Realism Aspects

[Bathrone]

Hi

Im currently playing around with settings and different mods

For realism Im running some big wave mechanics. I was interested, in large wave conditions surely the waves would go over the conning tower and the deck crew would have to hold their breath? What happened historically in this situation? What if tactically at night they really need the diesels to be on to recharge depleted batteries but the wave height is so bad its drowning the watch crew and the engines are in danger of ingesting water?

Also, I see there is some mods like sobers underwater realism fx mod that basically makes seeing underwater impossible. Is this what the open ocean is like at say periscope depth underwater? I realise that light fades rapidly but at shallow depths cant a diver see underwater?

Thanks for the insights

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Bathrone

I was interested, in large wave conditions surely the waves would go over the conning tower and the deck crew would have to hold their breath? What happened historically in this situation?

What gets left out of all these games is the wave period; the time it takes between the passing of one crest and the next. The game has big waves but they are not very far apart. In the open ocean wave crests might be hundreds of feet apart.

The larger the ship the more difficult time it has with heavy seas. Corvette sailors used to joke about how easily one would roll, but in heavy seas the corvette would ride the waves where a larger destroyer had a bigger tendence to "go green", or plow under each wave as it passed. The u-boat was somewhere in between. If the waves were far apart the boat would just ride over them. If they were very close there might be problems, but mostly the bow might dip under and spray the crew. Having the conning tower go under like it does in the game was rare. When it was that bad they would have to dive and hope by the time the batteries had drained the sea would have subsided somewhat. It almost always did. The three-week-long storm portrayed in Das Boot happened, but they were very rare.

Also, I see there is some mods like sobers underwater realism fx mod that basically makes seeing underwater impossible. Is this what the open ocean is like at say periscope depth underwater? I realise that light fades rapidly but at shallow depths cant a diver see underwater?

It varies a lot, depending on local conditions. I've seen water just outside Subic Bay in the Philippines where we could see the bottom from the signal bridge of our destroyer, probably more than 100 feet, and we could watch the porpoises swim under the ship. Most of the time we couldn't see the bottom of the ship, let alone the bottom of even a shallow bay. Yes there are pictures of divers underwater and you can see a long way, but there is also a video made with a u-boat and a camera mounted a few feet behind the conning tower. You can't even tell there's a boat there until it surfaces, then it's a surprise just how close the tower is.

I keep my underwater visibility set so from the bow I can see the conning tower, about half the length of the boat.

[LemonA]

1.)Windforce 8 or more produces wave heights of 6 m or above. The average expected days of windforce 8 or above in the atlantic is 500, 50 or 5 days a year. Guess what?

2.) Weather messages were an important element of the u-boat radio messages. And a u-boat crew was not retarded unable to"read" the actual weather. There was no "wow, we have here a unforeseeable heavy storm and we have to dive immediately" situation.

[Bathrone]

Thanks guys

In particular Sailor Steve

You know Steve as I get older I wonder if my youth was wasted chasing a professional career and not something exciting like yours?! Mid life crisis maybe, but dam, all those experiences you had, and being on a destroyer how exciting.

I made good money in IT but its mostly flourscent lights and cubicles for the "eye candy" and the action amounts to conflict in meetings....

I'd love to hear more about your first hand experiences at sea and whatever you want to share its really fascinating to me.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Bathrone

You know Steve as I get older I wonder if my youth was wasted chasing a professional career and not something exciting like yours?! Mid life crisis maybe, but dam, all those experiences you had, and being on a destroyer how exciting.

Well, you know the old saying: The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The short version is that I studied music and history for a year, dropped out of college, joined the navy to keep from getting drafted into the army, got out after two years and spent the next forty wandering from job to job and never quite having a real career, giving up what I loved most for various women and spending most of my time being frustrated and depressed. Yes, I have done a lot of things and have a lot of good memories, but I don't feel like I've ever really accomplished anything. And I wish I had made more money.

I'd love to hear more about your first hand experiences at sea and whatever you want to share its really fascinating to me.

And I'd love to tell those stories, few as they actually are. Several members have posted their stories from time to time in the General Topics forum, and I've thought about starting a thread just for people's sea stories. We'll see.

[finchOU]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

What gets left out of all these games is the wave period; the time it takes between the passing of one crest and the next. The game has big waves but they are not very far apart. In the open ocean wave crests might be hundreds of feet apart.

I feel the exact same way..... I wondered if this could be modeled correctly? This part of the game has always seemed off and unrealistic. I remember on deployment I would go to the back of the ship to relax...and seeing the slow rollers... The open ocean is hardly ever flat as there are always disturbances from somewhere. Interesting if they/we can decode the wave structure to a point of modeling open ocean as well as coastal waters realistically.

[Fifi]

And would be nice if waves could interact with wind! (meaning coming from wind direction - don't think it's already the case?)

[gap]

Hi guys, have a look into the following settings please:

[SeaType 0]
WindSpeed=0.000000
ScaleX=0.800000
ScaleY=0.025000
ScaleZ=1.200000
ScaleNormal=2.000000
BumpScaleU=10.000000
BumpScaleV=7.000000
NormalSharpness=0.035000
BumpScale=10.000000
BumpStrength=0.350000
FarWavesScale=1.500000
FarWavesStrength=0.500000
FresnelBias=0.150000
FresnelPower=8.000000
LargeWavesArmonics=3
LargeWavesCoef=0.050000
SeaSpeed=1.100000
WaveChoppinessFactor=1.000000
ReflectionIntensity=0.500000
ReflectionDeformation=1.900000
TransparencyDistance=3.200000
TransparencyDistanceUnder=9.000000
SpecGlossiness=162.096069
SpecIntensity=1.000000
SpecSpread=0.262010
UnderSpecGlossiness=32.000000
UnderSpecIntensity=4.000000
ExtraSpecGlossiness=1.000000
ExtraSpecIntensity=0.070000
ExtraSpecSpread=0.070000
HeightColorFactor=2.000000

The above group of parameters is repeated for each wind speed set in the cfg file. Parameters for non-set windspeeds are interpolated. Stock cfg file got SeaType definitons for wind speeds of 0, 5, 10 and 15 m/s, but as far as I know there is no limit to the number of sea types which can be set in the interval 0-15 m/s. Moreover, at the end of the file is found another group of foam-related parameters:

[SeaFoamParameters]
UseSlope=1
IncreaseSpeed=2.500000
DecreaseSpeed=0.200000
IncreaseAngleMin=0.100000
IncreaseAngleMax=0.500000
TextureScale=60.000000
MaskTextureScale=0.750000
AnimationSpeed=35.000000
WindSpeed=10.000000

Can you spot anything related with wave period?

[finchOU]

Is this a trick question to stump us idiots who don't read code?

The only thing I see is farwavescale......whatever that means.

[Fifi]

Waves spacing couldn't it be related to both fresnel stuff?
I tweeked lately a scene dat in SH4, and fresnel value seemed to space waves animation

[gap]

Originally Posted by finchOU

Is this a trick question to stump us idiots who don't read code?

This is not code finchOU, but just a bunch of parameters with arbitrary names whose effect needs to be figured out
...and, by the way, they can be edited in notepad

Originally Posted by finchOU

The only thing I see is farwavescale......whatever that means.

This one should be a dimensional factor, probably it gets multiplied to ScaleX, ScaleY and ScaleZ for determining respectively the width, height and lenght of far waves. This leads me to think that the parameter we are looking for could be ScaleZ (= wavelenght); the bigger the wavelenght, the lower waves frequency

Anyone wants to try?

Originally Posted by Fifi

Waves spacing couldn't it be related to both fresnel stuff?
I tweeked lately a scene dat in SH4, and fresnel value seemed to space waves animation

I don't think so. According to their name, those parameters should affect light reflection:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_equations

[Trevally.]

perhaps a PM to Pintea - he would know

[Fifi]

Originally Posted by gap

I don't think so. According to their name, those parameters should affect light reflection:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_equations

Good to know.
So it was a visual effect of reflection wich made me thought waves were more spaced!

[gap]

Originally Posted by Trevally.

perhaps a PM to Pintea - he would know

Yes, Pintea might point us in the right direction, but I am pretty sure that increasing the ScaleZ factor should at least improve waves a bit. Unfortunately atm I am quite busy with other stuff. Is there anyone who wants to take care of them?

Originally Posted by Fifi

Good to know.
So it was a visual effect of reflection wich made me thought waves were more spaced!

Quite possibly yes

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by gap

Anyone wants to try?

I would love to, but my old computer won't even run SH5. Still working on getting a new one.