Ala12Rv-watermanpc

Hi, let me "introduce" a bit this issue...since the release of the so expected 2.5 version, something I noticed was that the "line of the horizon" wasnt as smooth or softly faded as it was in 2.2... I noticed this because its something I have always been "fussy" as you are constantly looking at it and in real life I have always loved how smooth and incredibly well blended the terrain and the sky are most of the time giving a very NATURAL look to the world instead of feeling artificial and "computer graphics", so while its something many of you might not even notice/care, I actually do. Thing is, after this last week enjoying the new 2.5, yesterday by chance, while testing a Harrier skin, I noticed that the horizon looked VERY smooth just like it used to look in 2.2 :huh:...well, I started to think I was just crazy but after all this last week getting used to the new look why would this time give me that impression, I thought?¿?¿?...then I decided to take some screens, just in case...and so I did...after a while testing several times of day and seasons, I started to be more and more certain about that it looked different and BETTER. Tried several missions and planes, as well as altitudes and definitely it looked better or as good as 2.2, a very nicely smoothed horizon rendering!!! it looked BEAUTIFUL at any time of day!!! then, I decided to exit DCS and start it again to see if thing remained the same and...NO!!!! The nice and smooth horizon was again more harsh, just like all the rest of the week...I tried the same mission of the Harrier skin (which I decided to save) and many other combinations trying to replicate what I did, in order to make it happen again, but sadly, no luck :cry: ...good thing is I took some new screens, as close to the first ones as possible, and BANG!!!, I was right!!!!!, for some reason, the rendering of the horizon was different in that particular time (thanks God I took the screens, otherwise now I would think Im crazy :P)... Though compression to jpg is atrocious (it was much, MUCH more noticeable in game, I swear) here are the pictures were you can how the horizon looks much smoother/more blended in one than the other: smooth: not so smooth: smooth: not so smooth: smooth: not so smooth: As you can see (I think it looks easier in resized mode btw), the upper images have a clearly smoother horizon line (you actually struggle to really see any line at all) while the others you can see the "line" that separates the land from the sky. Of course, the mission is the same, same time of day,same spot, same altitude, same weather, same FoV (default), same everything as you can see in the info bar (well, distance to plane can be slightly different but it doesnt matter) and for some reason, the horizon looks different. Once again, though difference might seem little, thats not the case when running DCS, thats why I inmediately noticed it after all this week... this is due to the compression of the pictures and then compression of jpg, please take this into consideration. I have tried dozens of combinations and loaded the mission dozens of times trying to make it look like that particular time but couldnt replicate it, maybe because the time that happened I had been flying a bigger mission for a long time before which I couldnt do after, will try later. I know some of you might think this is not very important, but the thing is I consider it a BUG, as I cant find a reason for this change so it should not happen then!...at the same time it makes me wonder if the reason why it looks different from 2.2 is due to a bug instead of an intended change and so I decided to post this thread. Well, many will find this quite "crazy", but as I said, I think its a bug after all, and as such, I dont know what else can be wrong so here I report it...also, I usually look at how sims render the horizon because once you are flying, its makes a BIG difference on how NATURAL you perceive the environement. Finally, hope you guys see the difference (tell me Im not crazy please :P) as well as the ED team...not a priority maybe, but something to be addressed after all. Many thanks!!:thumbup: Edit: forgot to mention that I repaired a couple of times, deleted the old metashaders folder, also refreshed the options file and have no mods installed other than skins. Also, my 2.5 comes from my 1.5.8 beta which was also a vanilla install.

Looks really well Timghetta!!!, thanks a lot for your hard work!!:thumbup::thumbup: @Flia: I don't think the pit is too dark mate...what happens is that F-5 for instance, has "cockpit Global Illumination" tech on it thus, light bounces trough the surfaces illuminating them and as its a pretty much milky cockpit it looks much more iluminated...not the case of the M2000...in real life, cockpit would be perceived as "very dark" compared to the outside...look for instance to this video and check how dark it looks (I know cameras are not like the human eye but gives you an idea of what I mean): Btw, now that we are talking about cockpit global Illumination...are you going to implement it for the M2000 also Timghetta???, would be amazing!!! Again, many thanks for your work guys!!:thumbup::thumbup:

Ok, perfect!!:thumbup:

Ok, thanks for this mate...by the way, i think its only when MIRRORS are working, otherwise the water moves :thumbup:

Glad you solved the issue...anyway, i think I found a video showing this problem, and as you said, the sea waves are stopped only in the cockpit view...whatch it at 18:00: the sim is running but the water is still...very weird...maybe it can help devs to investigate it in case more people are affected... EDIT: Ok, I just found the culprit of this issue...so maybe you are still suffering it...MIRRORS!!!...I noticed that as soon as I enable the mirrors (which I use to have disabled, thats why I couldnt replicate this issue) the water surface STOPS moving and the whitecaps are very, very slow (but I think they move)...as soon as I disable them the water starts moving again...wow, thats a big issue after all and I would love to know if more people is experiencing it. kula66, are you sure is gone??...try flying again and enable mirrors. Bye!!

Well, about the water surface not moving, I cant say anything as I cant reproduce the issue but about the whitecaps being "slow" well...while the pace of the white caps should obviously depend on the wind speed (the FASTER the wind=the SLOWER the whitecaps or more time they are visible), there is a limit on how fast they appear and disappear that right now is not correct...even the smaller whitecaps wont appear and disappear in a fraction of a second as they work now except when (triggered by something unknown) they work perfect ONLY from the cockpit view... In real life (I have seen it myself and in some videos), whitecaps seem to be "freezed" (because they disipate slowly) at first glance, and when you concentrate in a particular one you can see it fading softly and slowly. This is the behaviour Im getting at some point when in the cockpit view but not when I use any external camera where the whitecaps evolve at some crazy speed, appearing and disappearing almost instantly no matter the wind speed. So, about the whitecaps, yeah, as soon as you have something like 2/3 knots or more wind, they should seem like "freezed" or staying there for a few seconds. Hope ED can address this issue asap.

yeah, its on...I suspected it could be the roughmet thing, but not sure if its enabled by default in the AV-8 in 2.5??...that would explain the issue certainly... EDIT: Yeah, I have just checked it and yes, AV-8 uses Roughmet as default now...skins need to edit lua files according then...great news btw!, finally roughmet is becoming the standard :thumbup:

I don't know why are you complaining about something that is known to be THE REAL BEHAVIOUR OF THE PLANE!!!!:huh:...dude, it doesn't matter if you "liked" it when you didn't have to trim the plane because that WASNT CORRECT...the m2000 needs to be trimmed!!!!!!, thats all buddy, just deal with it and get used to it...I bet once you get used you will love it :thumbup:

Anyone knows why in the new 2.5 some skins I have with custom specular maps are not working (the speculars I mean)?¿?¿?...the lua is the same as in 2.2 where they work fine...in 2.5 the default speculars override the custom one...btw, Im not talking about skins made by my but the Porcorosso86 ones... thanks!!

Of course they are too big, I even said this long ago when some of the first screens of the new Caucasus went out...so you are not alone, and yes, thats what makes the feeling of flying too slow. I have wondered since then why did they do this (because I highly doubt it is any kind of "issue" they didnt noticed) and came to the conclusion they did it in order to be able to fill a bigger area with less trees :dunno:...at least thats what I believe...otherwise it makes no sense to make such a mistake when scale is something programs manage easily and is so obvious to the naked eye (for instance look an il-78 close to a tree and you will notice how extremely big the trees are ).

In the new 2.5 update, I noticed that, while the issue is still present (in all maps btw), when you start a mission, at some point (I cant tell exactly what triggers it) the white caps get the right pace but ONLY from the cockpit view!!...as soon as you use an external view, they are way too fast...then, you enter the cockpit and they are right again (almost static, but slowly and nicely eveolving just like they should)...just wanted to make you know this. thanks!!

Do you meant that water itself is not moving or that WHITE CAPS are not moving???...I ask you this because I already opened a thread about white caps "moving" or "evolving" too FAST...however, now in the new 2.5 version, I realized that WHITE CAPS behave different depending of if you are in an external or internal view... I mean, when in an external view (F2 for instance), the white caps are way too fast, taking less than a second to disipate large foam formations which is obviously not fine...but when you entern in the cockpit, then the white caps have the correct pacing, they look like being "still" BUT if you look carefully to them, you will notice that they are actually moving (this is how they look in real life, at first they seem stopped but when you concentrate in a particular one it will evolve slowly)... So, as I noticed this and you say that hte water seems to loss the "waves" I thought that maybe you are refering to this...if thats the case then, I can tell you that white caps look like that in real life but if you are refering to the actual WAVES not moving then Im not experiencing that issue from the cockpit nor outside. Bye!!

Wooooooooooooooo!!!, amazing guys!!!!, thanks a lot!!:thumbup:

Nice comparsion, many thanks for sharing!!

Yeah, the new reflections tech seems to render the reflection over a flat plane, ignoring the irregularities of the water surface...as you said, pretty much WiP.

Hi, since new (deffered shading) rendering technique was introduced in DCS (2.1.1 iirc), the new water reflections have been not that great imho...most of the time, I would love to be able to disable them as the resolution is SO LOW that they look like an odd mass flickering below things in the water...if they were of a higher quality/resolution, I will have no problem enjoying them, but the extreme low res make things worse than better, again imho. So, being such an "isolated" effect, I think it would be great to be able to have an SPECIFIC option for them so we can cotrol if we want them (on/off) AND, it would be amazing to be able to set their QUALITY too (low/med/high/ultra...). As a side request, I wonder if you ED guys could increase the max quality/resolution of the reflections as I guess at least mid-high end system should be fine with an increased quality, otherwise, they are quite annoying at most situations due to its very low res which leads to flicker/aliasing...anyway, if the setting configuration for reflections is possible, we can adjust them acording to our systems no problem so those having limited performance would not be affected. Nothing else, hope you guys can improve reflections for the water asap and/or give the option to control them/disable them. Many thanks!!:thumbup:

Thanks for your replies guys (special thanks to Mr. Cruise :megalol:) ... External look, though is not as good as other newer models, is good enough imo...Some time ago, I made some customizations to the textures based on a corrected specular map (they are inverted) and made some speculars for the external fuel tanks and pylons that I think really changes how the 2000 looks to a much better state...also edited the canopy to kill that blue tint. I will be releasing my stuff asap but the problem is that nothing can be done with the cockpit as speculars are not working and after watching all the nice materials in the AV-8 cockpit in 2.5 my 2000C is really jealous now :P Definitely the 2000's cockpit need some love in specular maps form :D, I want to see the dash shining with the sun, as well as instruments glass, joy, consols, frames, hud and hud mounting, etc. Btw jaguara5, don't remember reading that anywhere, but you made my day!!!!!, really looking forward to the updated cockpit look!!!:thumbup:

After watching how nice the improvements in the AV-8 cockpit materials look after the last 2.5 update, I wonder if are we going to get the same update for the m2000??...materials in the Harrier look soooo good that I can't avoid thinking how amazing the 2000 cockpit would look with some proper light reacting to the materials...the speculars are there, just they arent enabled in 3dMax I guess... thanks a lot!!:thumbup:

I have always noticed this also...they improved ground handling (it was really bad not so long ago) but there is marging for improving as you suggested.

Fast impressions of 2.5 after a few hours (pretty much only visuals): Overall, I quite like the new 2.5 version. Speed trees are fantastic. Performance seems to be very good though there are some odd issues where for no apparent reason fps drops to HALF when looking the trees from left/right in the cockpit...also, AI and missiles seem to work fine as far as I can tell. Having EVERYTHING under one roof is AMAZING finally. Many improvements for many modules, etc. However, there are a few things I found that didnt like at all: -Water color is worse than 2.2...why did they touched what was PERFECT?¿?¿?:cry:...Normandy water looked sooooooooooooo beautiful and realistic, now its way too dark (almost pitch black when looking down :huh:), and it remembers the 2.1.1 water. It looks like the light reflection/absortion of the water has been tamed down a lot so it looks now too muted and isolated of the rest of the environement...2.2 water was perfect!! 2.5: -Nevada colors are much darker and have a "plastic look" now, before they looked much better. -They touched the haze once again, now horizon line is more harsh and the sky doesnt blend with the terrain as nice as in 2.2. This means also that visibility is again way too good or far. 2.2: 2.5: -lighting seems downgraded a bit...dusk and dawn sky light has less impact in the color and in the global haze erasing part of the natural look (2.2 was PERFECT) 2.2: 2.5: -Trees in Normandy blends much worse with the landscape. 2.2 had again, a perfect mix between drawing distance and LoD, together with a great masking of the far away trees giving the impression of a smooth and natural fade of them. Now you can clearly see a hard line where trees start rendering. (this also happens somewhat with the new Speed trees, though only when looking at the backlight). -ME fog, is still not working properly...it looks too yellowish and still not fade smooth in the horizon. Also, transition between inside and outside of it is weird and also still too dense even in the higher visibility level available. -Trees shadows still move as you get closer to them, especially in the new Caucasus mountains (in an almost vertical cliff, they look horizontally projected). This is a VERY old issue I expected to be finally solved in 2.5 but looks like not the case yet. I havent had much more time to see the changes, but so far, those are the things I noticed...I LOVED the 2.2 update (visuals), but 2.5 seems to be a step backwards in this regard :cry:...please ED, bring back that nice water and terrain-sky blend. Other than that, everything seems to work better and looks like there are many new things I need time to test. Thanks!!

thanks a lot for the info mate!!...anyway, once I have to set 2xMSAA in game, whats the benefit of using the nvidia setting on top of that?? I don't see any improvement to be honest... thanks a lot!

thanks man!

anyone tested if its safe to copy old controls of the 2.2 in 2.5? thanks!!

But what exctly you copied?¿?...I did copy the Normandy folder (in mods/terrains) and then run the 2.5 exe, it appeared as "installed" but it didn't worked in the mission editor... thanks!

what files did you override with the 2.2?? I tried doing that with the Normandy folder in mods/terrain/Normandy and despite it appears as "installed" in the module manager, it doesnt appear in the mission editor so dont seem to work... thanks!