cfs3 sea help

starbage1

starbage1

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I used a free WOFF beta shader DirectX9.20140830.zip and the sea is gorgeous but terrain shadows stink and clouds flicker

I put on a newer shader - d3d8.20150506.beta.zip and it fixes everything but the sea it is horrible now, how do i make it look like the old sea from 20140830 ? Difference is night and day

4a2faa8.png
 
The size and depth of the waves are controlled by the SeaWater.fx file in your shaders30 folder.

It can be opened with any text editor, and you will find the BaseOpacity, WaveBump and WaveScale parameters at the top.

Lower numbers make the water more transparent, the water rougher, and the waves closer together.

The overall look is strongly influenced by the WaterDetailTextureSize setting in ConfigOverrides.xml created by running cfs3config.exe and going into the custom settings texture info section.

In 2014 I had my settings at 0.95, 0.8 and 1 with Texture Size 5
In 2015 I changed the values to 0.95, 5.0, and 5.0 with Texture Size 5
In the 2016 Beta I'm using 0.95, 5.0 and 2.5 with Texture Size 4

It's really all about trying different combinations until you get it to look the way you want.

I seem to recall that there were also some changes relating to how the sky reflects off the surface, and the sea foam rendering that happened between 2014 and 2015. Gecko was recently looking at the wave textures themselves to enhance the sea foam functionality (any areas in alpha layer >140) for use with the 2016 Beta.
 
Those are incredible Andrey! And are those live cloud reflections I see? So cool. Now I need to clean the small puddle of drool caused by looking at that too long.
 

Attachments

  • Cubemap.jpg
    Cubemap.jpg
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that is just the problem, what was the exact water numbers for the dx9 one? SO I can use the d3d8.20150506 with correct water.
 
Yes, those are based on actual clouds.
Instead of loading the cubemap from a file my dll now draws one in real-time based on surroundings.
This works for aircrafts as well:
Click to expand...

Nice! any chance of a working rear-view mirror with this?
 
starbage1 said:
that is just the problem, what was the exact water numbers for the dx9 one? SO I can use the d3d8.20150506 with correct water.
Click to expand...
I tweak shaders for WOFF mainly and WOFF uses Water Texture Detail Size = 2 (cfs3config -> Custom Settings -> Texture Info) while in stock CFS3 the default value is 5.
If you reduce the size to 2 waves will be much smaller and should look more natural.

sdsbolt said:
Nice! any chance of a working rear-view mirror with this?
Click to expand...
Not much actually.
The main problem which I can only try to work around is that the game engine doesn't draw anything behind the player (or even just out of sight).
I absolutely can't add reflections of any aircrafts behind and scenery reflections are very limited.
 
Not much actually.
The main problem which I can only try to work around is that the game engine doesn't draw anything behind the player (or even just out of sight).
I absolutely can't add reflections of any aircrafts behind and scenery reflections are very limited.
Click to expand...

ok, thanks for the reply.

once again, very nice work. we are lucky to have your improvements .
 
still cant get it to look like old dx9 one.

here is what i did and still looks grainy

Water Texture Detail Size = 2

- SEAWATER.FX
edit to this :
#if defined Sea_Calm
#define BaseOpacity 0.95
#define WaveBump 7.0
#define WaveScale 6.0
// no foam
#elif defined Sea_Light
#define BaseOpacity 0.98
#define WaveBump 6.0
#define WaveScale 6.0
// no foam
#elif defined Sea_Medium
#define BaseOpacity 0.98
#define WaveBump 6.0
#define WaveScale 5.0
#define AddFoam
#elif defined Sea_Heavy
#define BaseOpacity 1.0
#define WaveBump 5.0
#define WaveScale 5.0
#define AddFoam
#else // default (i.e. stock CFS3)
#define BaseOpacity 0.95
#define WaveBump 5.0
#define WaveScale 5.0
//#define AddFoam
#endif

7a997a8.png
 
This is from the latest Alpha Shaders with cloud reflections, and a customized set of sea texture animation files to provide natural looking patches of sea foam.
Shot01-31-16-22-04-24_zps9goiog6f.jpg
 
I was able to sort out an issue with the beta shaders we're testing that was making the cloud reflection appear too bright when the sky turned dark. I added some variables that let's you tune the look to match with weather conditions, and the time of day you'll be flying. You have to edit a couple of values at the top of the SeaWater.fx file before you start the game but it's pretty easy to do with any text editor.
 
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