Too "glassy" and reflective water.

[Skysurfer]

Currently the water looks like a matt mirror at altitude giving one no perception of height or speed, only from like 10ft over the water one can make out waves. Clouds should also not be reflecting in salt water. Definitely a huge downgrade from 2.5.

[ebabil]

yes i was going to open a thread for this. reflections look overdone

[fagulha]

+1 here.

 

I prefer the water from 2.5 too (due to the reflections problem, rather than that i love 2.7 water).

 

(VR user).

 

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by fagulha

[Furiz]

4 hours ago, Skysurfer said:

Currently the water looks like a matt mirror at altitude giving one no perception of height or speed, only from like 10ft over the water one can make out waves. Clouds should also not be reflecting in salt water. Definitely a huge downgrade from 2.5.

 

Salt water or normal water it reflects everything if it is still,

waves shouldn't reflect as much as they do now, the bigger the wave the less it reflects (it actually reflects but we cant notice it cause of all the wrinkles on the water),

simulating wave reflection is a very very heavy task so in my opinion it is good as it is, maybe simplify it and add 3 levels of reflection?

[Stearmandriver]

8 hours ago, Skysurfer said:

Clouds should also not be reflecting in salt water.

Er... what? 

 

https://images.app.goo.gl/zeSZAwbX5VrRQrVg9

Edited April 19, 2021 by Stearmandriver

[Mustang]

I've toned the reflections down somewhat in my shaders mod

 

 

 

[Ala12Rv-watermanpc]

18 hours ago, Skysurfer said:

Currently the water looks like a matt mirror at altitude giving one no perception of height or speed, only from like 10ft over the water one can make out waves. Clouds should also not be reflecting in salt water. Definitely a huge downgrade from 2.5.

 

lol, what??

 

 

 

that will exclusively depend on water bumpiness and reflected light from objects.

14 hours ago, fagulha said:

+1 here.

 

I prefer the water from 2.5 too.

 

(VR user).

 

 

 

New water definitely needs more work but c'mon!!!!

[fagulha]

21 minutes ago, Ala12Rv-watermanpc said:

 

lol, what??

 

 

 

that will exclusively depend on water bumpiness and reflected light from objects.

 

 

New water definitely needs more work but c'mon!!!!

Of course it needs more work but as it is i rather use the 2.5 water and no doubt about that. 

 

The problem itself its not the water but the reflections. 

Edited April 19, 2021 by fagulha

[thrustvector]

+1 for all these reflections, but ill use mustangs mod, thanks dude

[Skysurfer]

Again, there is no sense of structure and waves when flying above 1000 feet - it looks like a sea of stationary glue right now and you don't get a sense of speed or altitude. It's probably the new shaders in 2.7 but the sea did look much better in prior DCS iterations. 

[fagulha]

Today i was in LSO platform and tried to close the left eye in VR and water was not shimmering at sea level. If i close the right eye in VR the water on left eye gets a lot of shimmering and that causes a weird effect in VR. Something is going on about shaders not rendering same way both eyes.

And it´s noticeable in deck crew too. When they are close they don´t render sameway both eyes and causes some shimmering effect.

 

[Sile]

Since 2.7 Water shows too little structure. It's pretty much like a mirror surface.
I'm flying non-VR with Water set to "High".

[dundun92]

+1. There is zero depth perception over the water, and its far, far too dark. I cant count how many times this patch, for example, i've hit the water notching missiles because I have no idea hew high I am without having to go into the HUD/instruments that just detract from SA in the moment.

Edited April 21, 2021 by dundun92

[St4rgun]

The right phrase to look for is Fresnel Effect.

 

The water's reflectivity should change upon viewing angle to be able to correctly sense the height from the surface.

Of course this would be highly complicated to implement fully, but some approximations should me made.

 

 

[NightMan]

+1

[Harker]

+1. There is zero depth perception over the water, and its far, far too dark. I cant count how many times this patch, for example, i've hit the water notching missiles because I have no idea hew high I am without having to go into the HUD/instruments that just detract from SA in the moment.

Same here. I actually hit the water once and almost hit it 2-3 times more since 2.7 dropped.

All were cases where I couldn't tell how high I was, without referencing instruments. Prior to 2.7, I didn't have that problem.

[Ala12Rv-watermanpc]

1 hour ago, St4rgun said:

The right phrase to look for is Fresnel Effect.

 

The water's reflectivity should change upon viewing angle to be able to correctly sense the height from the surface.

Of course this would be highly complicated to implement fully, but some approximations should me made.

 

 

 

 

Absolutely!!, this missing effect is what is making sun reflection over the water to look wrong:

 

This:

 

 

Instead of this:

 

 

Some improvements are being made in the water so I hope this thing will be one of them. Big water bodies look so odd and wrong without the milky satinated sun reflection...

Edited April 21, 2021 by Ala12Rv-watermanpc

[dukovac]

One extreme example:

[Ala12Rv-watermanpc]

1 minute ago, dukovac said:

One extreme example:

 

Yeah, water reflections would look sooo much better smoothed by the fresnel effect, even a low res reflection would be more than enough with a very slight wind amount.

[Aarnoman]

Agreed. While there have been some good aspects of the change to the water shaders (e.g. wave size now seems appropriate, whereas before they looked far too large especially from very high altitude), more work is needed, particularly in toning down the reflectiveness.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Aarnoman

[NightMan]

+1

[SERGIOABRAZ]

For me the water is perfect ..

[rayrayblues]

Me too. Remember the complaints of water looking "too tropical" when The Channel map was released? The Channel, Caucasus, and Normandy now look more realistic.

More tropical would be right for PG and I'm not sure what Syrian waters are supposed to look like, so I dunno.  If they could have dark water where it really is dark and clear more tropical

water in PG and the upcoming Marianas, but I guess that would be asking too much. Pacific Island waters are clean & clear, almost like glass. European waters are

more polluted with industrial runoff and therefore murky and dark.

 

I kinda like the way it is right now, (I think it's more realistic than 2.5.6) but ED is still working on it, like the clouds and weather engine. It's all WIP. Be patient.

[Lurker]

Armchair pilots are the worst. Seriously, this does not belong in the bugs section. It's a matter of taste and opinion, and IMO the water effects look much improved compared to 2.5. 

[OttoPus]

Yes water rendering needs work, just like ED did with the sky. 

 

Let's wait and hope, ED will deliver top quality water visual simulation I'm sure.