full time, now
I see
One more question - are the Wave Mechanics mods the same as in v2.1 or new ones?
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Old 02-25-13, 08:42 PM   #14
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The secret? Always save your games while in mid-patrol, or after having dealed with an enemy convoy. Never save before planning an attack
Yeah...been bit by this a couple of times in the past. Thanks for the hard work and update to this great mod.
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Old 02-25-13, 08:59 PM   #15
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Yeah...been bite by this a couple of times in the past. Thanks for the hard work and update to this great mod.
Thank you too finchOU. Stay tuned

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I know one more remedy.. always save the game near the ports and after reload you will get the same weather as before..
Good one. I will take note of it, though I can hardly understand how port proximity would affect weather

More likely than the suggestion by Trevally of wearing a bicorne hat anyway

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One more question - are the Wave Mechanics mods the same as in v2.1 or new ones?
Exactly the same, but the submod Sobers Best Ever Tweaks contains Waves Mod v9 which wasn't featured in the previous version.
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