about the water effects

by Smiff2 on 06/26/2008 03:55, 27 messages, last message: 07/28/2008 03:02, 6196 views, last view: 05/05/2024 07:21

ok, this engine is very very beautiful, i was just looking at some maps in real wonder.. but.. !

now that i have a decent monitor I think the refraction effect is far too strong, so much so that water generally looks more realistic with it off (only reflection). can we try a more subtle refraction or maybe have some options to tone it down a tad please? :)

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#8: ..

by Smiff2 on 06/26/2008 22:21

ok great i cropped and resized waterdudv.jpg to double the scales of the bumps and then almost desaturated it to reduce the refraction degree.. and i like the water now, but, the stuff behind now looks very blocky (it looks fully sharp when refraction disabled), any ideas there please? or is this just asking too much of the engine?! thanks.

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#9: ..

by Smiff2 on 06/27/2008 03:09

no doubt this is the reason the refraction was made so strong - to hide the 1/4 or so resolution used, yes?
is there no way to run it (objects rendered through refracted water) at full res? maybe you found the performance hit from that was ridiculous? :/

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#10: Re: ..

by Quin on 06/27/2008 04:16, refers to #3

My point was, the liquid will look less dense if you increase waterfog. The less it is the closer it is to the surface, making it more opaque.

Beware that the initial "texture water" is only used when there is no water surface texture (reflection or refraction).

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#11: Re: ..

by Quin on 06/27/2008 04:18, refers to #9

What you're seeing there is the reflection/refraction texture, not the actual geometry on the other side, which is of course rendered at a lower quality to keep framerates acceptable.

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#12: Re: ..

by Quin on 06/27/2008 04:23, refers to #5

Lastly, watercolour is a variable for use in maps, and in this instance it is actually stored and reloaded from the map header. This means the variable will automatically set itself to what the map specifies when it loads.

If you're really itching to set your watercolour to something static try this in your autoexec:

mywatercol = [ watercolour 1 0 0; sleep 1000 [ mywatercol ] ]
mywatercol

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#13: ..

by Smiff on 06/27/2008 17:57

thanks for the tip on forcing watercolour, i definately think that improves every map (patches of blue water look so wrong in many levels, where there is no blue around to have made it blue!)

yes I see now the reflection and refraction both you use quite low resolution textures.. i'll have to wait a few years for this to be perfect i guess :)

so for now i'm running with refraction off and that watercolour hack i think it looks pretty good thanks.

an idea: perhaps you (the engine) could calculate the watercolor as an average from surrounding textures so it's always "right"?

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#14: Re: ..

by SheeEttin on 06/27/2008 19:03, refers to #13

Well, that'd kind of throw off maps like deathtek, which sets a neon green watercolor for some kind of slime thing.

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#15: shader?

by hdfskjconordfhks on 06/27/2008 19:11

hasn't anyone tried going in and messing with the shader for the water?

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#16: shipwreck

by hdfskjconordfhks on 06/27/2008 19:19

Load up shipwreck without water refraction. Yuk.

Then go under water on any map without water refraction.

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#17: ..

by Smiff2 on 06/27/2008 21:21

arg.. i had a feeling some maps probably colour the water for some effect (slime, lava) :p. well, all the maps where the water IS water, looks much better when its NOT bright cartoony blue imho :)
i guess i need to edit every map with water.. this will break multiplayer? i don't know if you CRC the maps or something.

its not going to be possible to fix the refraction to be fully realistic until the texture being refracted is at full resolution, and that's probably not going to happen, right?

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#18: Re: ..

by jbuk2k7s cookie has gone on 06/27/2008 23:30, refers to #17

No, you can go online with any version of a map (so in theory you could remove walls etc, but then it's a bit obvious when you shoot someone from the other side of the map or run through walls so it's quite rare)

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#19: Re: ..

by SheeEttin on 06/28/2008 05:19, refers to #17

You could always mod the source. :)

Oh, if you do, make a setting for it, so you can enable/disable/set the level, and put out a patch. I'm sure others would appreciate it. :)

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#20: ..

by nieb on 06/29/2008 06:05

Perhaps try a more subtle DUDVmap.
http://www.snieb.com/waterdudv.jpg

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#21: ..

by Smiff2 on 06/30/2008 04:31

yeah the problem with a more subtle map, as I was saying before, is that the low resolution of the texture behind becomes more obvious - but actually, i like yours a lot more than my attempt. when the wavelength is similar to the blockiness its not too noticeable. using yours for now, thanks :)

about editing the source, don't think i've got time (or skill) to get into atm sorry.
glad to have got some discussion going on it anyway, thanks all.

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#22: Lag

by 00Hugo00 on 06/30/2008 18:53

/reflectsize 10 causes lag on many systems.

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#23: ..

by Smiff2 on 06/30/2008 19:12

ah now reflectsize 10 really does it... finally its lovely looking, and halves my FPS!
interesting how reflectsize 2-8 shows progressively better image and little performance change. then 10 is a massive drop in speed, and then above that is less steep drops again. is this an optimisation issue or?

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#24: ..

by SanHolo on 06/30/2008 19:22

/reflectsize has a range from 6 to 10, so there is nothing happening when you push it to 20 ;)

eihrul, I get about the same weird pixels with reflectsize 10 (but not with 9 or lower) as I get with the rocket explosions, see Screenshots:
http://www.hillrippers.ch/temp/screenshot_127717.jpg
http://www.hillrippers.ch/temp/screenshot_157591.jpg

Mac OS X 10.5.3, Core 2 Duo, X1600 Mobility

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#25: ..

by Smiff2 on 06/30/2008 20:05

9 is the optimum for me then, thanks! (twice as sharp as the default 8, and only a small speed drop.)
10 is going to have to wait until my next PC i reckon :p

btw i don't see those pixel effects. i do see some weirdness when going between above and below water, but i guess everyone gets some glitches there.

cheers.

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#26: ..

by Smiff2 on 07/01/2008 00:43

(sorry - GeForce 8600GT here)

might want to add this reflectsize as a slider on GUI? seems like a great high-end tweak to expose.

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#27: ..

by Smiff3 on 07/28/2008 03:02

now on 8800GS i can now run reflectsize 10 without too much performance drop :D so this is do-able, with a decent video card.
please make option available in next release, for people who can run it it looks A++

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