Any way to make water more transparent?

[TheMurderousCricket 5,103]

Hi,

I was wondering if there is any method or variable that would allow to increase water transparency?

The issue I have is that whenever I try to MMP some marine life, divers, coral reefs or trash into my waterways, they are totally obscured by the water bodies. They are only visible (and barely may I add) just right next to the shore.

So is there any way to increase the distance at which objects in the water are visible?

[TheMurderousCricket 5,103]

Ah, found it. Nevermind.

Admins may delete this entire topic if they wish. 

[nos.17 5,255]

On 11/17/2023 at 8:42 AM, TheMurderousCricket said:

Ah, found it. Nevermind.

Would you mind sharing what you found so it might help others?

[TheMurderousCricket 5,103]

Certainly. 

Part 4 of the following tutorial:

One thing to remember is to edit a correct terrain properties file.

This might either be a terrain property .dat that comes with a custom mod, or simcity_1.dat file.

The latter option might be the case if one uses only a water mod, as they sometimes come with no terrain property information of their own.

In this case it is, of course, better to simply copy the relevant exemplar and make a small, dedicated, custom .dat to tweak the water values. It's just safer this way.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

If you use gray scale maps, you can easily raise the sea floor where ever you want, creating sandbars etc. in seconds. Also, the textured water mods are much more transparent than the solid colored waters.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,103]

8 hours ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

If you use gray scale maps, you can easily raise the sea floor where ever you want, creating sandbars etc.

That would be a nice effect indeed! Have you tried it already? Do you have any examples of your own?

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

6 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

That would be a nice effect indeed! Have you tried it already? Do you have any examples of your own?

Yea, all over this forum! So as to not chew my food any more times than I have already, I've whipped up a tutorial on this subject.

 In addition, a few more tips to remember-

As you can see, mmp's can be planted for quite a distance from the shore and still remain visible. Remember to use lighter colored plants with dark water and vice versa for maximum contrast.

 

A map I'm currently working on illustrates assorted transitions. Mountains are not my strong suit, but I am getting better at them, and I now understand the principles.

[Terring 6,476]

Hope you don't mind if I hijack the topic like a space pirate for my selfish reasons

This is Flathead Lake, placed in Montana, USA. It's situated in a glacial valley which was carved out by ancient glaciers, and in some places it's up to 113 meters (370 feet) deep. It's the largest natural freshwater lake in the western United States, and is renowned for the clarity and quality of its water. The Flathead Lake has very low levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, two types of nutrients that promote the growth of algae, and the deep water helps to prevent sediments from being stirred up. The lack of nutrients and the depth of the lake result in water so clear, that from a overhead vantage point you can see all the way to the bottom of the lake. In the summer, it is often easy to see through 6 meters (20 feet) of the water column.

As soon as I saw those pictures, I had the need to at least attempt to simulate this phenomenon in SimCity 4 and see how transparent can go in a realistic way. While studying @blunder's guide Know Your Terrain: A simple guide to making the most of your terrain mod, I discovered that you can do it if you have a terrain mod and use the Reader to play with the WaterDepthForMaxAlpha variable, which determines in what depth the water reaches an alpha of 255 and become opaque.

I have Columbus Terrain Mod and here is the default settings, which is 22.

An example of how it looks like from very close.

And this is what happens when you put WaterDepthForMaxAlpha into the maximum number possible, 255. Full transparency! You can see the bottom of the water and whatever happens and lives there without any problem.

OK, I have to admit, this is way too much even for me

Making the water 100% transparent is fun but not ideal. My goal is to make my water bodies look as clear as possible without looking too fake and overkill. This begs the question, which is the best variable to put in order to get a result similar to the Flathead Lake. But before that, here is another question I need to ask. In real life, how deep down can you see in perfectly clear water from the surface of it? Obviously it dependents on many variable environmental aspects. You can see nothing at all if the water is too murky, and the more clean and clear the water gets the more you can see. But how about in the most clear water possible? What's the ideal? Is it 6 meters (20 feet) like in Flathead Lake, or it can go deeper?

If the answer is a clear number or at least a range of numbers, say 20 to 50 meters (65 to 164 feet), I need to see first how deep the water bodies in SimCity 4 can get in numbers. I used the TerrainQuery cheat to check the elevations of both the surface, were the land meets the water, and the deepest, lowest point the game can go. I found out that the surface of the water is y=250 and the lowest the game can go is y=20, so the water in SimCity 4 can go as deep as 250-20=230.
But 230 what? 230 meters? 230 feet, which is equal to 70 meters? I don't get it

Any help, idea and advice is welcomed

[TheMurderousCricket 5,103]

6 hours ago, Terring said:

But how about in the most clear water possible? What's the ideal? Is it 6 meters (20 feet) like in Flathead Lake, or it can go deeper?

6 hours ago, Terring said:

If the answer is a clear number or at least a range of numbers, say 20 to 50 meters (65 to 164 feet), I need to see first how deep the water bodies in SimCity 4 can get in numbers.

If you are looking for the perfectly, environmentally clear water, then I think Flathead Lake is a good guidance as to the natural transparency of "unspoiled" water.

The transparency of water, just like you said, is a combination of factors and that include some that are not even related to per se pollution.

These factors include, for example, the temperature of the water body, wind speeds above the water, amount of light available overhead, air pressure and... the cleanliness of air above the water! The way water molecules are organized and move about in the medium (are they still? is there some kind of current?) play a part in this equation too.

Water is essentially just another medium through which light rays travel. All of the factors mentioned above, including pollution, affect how light travels and how far under the water surface you can see.

Given some experience in recreating real-life landscapes, I'd consider it highly unlikely for even clearest water to be transparent enough for viewer to see 20 meters down, much less 50! I'd say Flathead Lake (and other top clearest lakes found around the Web) are a good guidance overall as far as highest possible transparency goes.

[Terring 6,476]

20 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I'd say Flathead Lake (and other top clearest lakes found around the Web) are a good guidance overall as far as highest possible transparency goes.

Which means we're going to follow the Flathead Lake case and pick the 6 meters as our transparency limit. Now I need to convent those 6 meters into a WaterDepthForMaxAlpha status number. How do I calculate it? Given that 0 is fully opaque and 255 fully transparent in this variable, was the default number of 22 our answer?
And I still need this question to be answered, if it's possible of course:

On 4/8/2024 at 4:38 PM, Terring said:

I used the TerrainQuery cheat to check the elevations of both the surface, were the land meets the water, and the deepest, lowest point the game can go. I found out that the surface of the water is y=250 and the lowest the game can go is y=20, so the water in SimCity 4 can go as deep as 250-20=230.
But 230 what? 230 meters? 230 feet, which is equal to 70 meters? I don't get it

 

[Terring 6,476]

On 4/8/2024 at 4:38 PM, Terring said:

But 230 what? 230 meters? 230 feet, which is equal to 70 meters?

Meters! I had the idea of using the raisers lots NAM comes with, and I can confirm that the y parameter of the TerrainQuery cheat is in meters. Which means that the maximum depth of the water bodies in SimCity 4 is indeed 230 meters.