Ground Fog

[DarkMatter 21]

I actually discovered this stuff almost 4 months ago, but I forgot to release it. I started playing with it again the other day, and got better results. This improves/fixes ground fog in SC4. Some people swear to have seen it, but in the exemplar, ground fog is essentially disabled. I've tweaked the settings to enable it, and it shows up around water and along shores.

 

I still want to tweak it some more, so it will appear on the ground as well, but here are some screenshots.

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files/fog12.jpg border=0>

 

 

 

[BigRedFish 21]

*clap clap clap*

 

I like the fog.  Can your mod follow the 24-hour clock so the fog burns off by late morning, and re-settles after dark?

 

[DarkMatter 21]

Yeah, it follows the 24-hour clock. At 6am, it starts to taper off....by 10am, its completely gone....by 7pm, its completely back again. I think I'm going to change it so the fog starts to taper off at 7am, and is completely gone by 11am. Otherwise it dissapears too soon.

[zwanneman 0]

Very nice DarkMatter https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/1.gif>.

I heard Maxis put fog in the game in the beginning. Some early pictures of the game showed fog. But it did not turn up in the final game. Why do you think Maxis disabled it? What's wrong with it?

And could you also post some close up pictures pleasehttps://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/9.gif>?

[Gemika 6]

Very Cool this will add a realistic touch to our cities Great Job Darkmatter!

GEhttps://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/5.gif>

[vidioman 21]

Wow! That looks neat!

[ed_diaz 10]

nice work..but how do we know its fog? i mean not to be rude but that just looks like clouds.. can you show a pic of the fog in-between buildings? or is there a way to crank up the level of fog so it looks realistic..

[Dolfan348488 0]

[bEGINQUOTE]

3/23/2004 8:43:32 AM[/quoteDATE]

ed_diaz[/quoteAUTHOR]

nice work..but how do we know its fog? i mean not to be rude but that just looks like clouds.. can you show a pic of the fog in-between buildings? or is there a way to crank up the level of 'fog' so it looks realistic..

[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]


Yeah, it just merely looks like very light clouds to me

[psteverific 8]

This looks very cool. Please post more screenshots once you've tweaked it some more, It'll look more dramatic once you've gotten it over land as well. I sure hope it works out all right, I'd love to see this in my cities!

[Smurfer2 7]

That's a good idea DM. That will add realism to harbors.https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/1.gif>

[simwario 95]

Yeah, looks pretty cool, although as Dolfan said currently, they
looking more like clouds than ground fog.

[Screwballl 196]

this one looks like an April fools day joke, its just a few clouds over water, otherwise the bridge would be poking up through it

[Smurfer2 7]

[bEGINQUOTE]

3/23/2004 9:50:11 AM[/quoteDATE]

simwario[/quoteAUTHOR]

Yeah, looks pretty cool, although as Dolfan said currently, they
looking more like clouds than ground fog.[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

That's how I feel, but I put my hopes on DM tweaking it. Hopefully when he is done it will look more like fog.

[DarkMatter 21]

Trust me guys, its fog. The clouds in the game cast shadows on the land....ground fog doesn't. There arn't any shadows from the stuff in my screenshots. Also...take a close look at the third screenshot. There is a cloud in the upper right part of the picture....and the fog is in the lower center. You can see a distinct difference between clouds and fog. The final picture you can see a boat going through the fog as well, and you can see that the fog is obscured by the bridge....the fog doesn't obscure the bridge like a cloud would. It goes underneath it. And, once again, none of the fog casts any shadows on the ground in any of the screenshots like a cloud would.

 

I've been modding since april last year. I know what I'm doing, and I know for a fact that this IS ground fog. I finally got it to show up on the ground, but its hard to see, so I won't waste bandwidth with a screenshot (I've seen it moving through buildings...its pretty cool. https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/10.gif>). For the skeptics, you can check out the exemplar I edited...its got the following TGI: 0x6534284A 0x7A4A8458 0xC9B00BAA. Particle Count is, by default, zero. I upped it to a few thousand, and tweaked the other settings. I also changed some of the weather tuner as well to help fog appear more. It doesn't get very dense, but I think there is a hard-coded limit in the .exe that I can't change. The fog does follow wind direction though, so it will move along the surface of the water, and along the ground, like real fog.

 

Oh, and one more bummer, which I can't seem to get past. Fog only shows up at zooms 1 and 2. I think its linked to the mountain clouds generator, which turns off cloud visibility once you zoom closer than zoom 2, which is a REAL bummer. Otherwise, I'd post close-up shots, and it would just be that much more fun to actually have fog in your cities.

[Smurfer2 7]

I see your point, but form the views we have it is hard to see how high the fog is. I don't want to ask for this, but I feel I need to. Could we please see a few more pictures?

[maxismike 0]

it was probably a test effect that was left in, based off the cloud fx code. which is why it only shows up at 2 zooms.
would be fun to go back and hack the effect to remove the LOD lines, then make a prop out of it.

personally I wanted to ship with a set of weather props that did nothing but spawn clouds, fog, rain, etc.

[Smurfer2 7]

[bEGINQUOTE]

3/23/2004 2:34:01 PM[/quoteDATE]

maxismike[/quoteAUTHOR]

it was probably a test effect that was left in, based off the cloud fx code. which is why it only shows up at 2 zooms.
would be fun to go back and hack the effect to remove the LOD lines, then make a prop out of it.

personally I wanted to ship with a set of weather props that did nothing but spawn clouds, fog, rain, etc. [/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]


Whoa, that sounds awesome! Too bad it didn't happen.https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/7.gif>

[DarkMatter 21]

Hey, its Maxis Mike! I thought all the maxis dude were dead....or fell of the face of the earth....or were crushed by a meteor strike. https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/2.gif> (Any chance you could get me into contact with Mike Cox? I've been trying to get ahold of him for almost two months on and off, but he truely seems to have dissapeared.)

 

Anyway...for a test effect, it looks pretty good, just sparse. It only shows up in patches, but it would be cool if it would blanket areas that are covered in moisture (i.e. coast, bays, rivers, etc.), and it would be fun if it would climb small hills and spread accross some land area near water. If Maxis plans to release another expansion, I think a very cool feature would be improved ground fog that works at all zoom levels.

[redlotus 16]

The fog effect is probably being limited by the Effects Directory. I took a quick glance at it, and it looks like it is being limited to an alpha of 20%. I'll see if I can make some changes to the file sometime tonight to get more of an effect.

MaxisMike, are you saying that there is a LOD controller in the Effects Directory? I'd be VERY interested in getting any information that you could share about this file.https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/25.gif>*hint, hint...wink, wink* BTW, with what we know, we almost could create a complete weather system in the game. There are just a few things missing that keep me from releasing more than the rain prop that I created a couple of months back.

-red

[ed_diaz 10]

i see.. how about just showing us at least ONE pic of the fog going through the buildings https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/35.gif> .. anywayz when your done with this will you have it uploaded to the mods section? I HOPE SO! cause i know mad people will want this..

[falcon5018 21]

man, DM i hope you release this! i would love to see a version with really dense fog!

[DarkMatter 21]

Well, I can do better than more pics. I'm releasing version 0.5 tonight, so people can have some fun, and see it move through their own buildings. https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/2.gif> Keep in mind, fog only appears near water, and doesn't go far from it, so you'll only see it near buildings that are close to water.

If RedLotus can fix the max opacity in the effect directory, and post a mod, I'll see how much more dense I can get the fog. As things are, I'm quite limited, and about the most I can do is make it appear at all, and control where it appears (i.e. only on flat ground, or near hills, etc.)

[redlotus 16]

I think that I've cured the low-alpha problem.  Take a look:

 

Not sure why the fog in my pic is smaller, though.  Maybe you can tweak it a little bit better.  I've attached the modified EffDir file to this post.  It also has the exemplar that you mentioned above, so don't forget to remove it if you're still using your own.  Let me know if you want any other changes done on my end.

 

-red

[Smurfer2 7]

[DarkMatter 21]

Hehe...did you forget something there Smurf? https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/28.gif>

Red....its better...but almost too much better. They really do look like clouds in your picture. I tried to set the max alpha component to 192 in my mod, up from 128 (i.e. RGBA color...0-255 for each component). But like you said, it seemed to be fixed at a much lower value.

[redlotus 16]

Alright DM.  I've attached a new EffDir file.  The last one set the alpha at 1500%.  I've set this one to 75% (up from 20%).  The problem is that it may not raise it enough.  You might want to give each one a try and just use the particle property to adjust the intensity of the fog.  Anyway, I'll try to test it out a little more tomorrow.  If you post your mod tonight, I'll use it so that we're both on the same page.

 

-red

 

*edit--forgot to mention that I tested the mod out with a few other numbers like 500%, etc.  I think that the EffDir is limited to 100% alpha and anything above it is ignored.  Just in case you were wondering why I made such a drastic change.https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/9.gif>

[falcon5018 21]

[bEGINQUOTE]

3/23/2004 10:29:30 PM[/quoteDATE]

[/quoteAUTHOR]

Alright DM. I've attached a new EffDir file. The last one set the alpha at 1500%. I've set this one to 75% (up from 20%). The problem is that it may not raise it enough. You might want to give each one a try and just use the particle property to adjust the intensity of the fog. Anyway, I'll try to test it out a little more tomorrow. If you post your mod tonight, I'll use it so that we're both on the same page.

-red

[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

oh man, yes, please post a version of it tonight!

[the_new_simman 5]

That is so cool! I love fog!

[DarkMatter 21]

Ok. Version 0.5 is up in the mods section. It works pretty well, although we still need to tweak the opaticy a bit.

 

Red, about the opacity. It seems there is an unfortunate side effect, or else you edited more than you intended to. Normally, fog and clouds dissapear if you move the cursor over them. Well, with your effdir installed, fog and clouds always appear. This sometimes makes it hard to do stuff in your city.

[Gemika 6]

Nice work! looks a bit odd at first but you get used to it. What exactly will the upgraded version be like if I may ask?

GEhttps://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/1.gif>