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[coenoo1]

really big storm - hurricane, for inspiration, but this not standard storm sea waves

altitude 400 feets


altitude 200 feets

WHAT? I think my rig needs an upgrade

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, here you go, three versions that you can try out. One of them is the one in the screenshots, but I won't tell which. The two others are slightly different versions.

Try out and tell what you think, and keep an eye on that wacky boiling sea surface... we really need to get that to stop, I think.

https://www.mediafire.com/?hozooaqn2agn7p2


EDIT: Regarding the bait-and-switch routine that the water does, it appears that in five second intervals, something changes in the water quite suddenly and abruptly, and after another five second interval that change is reverted.

I can only surmise that it is some sort of another water effect, caused by some retail game files or - which would be the worst option of all - a hardcoded behaviour of the water, to create rudimentary "waves". Of course now that all the waves should be generated by the texture, it looks like arse and since I have no idea what exact thing or effect may be causing it, I must call for help at this point.

Please, someone with higher lore than I regarding the Mysterium IL-2, please identify the offending effect and, even better, devise a way to neutralize it...

[magot]

which testures you did rework? Mean type bitmap? TGA only?
//edit I see ...

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, I used Carsmaster's water mod as a template as to what to edit. As such, the mod currently contains the following files:

FoamNV40.tga - same foam texture as in Carsmaster's mod, I saw no need to change that

WaterNoiseXX.BumpH
PAC_WaterNoiseXX.BumpH - animated height maps, XX denotes frame number; 32 frames per animation. Greyscale TGA, just the file extension differs.

WaterNoiseXXDot3.tga
PAC_WaterNoiseXX.BumpH - animated normal maps, same notation as above.

WaterNoiseFoamXX.tga
PAC_WaterNoiseFoamXX.tga - animated foam mask texturess.


If someone knows if there is some other animation file that causes the water to wave around in an undesireable fashion, assistance would be extremely welcome at this point, because I've sort of hit a roadblock with this...

[hguderian]

Nice effect. Really FPS friendly!


About this:

...Regarding the bait-and-switch routine that the water does...

could be caused by the waves "orientation"? Taking a sliding look to the Carsmaster ones the waves goes vertically from bottom to the top meanwhile yours goes diagonally.

I hope you solve that issue..it's really a good mod!!

Cheers

[Herra Tohtori]

It's possible, but it still is strange behaviour that should be possible to turn off in my opinion.

Waves don't behave like that. As it is now, it looks more like someone pushing down on some locations of a water mattress and the other points go up, and then it reverses. Looks very strange.

[hguderian]

I've took out the bumpH files from your version C and the bug gone away...so it seem it's related to those files. Could be some issues with their size/format or an error making them?

[magot]

is there too raw file: FoamCurve3.raw
This set shape of waves. It´s openable in PSD. It´s small file. Must by saved only under grey scale. Idk propably use only 8 or 16 colours only. This do that java read color code and make shape of waves.
But your problem will be propably in other thing.

And I recommended use photoshop for save files like tga,raw,convert to imf, Bumph ...

[Herra Tohtori]

Thanks for info, that means it's probably an error of mine. I will look into it and keep trying to fix it.

[Herra Tohtori]

Ok... I have had some illuminating, although annoying, results with continued testing.

I checked the map SFS files to see how the retail game handled water. What I found out is that the retail game actually only uses 16 frames in water animations as opposed to 32 like Carsmaster's water mod.

When I reduced animation length to 16, the "choppy" discontinuity disappeared. What is even more remarkable is that the smoothness of the water animation didn't really suffer from this.

Then, I checked out Carsmaster's animation frames a bit closer.

Turns out that frames #00 and #16 are identical, and the animation actually loops twice within the 32 frames supplied.


What I suspect is happening is that the game's water is hardcoded or otherwise set to only use 16 frames, even if more are available. With Carsmasters' animation, this was not a problem and no one noticed it because the animation itself contains the loop twice, once from #00 to #15 and the rest repeats the same sequence. So, when the first 16 frames repeat, it doesn't really change anything.

However, with my animation, it cut off in the middle (frame #15) and returned to the beginning (frame #00) without playing the important frames #16 to #31! This caused the animation to draw itself in an erratic manner. So, what I did is I dropped the odd numbered frames from the animation, and renamed the resulting frames logically from #00 to #15. The water now behaves normally and I shall upload a second test download soon.


Addendum: I have also discovered additional water texture animation called "Caustic", but GIMP refuses to open the TGA files. I'm downloading Photoshop trial version at the moment to see if it can open them.

[SAS~Malone]

i'm loving this thread, and the great progress you seem to be making, Herra....
il-2's water definitely could do with a bit of attention.
following your progress with great interest!

[hguderian]

Addendum: I have also discovered additional water texture animation called "Caustic", but GIMP refuses to open the TGA files. I'm downloading Photoshop trial version at the moment to see if it can open them.

There is an appropriate tool to open those .TGA files...it's called IMF Viewer  https://www.mediafire.com/?nvimkyjntzt

Cheers