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[Alex840]

Gentlemen, i've tried to make beaches with surf and shallow water in the coast of my map, blurred the coast of map_c, checked for gradual transitions between 88-168 RGB and checked for RGB31 in map_t, but all that i've got was that:



My map_c in the same place:



I've tried all, expanded the RGB31 over land in map_t, blurred more map_c, etc. but nothing of surf/shallows. What's the trick?

[SAS~Malone]

hi, there are some old threads discussing surf, among other things, that might be of some help to you.
perhaps this one might help: https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,21733.0.html
i don't have/remember the specific info, so it's easier for me to just try and help you find some relevant info
hope it helps.

[SAS~Tom2]

Hello Alex,

I have a collection (small) of stuff I gathered from SAS and conversations with Avala and Dave0D06..

This is one part of it

..."
- Shallow water is 'produced' by grey (not black) water zones on map_C.tga combined with color RGB 31/31/31 on map_T.tga.  (Edit: Or RGB 30/30/30 for rivers)

- On ground of the shallow water a texture gets displayed, when hardwareshader = 1.

This texture is the same,
 which is used at color RGB 30/30/30 (edit: water=2) on map_T.tga.
Mostly this texture is used for river coasts (mud, swamp etc.) and it also disables foam.


Never thought about that. Could it be you have an underlying texture there which prevents foam...but even if that is so, foam is not = waves (or is it?), so TBH I have no clue. I think foam is the same effect of waves, but surf lines move and that is what you tried to reach-AFAIK. 

Here is some thread info I gathered ..


https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,35861.48.html

Only 2-3 links deal with water and one is identical to the one just posted by Malone!

Here is info I gathered in my MapMaking folder:

Wild sum up of info here:
Credit to Avala and Dave0D06 a.o.




"...
o change the water colour you should change the parameter in load.ini accordingly to your graphic card....

[WATER]
Water    = water/PacificWater.tga   <<<  TEXTURE
WaterColorATI = 0.000 0.155 0.275  <<<  COLOR x ATI cards
//WaterColorATI = 0.100 0.175 0.230
WaterColorNV  = 0.000 0.155 0.275
//WaterColorNV  = 0.100 0.185 0.268 <<<  COLOR x NVIDIA cards

I remember that KevinP had written something about it in one of his tutorials (Mapbuilding for beginners V3).
The only line I could find about it is this:

In the Full Mission Builder Water0 is called WATER
Water2 is called CoastRiver
Water3 is called CoastSea
Water1 cannot be applied in the FMB. It has to be painted on map_T.

Still a mystery what it actually does but that must be the reason you can not find it in the load.ini.

By the way, I know that Redko wrote something down in one of his desert repaints a subject called "water painting".  To create different shades of blue in ocean water.
Perhaps that got something to do with that.
Just guessing though... 


What I see is this in DaveOD06's map:

Water0   = Tooth_Pacific_Textures/water0.tga,-2
Water1   = Tooth_Pacific_Textures/lowland3_fields_shrubs.tga
Water2   = water/BA_Shallows_Wake_A.tga
;Water2   = Tooth_Pacific_Textures/water0.tga
Water3   = Tooth_Pacific_Textures/water3_fields.tga,2


As far as I know water 0 and 1 don't do anything. I guess those are for excellent settings or for Direct X.

For the light blue in the shallows there are two reasons

1.Texture for shallows, which is mostly light blue "Water2 = Avala/benghalli/benghallicoral.tga"

2. Ocean color. It is "0.000 0.155 0.275" So, no red at all (red is adding gray shades to the water), and the green is much lower then the blue. So any textures under the water will be blue. If you switch the places, and green is with the highest values, like "0.000 0.275 0.150" textures will be green. Also the values can go up to 999 so the water can be in very light colors.



You do that by painting it on your map C, if I remember correctly those are the values between 30 and 100 (KevinP's tutorial is very precise and correct on this). And then on your map T you must paint a value for Water2 on those areas already painted on map c (water2 is texture for shallow waters).

So, on map C you show the game where you want shallows, and if you paint it in different shades, you can have very nice and natural effect. With map T you show to the game what texture you want for shallow water, and where exactly.

I hope that this helps,..."

..
Deep water will have low colour saturation and a corresponding low greyscale value. As the greyscale value rises, the colour saturation increases, giving the appearance of increasingly shallow water. At a greyscale value of approximately 88, surf lines begin to appear, becoming progessively stronger to 140, then fading out at approximately 148, although some water texture effect remains visible up to around 168.

..
Any greyscale value in map_c below 127 will show as water, overriding any value in map_T, however for values between 128 and 168, any underlying texture in map_T will show through, which can lead to some interesting texture effects. Any  value above 168 in map_c, is treated as white and will be regarded as land.


you can create as much depth as you like,
 if you use the RGB scale with the water from 0 to 127 the nearer you get to 127 the shallower the water becomes
and the nearer you are to 0 the deeper the water is.
...

If you want to see where the original water tiles and how the lay on the map,
 then convert the sea to land at about 130 on the RGB scale and you can clearly see the 2 textures

 this gives you and idea of how you can manipulate them,
 once you've made a note of where they are then convert the land back to water and edit away

 Also if you put the game to excellent mode and create reefs at about 200 on the RGB scale
 then return it back to perfect mode then the land appears as the sea bed and this can be textured.

...

And also remember,
when you make any changes to your waterways, be sure my_mapC, map_h and map_t are all altered accordingly in synch and then run mapC toolbox and coast align again. A bother, but it helps get good results.

...the 'rivercoast' one; RGB 30/30/30 - , so you can paint it,
whatever you want and all you need is to make every river shallow and keep the ocean deep.
Coast areas will be same color then though.

(Bessarabia example)

Water0 = water/Water.tga
Water1 = water/Water.tga
Water2 = water/rom_CoastLine1.tga
Water3 = water/rom_fields_Beach.tga,2

 this is meant for 'hardwareshader = 1' ... only
....
- Shallow water is 'produced' by grey (not black) water zones on map_C.tga combined with color RGB 31/31/31 on map_T.tga.

- On ground of the shallow water a texture gets displayed, when hardwareshader = 1.

This texture is the same, which is used at color RGB 30/30/30 on map_T.tga.
Mostly this texture is used for river coasts (mud, swamp etc.) and it also disables foam.

- so you cannot really make the shallow water brown color, but paint instead the texture on its ground brown.

- On some Pacific maps they used this methode by painting a greenish texture.
The result is - they have on all rivers foam now, as they couldn't use this ('rivercoast'-)texture to prevent it,
 because it would be strangely green on land areas.

Check it on 'Pacific Islands'."



-------------------
I wanted to investigate on how I get shallows to shine through back then.
Maybe you should try a higher value for the surf lines..
What I saw was the map you used seems to have no dedicated value for water=2?

[SAS~Tom2]

TBH I would like to hear Kirby or Bombsaway say something here as I am now confused about the disable foam part:
I see no shallows texture on your map Alex, not sure if this plays a role here.
Edit:
I think what was meant (and anyone correct me, Mark-wink) is this:

When you paint RGB=30 on map_T and have a correct greyscale value on map_C for shallow water, a texture below the water gets displayed, without foam.

If you, however, use RGB=31 on map_T and have the same greyscale value, the texture will shine through but allow foam.

A logical question now might be: Which RGB value is used on your map for water? (Hope I am not trippin', I have not painted anything since August last year AFAIK on map_c and got rusty.)


Edit:
Maybe also check for a gradually shallow coastal area, the transition seems very steep, but I assume this is irrelevant here. You want waves on the coast, long waves (like on redko's Palau) would prolly require longer shallow painted areas in RGB from 88 upward.
I would test which RGB value is painted for water and also play with shallower values. Seems to me the issue is related to textures and RBG.
E.g. with a shallow texture on water=2 present in the load.ini and RGB=30 on map_t, I'd expect NO waves to show up. ??

BTW Avala, Dave0D06 and Bombsaway might be the (a.o.) best informed guys about that.
Hope I did not mess their info by mixing aka confusing text..which came btw from Avala and Dave0D06 IIRC.
Avala jelped me a great deal understand how to get the shallows show up on a lake in Djibouti I edited.

[Alex840]

Tom2 and Malone, thanks for the answer. I have no clue about what happen in the map above, but this week I started a new map of the same region, but in the 1:1 scale (the map above is 2:3). The shoreline and rivers in the new map seems to be ok, with line of surf in the coast and gradual transition to deep water in rivers. I presume that the problem was that in the previous map rivers and shore was too near each other and parallel, and beach and river textures was so cramped that lead to the situation I described in the first post. When I allowed more room between river banks and shore (as in the 1:1 map) the problem seems to have disappeared.

[cyberolas]

Hi pilots!

  I have exactly same problem like this. I would like creating some surf areas or shallow waters in rivers, but I´m not succesfull. I studied many discussion about it, I was painting map_c and map_T, all by these instructions, but I have still some terrible fuzzy parts in edges of land, exactly like first picture by Alex. Please, could you help me anybody? I use GIMP 2.0 and FMB unlock ( classical version for moders, I think, but it isn´t important, because in this case I paint everything in GIMP). Thank you.

[SAS~Bombsaway]

I just found this thread. Sorry for the late reply. I have never worked with surf but SAS~Boomer may be able to help. He is more skilled in maps than I am.

[farang65]

I've been messing around with reefs on a current project.

This is what I have done

I first tried rgb 155 but the reefs came out just as islands with surf around them.

Having just tried 126 rgb value this is what I ended up with.

Good strong reefs but a lot of sand bars.

I believe I will have to add alot of black dots to break them up

Or have a special plug in brush that may just do that.   

Or add another coral texture to coincide with the shallows texture. The reefs are in the making 

[SAS~Boomer]

When I do underwater textures on map_c
I use from 40 RGB and up and the pencil

when using the pencil,I checkmark"use colour from gradient" in Gimp
Then as I drag the pencil it varies the RGB Value/colour
producing various results of depth 

always bluring my work once or twice 

[farang65]

Thanks Wayne, 

I had another method using JASC Paintshop Pro but never toyed with that program at all

Will try what you say for good old Gimp and post the results.


Also from what you say in another thread I always make any new work layer on my map_c so you can blur just that section of new work a couple of times 
Kirby

[SAS~Boomer]

Yes for sure,just blurring the work on a separate layer is good
otherwise detail would be lost over all on map_C with constant blurring 

[DaveOD06]

In my experience, the only thing that can prevent surf from showing up is the texture that you paint on to the land where the shore is. Certain texture slots will cause no surf to show up, but most will allow surf. The river one will definitely cause no surf to appear. I also recommend putting down your textures at regular resolution first, with no size modifiers like -2,2,4, or 8 in the load.ini. I haven't touched my maps in a while so I can't remember off the top of my head, but CoastSea at it's regular resolution should ALWAYS show surf. If it doesn't there might be something wrong with your texture, so go into gimp and make sure the alpha layer is gone, the mode is RGB, it's not compressed. and the type is .TGA. This goes for all textures.

the water color should have nothing to do with it:
[WATER]
Water    = water/PacificWater.tga   <<<  TEXTURE
WaterColorATI = 0.000 0.155 0.275  <<<  COLOR x ATI cards
//WaterColorATI = 0.100 0.175 0.230
WaterColorNV  = 0.000 0.155 0.275
//WaterColorNV  = 0.100 0.185 0.268 <<<  COLOR x NVIDIA cards