Water Rendering Discussion Thread

[Sid6dot7]

@Kuky

You misunderstood. As I wrote "one...no offense intendend", I wasn't pointing at you!

 

But at forums, I often see people arguing only with their "feelings/thinkings" and without reliable sources (i.e. "Envelope of Flight Model"-Thread in A-10 Beta Forum). I simply say, that you can't compare what you see, with those photos unless you know how they're made (boundary conditions), because that causes non-negligible influences to the result. And optics, like many other natural sciences/mechanics, are simple only at the first look and can get very fast very complex. Especially when you go into detail.

 

And, I was myself at see often. Besides that I'am observing my environment much more, than most of my fellow men.

 

As said I didn't want to personally offend you.

Edited December 31, 2010 by Sid6dot7

[Bushmanni]

Black Sea

 

 

 

 

this one looks like as if its reflection but its actually a shadow

 

That is definitely a reflection. Rocks might look quite bright when seen directly but when compared to sky they are lot dimmer and that shows in the reflection. And if you look closely there's no shadows on the rock or on the grass from direct sunlight. The light is diffused but slightly stronger in one direction which means light cloud cover. The angle between view direction and water surface is big enough to dim the reflection so that the reflected sky looks dim and rock almost black. Also the low dynamic range of the camera enhances reflections contrast.

 

Most often the reflected land is a dark diffused silhouette, just like the sun is a bright white sparkles. Producing this kind of reflection computationally is very tricky as you really need to calculate the reflection but the diffusion makes it look very grainy unless you apply very heavy subsampling which taxes GPU resources very heavily. The other option is to not simulate the usual sea state but only the ones that have a more crisper reflection.

[Quid21]

Personally I feel the Seas large ripples/waves out at sea move up and down to fast, but who cares it's the Sea, the last place I want to be flying an A-10 there's nowhere to hide!!

 

Cloud shadows would be a nice addition.

[mavyalex]

I wonder if Terragen 2 has been used in DCS:A-10 C ? :-) It was used in "Tron: Legacy", though I admit there is no comparison possible...

[Kuky]

One more thing... it just occured to me that the lower you are (closer to water sirface) the less of a reflection you will see (unless water is perfectly calm) as the point where light should be reflacted is closer to you observer... as your point of view goes higher the reflection becomes more visible.

 

Low Point of view... can hardly see any reflection of the ships

 

High point of view... very visible reflection of the rock, and that guy in the water

[sam777777]

the problem with the high and medium dcs water settings are that they are perfect, if you are flying 10m above the water... As you get higher these reflections are overdone, it makes me feel like i am flying a model plane above a pond, waves move too fast and not enough small ripples + ultra clear reflections.

 

it should be more matte.

[Sid6dot7]

Low Point of view... can hardly see any reflection of the ships

[image]

 

High point of view... very visible reflection of the rock, and that guy in the water

[image]

 

Additionally, the effect of focal distance I mentioned is seen in the pictures.

The picture with the lower pov was surely made with a telephoto lens (less reflection) and the one with higher pov with a wide-angle lens (more).

[Kuky]

Additionally, the effect of focal distance I mentioned is seen in the pictures.

The picture with the lower pov was surely made with a telephoto lens (less reflection) and the one with higher pov with a wide-angle lens (more).

 

so are you saying that from same perspective viewing with naked eye the reflection of the ships would be visible?

[mooshim]

The region for Lockon (BlackSea) has for good reasons that name - here few shots:

 

 

 

Matt, we're working on it as hard as we can.

 

 

:smartass:

 

-1 for being unhelpful

[Sid6dot7]

so are you saying that from same perspective viewing with naked eye the reflection of the ships would be visible?

 

If the viewpoint of the upper pic (with the ships) is similar to the lower one, then yes.

For cameras the focal length should be similar aswell. With differing lenghts you will have different reflection amounts.

 

 

 

Little example to show the influence of viewing angle and focal distance. The exposure times of all 3 images aren't exactly the same (1/640, 1/1000, 1/640), but their influence is very little (i.e. details in the sky). The aperture value was the same for all pictures, only the exposure times were varied. No filters were attached, no polarisation or others.

The last two pictures were taken within 5 minutes, with nearly steady weather conditions. The first one is about 25 minutes later.

 

 

First picture Focal distance = 6.90mm. exposure time = 1/640, high viewing angle:

 

Second picture Focal distance = 31.20mm. exposure time = 1/1000, lower viewing angle:

 

Third picture Focal distance = 72.00mm. exposure time = 1/640, lowest viewing angle:

Edited January 1, 2011 by Sid6dot7
added some facts to the camera

[koyan]

The shape of the waves and the direction they are moving very much determines if there are reflections to be seen and how much. Me personally i think the reflection in DCS-A10 very well fits the shape of the wave. The wave shape however is my main concern with the water in A10. Its the wave shape of a bath tub or any other very small water surface (wave size/speed). I see a major improvement is possible there.

 

Happy New Year to All

Edited January 1, 2011 by koyan

[mooshim]

:) Matt... Sorry my friend.

 

... I was calling my (un)funny comment unhelpful.

 

Spent a lot of my life on the water...I actually think you have a point.

 

Sry for the bad joke :)

 

Happy New Year

[shawnyp420]

Good post. I agree, the reflections are too much and detract from FPS.

[Viperf16]

It would be awesome if the team that made Real Environment Extreme for FS9/X could make a product for DCS world. It is the most realistic weather/water modification ever made.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v73FuuP4NM8

[Kuky]

hm... how about this for an idea... something like fog to cover over reflection image when distance to shoreline is increased and point of view is lower... so that up close to coastline and bit higher over water and reflection to show nicely and then as you fly further out over the water the reflection disapears?

 

Maybe could also relate this to weather conditions like wind... none or minimal wind and water is more calm... bit more wind and water should have waives, hence you can't see the reflections.

Edited January 15, 2011 by Kuky

[26-J39]

Here's some pic's from FTX.. truly amazing terrain and water.. as well as every little detail imaginable. http://fullterrain.com/

[Napa]

Don't forget that water is modeled even under the ground in TFCSE, so basically is all over the place. Having water like FSX will kneel down 95% of consumer based PCs.

[hassata]

FSX-the amount of money, time, and heartache I put into that sim to get it looking and running the way I wanted . . . grrrrrrr.

[sungsam]

Reflactions of objects at a calm sea or lake, can only been seen from the ground lever not higher. Only the sky reflection can be seen from higher altitudes, this explains the blue color of sea or the grey durring cloud concentrations. Evening sun makes it more possible to have object reflections at calm sea. This is due to sunshine low deflection corner on watter and then on objects. Am I right ?

Edited January 4, 2011 by sungsam

[Bucic]

Water is yet another element that Il-2 developers got well done ahead of the time and with an amazing looks/fps hit ratio.

 

The key to the whole subject is that refelctions in LO/DCS water is done as specular reflections, as we all learned in primary schoold, which is valid only for water surface flat as a piece of window glass. What's missing is diffuse reflection and Fresnel reflection http://developer.nvidia.com/object/fresnel_wp.html

 

Here, sit back and learn...

 

 

The juicy part starts at 6:45

Edited January 7, 2011 by Bucic

[Guest binsinselia]

Water Rendering Discussion Thread

 

Some water morphs i did with the morph brush in P7 not he best but pretty easy to do, just need better water textures. Used the one for Daz millenium enviroment water texture on the Hi-res square.

[leafer]

I have lived on two tropical islands and have never seen the mirror-like reflections represented in DCS.

[Seaeagle]

Since the dynamic sea in the Lock-on/DCS engine(s) is somewhat simplistic and isn't dependant on wheather conditions(has only one sea state), I think the question(rather than the degree of water reflection) is whether the chosen fixed state is a particulary good choice.

 

Surely when faced with the task of representing something as complex as sea dynamics from calm to stormy conditions via a single fixed state, then choosing an extreme(that rarely occurs) at one end of the spectre isn't the best idea.

 

Now I realise that DCS doesn't have the ship dynamics necessary for making something like gail force conditions with big waves look natural, but I think it should be quite possible to introduce a more choppy sea state (which IMHO is a better bet for most conditions) without having to make radical changes to the engine.

[Buzpilot]

Water upgrade?

 

Watching the water in this simulator, makes me wonder why not have this too in DCS, like a real water option?

 

Edited April 15, 2011 by Buzpilot

[Jona33]

what simulator is this? But yeah the water looks really good.