Foggier Fog Request

[Girafarig 1,404]

Hello all,

I'm looking for a fog mod that's real thick. Soup-thick. Something that makes fog ooze out of my machine-thick. I had Gizmo's Ground Fog installed, which does a decent job, but it only goes so far -- so I tried cranking up the numbers on the Reader, but that also doesn't seem to be doing the trick, since the fog is still sporadic and erratic, and I want it to look like this, June fog-like:

Any help?

(Yes, I know that would slow down my machine considerably. But I think computers have advanced enough from 2006)

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

4 hours ago, Girafarig said:

I tried cranking up the numbers on the Reader, but that also doesn't seem to be doing the trick, ...

That's the most logical thing to try.   But I believe exemplar tweaking was the original method during early development and was later completely overridden by what's in the Effects Dir entry.

The EDir included in Gizmo's file is a duplicate of the full Maxis one with surgical edits. They alter only the Ground Fog and also include their improved foggy FSH. I've done the same hex location edits to give you foggier fog. Drop my file in the same Ground Fog v1.0 folder and then, by filename, my edited EDir will override theirs.

I don't have any of my regions so this is a Maxis city:

 

And the file: zCori's Foggier Fog - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

Me again. This one is thicker foggy fog: zCori's Foggier Fog v2 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

[Girafarig 1,404]

Thanks, @CorinaMarie! We're definitely getting there, but I'm still not getting the same effect as you:

Oddly enough, I had the best results with your first attempt. I also tried both my own edit and the Gizmo original and found that mine worked better, though if we're dealing with an override here, that was probably just subjective.

I wonder if the relative lack of fog has got to do with the moisture levels? My region is pretty dry in general, and the wettest parts are the windward slopes, where the altitude isn't very conductive to fog.

Either that, or it's because I'm playing on a Mac. That does all sorts of loopy stuff to the game.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

Here's a few preview pics from v1 of Cori's Foggier Fog mod:
 

Spoiler

From my Frontierland map:

 

And a developed city with a harbour area:

 

Something to keep in mind is the fog only appears in the widest two zoom levels, and only when there's water present in the city tile. This might be configurable in the Graphics Rules.sgr file, with options to control what effects appear at specific zooms.

Such as:

property minVehicleZoom 3
property minPedZoom     4

I do see "CloudsFog" is referred to inside the rules, but it depends if there's a specific property for adjusting the zoom level?

 

With Cori's v2 mod, it seems to flicker a bit for me from testing.

That might be an issue with my own graphics setup, or perhaps it could use a middle ground between both versions.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

@Girafarig

Mine starts out just like your first pic, but then soon gets overwhelmed with white when using my 2nd version. There's nothing else I can think of to try. I suppose it could be Mac specific, but this seems like an odd one to be only partially affected. I'd expect all or nothing.

[Girafarig 1,404]

On 28/08/2024 at 10:41 PM, CorinaMarie said:

@Girafarig

Mine starts out just like your first pic, but then soon gets overwhelmed with white when using my 2nd version. There's nothing else I can think of to try. I suppose it could be Mac specific, but this seems like an odd one to be only partially affected. I'd expect all or nothing.

Maybe it IS mac-specific? Like the old traffic lots that would have drastically reduced capacities because Macs handle floating point integers different or something, I don't remember the details. I do remember it being an easy fix, though.

I was reminded of this by Motokloss's parking lots, which also seem to be having the same issue and throttle my road traffic. Funny I ran back to this topic to see if someone had made a T21-based alternative, and it's the very same discussion that was happening two pages back.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

9 hours ago, Girafarig said:

Macs handle floating point integers different or something,...

Yep. There is that indeed. I believe in the exemplars it simply needs the Rep count of 1 set to 0 when there is a single element in the array. When there are two or more reps, then the count gets set right anyhow. I have no idea if that applies to variables in the EffectsDir or not, but we are definitely dealing with single precision float32s for the values Gizmo tweaked (and then I over tweaked). 

For the ground fog's initial_size_variation_pc Maxis set this to 0.3 and Gizmo upped it to 1.0. In my version 2 override, I set it to 32.0.
For the ground fog's initial_var_max Maxis set this to 0.2 and Gizmo upped it to 1.0. In my version 2 override, I set it to 32.0.

So now with my attached version 3 override I've set the first one to 320,000.0 and the second to 330,000.0 with the idea that might be 10,000x or at least 100x for you.

It so happens I have a spare region of El Paso, TX (by @Liltiger67) since I replied to someone in a comment about how to install the region. I used the lower center tile for my test and it looks like this in the game now:

That did take about 5 seconds after the initial tile loading to fully spread out. Now one thing I noticed is the fog never goes above 300 to 310 meters elevation and it only appears in zooms 1 and 2.

Would you mind to grab that same region and test this new mod in the same city tile? This one:

 

The second file under the download button has the entire region already rendered and ready to go. It just needs unzipped and placed in your regions folder.

I'm fairly sure you mentioned you do have Graphic Details set to high.

Here's the file which should be super silly overkill on the white fog: zCori's Foggier Fog v3 - Override for GroundFog-V1.dat

Remember it needs to go in the same folder as Gizmo's GroundFog-V1.dat file so mine can override.

Edit: CB noticed I didn't compress this one. We'll leave it as the 1 MB size for now while you test. If it works, I can scrunch it up and then attach a replacement file.

[Girafarig 1,404]

Houston, we got fog:

As soon as I zoomed out, flashes of fog started showing up and then everything was covered in milky white. So definitely cranking up the numbers does work —maybe too well, in fact.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

6 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

As soon as I zoomed out, ...

Just to double check, did you also test zooming out with my v2?

 

4 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

So definitely cranking up the numbers does work —maybe too well, in fact.

Yay! That means now we can tweak.

[Girafarig 1,404]

Just now, CorinaMarie said:

Just to double check, did you also test zooming out with my v2?

Haha, yes, I did. As a matter of fact, I went back, swapped the v2 back, reloaded El Paso, and there were the usual, timid clouds all over.

Anyway, here's a picture of one of my cities with the fog.

It looks really cool, but there's two issues I can see that this picture doesn't really capture:

1. The fog sort of flashes in. It doesn't show up gradually, but it also doesn't appear the moment you hit 2 on the keyboard and stay there. It has this kind of stroboscopic effect which is kind of annoying, tbh.
2. Related to that, sometimes the fog just… vanishes altogether. I think it's related to my mouse movements, the same way regular clouds move out of the way if you want to click something behind them —but instead of a section vanishing, the entire fog goes away, just as stroboscopically (?) and suddenly as it came in. Zoom level 1 works better in keeping the fog.

Other than that, yeah, I'm digging the soupiness of it. 

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

4 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

1. The fog sort of flashes in.

For v3, it does that for me too in a very annoying way. With v2 it does some as well. The base blob flashes into view in a few places and then the whole thing sort of drifts up like smoke from a bonfire.

I'm going to make a version 4 where I set each number to 32,000 so if it is the 1/1000th bug, then your v4 might be like my v2. And if not, it'll give us another data point on our test graph.

 

7 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

2. Related to that, sometimes the fog just… vanishes altogether.

I noticed that as well in both v2 and v3. It seems to me if I'm over higher ground and it's to the point where 15% or less is showing fog then moving another fraction of an inch and all the fog just vanishes.

Once we get the proper density, it might be possible to tweak other aspects.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

This one is 32,000 for each of those settings. In my game it looks just as solid white as v3. If we can discern any difference for you, that'll give us a better indication of how your Mac is seeing these numbers.

zCori's Foggier Fog v4 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

[Girafarig 1,404]

44 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

This one is 32,000 for each of those settings. In my game it looks just as solid white as v3. If we can discern any difference for you, that'll give us a better indication of how your Mac is seeing these numbers.

One of the numbers there is hampering the fog, because this is the result I get with v4:

There's a little fog if you let the game sit for a while, but I can't see much difference with v2.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

11 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

There's a little fog if you let the game sit for a while, but I can't see much difference with v2.

So we'll play the High/Low game.

160k for each of the two values we are tweaking: zCori's Foggier Fog v5 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

[Girafarig 1,404]

3 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

So we'll play the High/Low game.

160k for each of the two values we are tweaking: zCori's Foggier Fog v5 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

160k is thick, stroboscopic fog, but it's less than 320k. I can see what's below the fog (an airport, in this picture, believe it or not) in occasional flashes of clarity. Also note the treetops at around ≈100 meters, which now slowly creep out of the fog instead of just popping out of a while field of nothing.

EDIT: if you pay close attention, you can actually see high-contrast trees and roads below the soup. We're getting there!

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

20 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

160k is thick

Let's try 80k: zCori's Foggier Fog v6 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

 

21 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

stroboscopic fog

I have ideas to maybe tame this, but no tweaks just yet. While we do have the EffDir structure defined here, I still have to marry each value in the hex code to what it really means.

Here's my notes in progress:

89B6A-89B6D = initial_velocity_max       - Original 00 00 00 41 (+8.0)
89B6E-89B71 = initial_x_axis_shift_min   - Original 00 00 20 C2 (-40.0)
89B72-89B75 = initial_z_axis_shift_min   - Original 00 00 00 80 (-0)
89B76-89B79 = initial_y_axis_shift_min   - Original 00 00 20 C2 (-40.0)
89B7A-89B7D = initial_x_axis_shift_max   - Original 00 00 20 42 (+40.0)
89B7E-89B81 = initial_z_axis_shift_max   - Original 00 00 00 00
89B82-89B85 = initial_y_axis_shift_max   - Original 00 00 20 42 (+40.0)
89B86-89B89 = initial_size_variation_pc  - Original 9A 99 99 3E (+0.3)
89B8A-89B8D = initial_x_axis_stretch_max - Original 00 00 00 00
89B8E-89B91 = initial_spin_variation_max - Original 00 00 80 3F (+1.0)
89B92-89B95 = u7 (Rotation % for FSH)    - Original 00 00 00 00
89B96-89B99 = initial_var_max (Alpha)    - Original CD CC 4C 3E (+0.2)
89B9A-89B8D = initial_colro_var_pc_r     - Original 00 00 00 00
89B9E-89BA1 = initial_color_var_pc_g     - Original 00 00 00 00
89BA2-89BA5 = initial_color_var_pc_b     - Original 00 00 00 00
89BA6-89BA9 = u8_rep                     - Original 01 00 00 00 1 (Unit32)
89BAA-89BAD = u8?                        - Original 00 00 C0 3F = 1.5

color_adj_over_time_rep = 1
red = 0
green = 0
blue = 0
brightness_adj_over_time_rep = 5
brightness = 0
size_over_time_rep = 2
size = 0
x_shrink_over_time_rep = 1
x_shrink = 0
spin_over_time_rep = 2
spin = 0

89B86-89B89 = 9A 99 99 3E = 0.3
89B8A-89B8D = 00 00 00 00
89B8E-89B91 = 00 00 80 3F = 1.0
89B92-89B95 = 00 00 00 00
89B96-89B99 = CD CC 4C 3E = 0.2
89B9A-89B9D = 00 00 00 00
89B9E-89BA1 = 00 00 00 00
89BA2-89BA5 = 00 00 00 00
89BA6-89BA9 = 01 00 00 00 = 1      (Unit32)
89BAA-89BAD = 00 00 C0 3F = 1.5
89BAE-89BB1 = 01 00 00 00 = 1      (Uinit32)
89BB2-89BB5 = 00 00 80 3F = 1.0
89BB6-89BB9 = 00 00 80 3F = 1.0
89BBA-89BBD = 00 00 80 3F = 1.0
89BBE-89BC1 = 05 00 00 00 = 5      (Uint32)
89BC2-89BC5 = 00 00 00 00
89BC6-89BC9 = CD CC CC 3D = 0.1
89BCA-89BCD = 9A 99 19 3E = 0.15
89BCE-89BD1 = CD CC CC 3D = 0.1
89BD2-89BD5 = 00 00 00 00
89BD6-89BD9 = 02 00 00 00 = 2      (Uint32)
89BDA-89BDD = 00 00 16 43 = 150.0
89BDE-89BE1 = 00 00 48 43 = 200.0
89BE2-89BE5 = 01 00 00 00 = 1      (Uint32)
89BE6-89BE9 = 00 00 80 3F = 1.0
89BEA-89BED = 02 00 00 00 = 2      (Uint32)
89BEE-89BF1 = 00 00 00 00
89BF2-89BF5 = CD CC 4C 3D = 0.05
89BF6-89BF9 = resource_key - Original A3 76 5D 6A (0x6a5d76a3)

It turns out Reader doesn't display all the values so the middle notes are labels to marry to hex offsets. The values are actually different in the hex code itself. I have found and tested initial_z_axis_shift_max for letting the fog go to higher elevations so if you'd like deeper? taller fog I can toss that in real easy for you to test.

My current plan is I'm still deciphering while you test and getting the right density of the whiteness is our current priority.

[Girafarig 1,404]

28 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Let's try 80k: zCori's Foggier Fog v6 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

The fog is starting to become more translucent, and it took it a few seconds to take hold now. It's still flicking, of course.

I think the depth of the fog is fine, honestly. Maybe it could go a bit higher, especially if that makes it more translucent/fading things, but coastal fog does have a strong tendency to stay below a particular altitude, so I'm ok with it as it is.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

31 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

The fog is starting to become more translucent, and it took it a few seconds to take hold now.

40k: zCori's Foggier Fog v7 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

[Girafarig 1,404]

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

40k: zCori's Foggier Fog v7 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

There's clearly a tipping point from "sunny with a chance of a few low clouds" to "Fog so thick it pours from the sea", because 40k yields this:

 

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

12 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

There's clearly a tipping point from "sunny with a chance of a few low clouds" to "Fog so thick it pours from the sea",...

/me blames the Mac.

 

60k: zCori's Foggier Fog v8 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

[Girafarig 1,404]

50 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

/me blames the Mac.

 

60k: zCori's Foggier Fog v8 - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

Still below the fog threshold. You can see some spots where a few clouds linger on for a while, but this is more steam than soup.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

14 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

Still below the fog threshold.

That means we are narrowing it down. In the high/low game we should try 70k next. However, I've been separately tweaking many other variables too so this new file has a menagerie of tweaks, but back to 80k since we know you can see that. I'm just curious if you'll notice anything different in your game.

Also, give this a try with and without Gizmo's file in place. We've kept his for the modified FSH, but that also might be part of the extra fog thickness.

zCori's Foggier Fog v7b - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

[Girafarig 1,404]

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

That means we are narrowing it down. In the high/low game we should try 70k next. However, I've been separately tweaking many other variables too so this new file has a menagerie of tweaks, but back to 80k since we know you can see that. I'm just curious if you'll notice anything different in your game.

Also, give this a try with and without Gizmo's file in place. We've kept his for the modified FSH, but that also might be part of the extra fog thickness.

zCori's Foggier Fog v7b - Override for GroundFog-V1-.dat

So, with Gizmo's file, 7b is thicker than v6, which has so far turned out the best. It's very thick in fact, perhaps more than 320k, almost solid.

Without Gizmo's file, it's also very solid. But it also starts acting… weird. Very weird.

Presidio hill, on the right, pokes out correctly out of the fog. But then, on the left, there's a bunch of buildings poking out of the fog that are actually very near to sea level. Some of them, like the train station on the left or the mosque, are not even that tall. And in the case of the center train station, you can actually see the entire lot —even parts that are at ground level!

Compare with Anclaje at v6 with Gizmo's file:

The train station at the middle flickered for a while, then vanished under the fog, and you can partially see some buildings close to the limit of the fog (these flicker in and out of it).

[Girafarig 1,404]

Sorry for the double post, but maybe the real fog was the friends we made along the way Gizmo's mod?

Here's the results I got from taking that file out and:

• 40k (v6)

• 32k (v4) — very similar results, though the fog took a small while to take hold.

And just for funsies, here's v1, which had turned out a dud the first time:

Actual fog this time! Not a lot, but certainly an improvement over several other pics. It takes a while to take hold, and it vanishes sporadically —but certainly very good results!

So in the end, the main issue was that Macs load stuff in a weird way and Gizmo's file loaded last, despite being first on the same folder as the overwrite. ALTHOUGH, if that were the case, then even the 320k file would've had no effect… right?

Hmm… soup (v2)

 

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

18 hours ago, Girafarig said:

It takes a while to take hold, and it vanishes sporadically ...

This is prolly half of the battle as some stuff is intended to be random to simulate the real world. That makes it harder to test vigorously.

I've spent the little free time I've had today sorting the rest of that EffDir Entry. (It's Section 1, Line 1134 in case anyone is curious. Do note that Reader doesn't display all of the values even tho they are in the hex code.)

What I have documented is the Maxis original settings with notes for which three variables Gizmo modified. In all our tests except the very last file, I've only been tweaking the first two. The hex values as stored in the file are reversed per variable such that 00 0D 00 00 corresponds to 0x00000D00 in reality.

Here are the full details in case anyone would be interested:

Location      Hex Values    Notes
-----------   -----------   ------------------------------------------------------------
89B1E-89B21 = 00 0D 00 00 = Binary- Behavior_1, each bit represents a behavior property
89B22-89B25 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 - Constant (Always 0x00000000)
89B26-89B29 = 00 00 00 00 = Binary- Behavior_2, each bit represents a behavior property
89B2A-89B2D = 00 00 20 41 =  10.0 - Effect Duration Minimum
89B2E-89B31 = 00 00 A0 41 =  20.0 - Effect Duration Maximum
89B32-89B35 = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0 - Number Released At High Detail
89B36-89B39 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 - Repeat flag (=0 runs continuously, >0 runs once)
89B3A-89B3D = 00 00 70 41 =  15.0 - Unknown (u4)
89B3E-89B41 = 00 00 80 BF =  -1.0 - Unknown (u5)
89B42-89B45 = 00 00 80 BF =  -1.0 - Unknown (u6)
89B46-89B49 = 00 00 80 BF =  -1.0 - Time Delay Minimum
89B4A-89B4D = 00 00 80 BF =  -1.0 - Time Delay Maximum
89B4E-89B51 = 00 00 00 BF =  -0.5 - X-Axis Push Minimum
89B52-89B55 = 00 00 00 BF =  -0.5 - Z-Axis Push Minimum
89B56-89B59 = 00 00 00 3F =   0.5 - Y-Axis Push Minimum
89B5A-89B5D = 00 00 00 3F =   0.5 - X-Axis Push Maximum
89B5E-89B61 = 00 00 00 3F =   0.5 - Z-Axis Push Maximum
89B62-89B65 = 00 00 C0 3F =   1.5 - Y-Axis Push Maximum
89B66-89B69 = 00 00 00 40 =   2.0 - Initial Velocity Minimum
89B6A-89B6D = 00 00 00 41 =   8.0 - initial_velocity_max    
89B6E-89B71 = 00 00 20 C2 = -40.0 - initial_x_axis_shift_min
89B72-89B75 = 00 00 00 80 = - 0.0 - initial_z_axis_shift_min
89B76-89B79 = 00 00 20 C2 = -40.0 - initial_y_axis_shift_min
89B7A-89B7D = 00 00 20 42 = +40.0 - initial_x_axis_shift_max
89B7E-89B81 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 - initial_z_axis_shift_max
89B82-89B85 = 00 00 20 42 = +40.0 - initial_y_axis_shift_max

89B86-89B89 = 9A 99 99 3E =   0.3 - initial_size_variation_pc - Gizmo changes to 1.0
89B8A-89B8D = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 - initial_x_axis_stretch_max
89B8E-89B91 = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0 - initial_spin_variation_max
89B92-89B95 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 - u7 (Rotation % for FSH)   
89B96-89B99 = CD CC 4C 3E =   0.2 - initial_var_max (Alpha) - Gizmo changes to 1.0
89B9A-89B9D = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 - initial_color_var_pc_r    
89B9E-89BA1 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 - initial_color_var_pc_g    
89BA2-89BA5 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 - initial_color_var_pc_b    

89BA6-89BA9 = 01 00 00 00 =   1   - (Unit32) - Reps of u8
89BAA-89BAD = 00 00 C0 3F =   1.5 ------------ Number of particles? (u8)

89BAE-89BB1 = 01 00 00 00 =   1   - (Uint32)  - Reps of color adjustment over time
89BB2-89BB5 = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0 \
89BB6-89BB9 = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0  >----------- Red, Green, Blue
89BBA-89BBD = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0 /

89BBE-89BC1 = 05 00 00 00 =   5   - (Uint32)  - Reps of brightness over time
89BC2-89BC5 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 --
89BC6-89BC9 = CD CC CC 3D =   0.1   \
89BCA-89BCD = 9A 99 19 3E =   0.15   >--------- Range of brightness over time
89BCE-89BD1 = CD CC CC 3D =   0.1   /
89BD2-89BD5 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0 --

89BD6-89BD9 = 02 00 00 00 =   2   - (Uint32)  - Reps of size over time
89BDA-89BDD = 00 00 16 43 = 150.0 \____________ Range of size over time (percentage)
89BDE-89BE1 = 00 00 48 43 = 200.0 /

89BE2-89BE5 = 01 00 00 00 =   1   - (Uint32) - Reps of shrink over time
89BE6-89BE9 = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0            - Actual X-Axis shrink/stretch over time (percentage)
                                                   ^- Gizmo changes to 2.0 (cannot be 0.0)

89BEA-89BED = 02 00 00 00 =   2   - (Uint32) - Reps of spin over time
89BEE-89BF1 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0  \__________ Range of spin over time (rotation randomized?)
89BF2-89BF5 = CD CC 4C 3D =   0.05 /

89BF6-89BF9 = A3 76 5D 6A =   0x6a5d76a3     - resource_key
89BFA-89BFB = 00 01       =   2 Bytes        - Second byte seems to affect resource texture behavior (u9)
                                                   ^-- Reader shows 100
89BFC-89BFF = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0            - Unknown (u10)
89C00-89C03 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0            - Direction of Travel Blur (0=none, <>0 decreasing amounts of blur)
89C04-89C07 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0            - X-Axis Force (Wind)
89C08-89C0B = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0            - Z-Axis Force (Lift/Gravity)
89C0C-89C0F = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0            - Y-Axis Force (Wind)
89C10-89C13 = CD CC CC BD =  -0.1            - Carry

89C14-89C17 = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - Float32 Unknown (u11)
89C18-89C1B = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - DWord   Unknown (u12)
89C1C-89C1D = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - Float32 Unknown (u13)
89C20-89C23 = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - DWord   Unknown (u14)
89C24-89C27 = 00 00 40 3F =   0.75           - Float32 Unknown (u15)
89C28-89C2B = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - Spiral Travel Pattern Maximum
89C2C-89C2F = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (Unit32) (Number of reps)
                                                    28-Byte Reps if there were any
89C30-89C33 = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - DWord   Unknown (u17)
89C34-89C37 = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0            - Float32 Unknown (u18)
89C38-89C3B = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - DWord   Unknown (u19)
89C3C-89C3F = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - DWord   Unknown (u20)
89C40-89C43 = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0            - Float32 Unknown (u21)
89C44-89C47 = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - DWord   Unknown (u22)
89C48-89C4B = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (Unit32)  (Number of reps) (u23_rep)
                                                   DWord reps if there were any
89C4C-89C4F = 9A 99 99 3E =   0.3            - Float32 Unknown (u24)
89C50-89C53 = 00 00 A0 41 =  20.0            - Float32 Unknown (u25)
89C54-89C57 = CD CC CC 3D =   0.1            - Float32 Unknown (u26)
89C58-89C5B = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - DWord   Unknown (u27)
89C5C-89C5F = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - DWord   Unknown (u28)

89C60-89C63 = 28 6B 6E CE =  -1,000,000,000  - Float32 (usually 0xce6e6b28 = -1,000,000,000)(u29)
89C64-89C67 = 00 00 00 00 =   0.0            - Float32 (usually 0x3f800000 or 0x00000000) 1.0 or 0.0 (u30)
89C68-89C6B = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0            - Float32 (usually 0x3f800000 = 1.0) (u31)
89C6C-89C6F = 00 40 1C C6 =  -10,000         - Float32 (usually 0xc61c4000 = -10,000) (u32)
                                                   max value of terrain height range in which
                                                   particle/resource should be created
89C70-89C73 = 00 40 1C 46 =   10,000         - Float32 (usually 0x461c4000 = 10,000) (u33)
                                                   min value of terrain height range in which
                                                   particle/resource should be created
89C74-89C79 = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (Uint32) (String Length) *Reader skips this column*
                                                   pointer to section 13 entry (with added suffix _terrain,
                                                   _water, _slave or _death)
                                             - String of string length if present such as: fogfx
                                                   or sparklefx (u34_str)
89C78-89C7B = 00 00 01 00 =  Marker?         - (Usually 0x00010000) (u35)
89C7C-89C7F = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0            - Float32 (Usually 0x3f800000 = 1.0) (u36)
89C80-89C83 = 00 00 A0 40 =   5.0            - Float32 (usually 0x40a00000 = 5.0) (u37)
89C84-89C87 = 00 00 A0 40 =   5.0            - Float32 (usually 0x40a00000 = 5.0) (u38)
89C88-89C8B = 00 00 48 42 =  50.0            - Float32 (usually 0x42480000 = 50.0) (u39)
89C8C-89C8F = 00 00 48 42 =  50.0            - Float32 (usually 0x42480000 = 50.0) (u40)
89C90-89C93 - CD CC CC 3D =   0.1            - Float32 (usually 0x3dcccccc = 0.1) (u41)
89C94-89C97 = CD CC 4C 3E =   0.2            - Float32 (usually 0x3e4ccccd = 0.2) (u42)

89C98-89C9B = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (u43)
89C9C-89C9F = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (u44)
89CA0-89CA3 = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (u45)
89CA4-89CA7 = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (u46)
89CA8-89CAB = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (u47)
89CAC-89CAF = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (u48)
89CB0-89CB3 = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (Uint32) (Number of reps) (u49_rep)
                                                 DWord Reps (u49)
89CB4-89CB7 = 00 00 80 3F =   1.0            - Float32 (u50)
89CB8-89CBB = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (u51)
89CBC-89CBF = 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (Uinit32) (Number of reps) Coordinate System For Movement
                                                   32-byte reps 8x Float32(X,Z,Y,X,Z,Y,Sequence Number, Sequence Number)
89CC0-89CC3 - 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (u52)
89CC4-89CC7 - 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (Uint32) (Number of sub-entries) (u53_rep)
                                                   DWORD (String Length) (u53_str)
                                                   String (Only if String Length > 0) (u53.u1?)
                                                   DWORD (u54?)
89CC8-89CCB - 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (u54?)
89CCC-89CCF - 00 00 00 00 =   0              - DWORD S3D animation frame rate (unit unknown, higher
                                                   numbers increase animation speed) (u55)
89CD0-89CD3 - 00 00 00 00 =   0              - (Uint32) (Number of reps) List of Resource Keys
                                                   (Used to place random S3Ds) (resource_key_rep)
                                                   DWORD reps Uint32 (resource_key)
89CD4-89CD7 - 00 00 00 00 =   0.0            - Float32 (u56)
89CD8-89CDB - 00 00 80 40 =   4.0            - Float32 (u57)
89CDC-89CDF = 01 00 00 00 =   1              - (Uint32) (Number of reps) (u58_rep)
89CE0-89CE3 - 00 00 C8 43 = 400.0                Float32 reps (u58)
89CE4-89CE7 - 00 00 80 40 =   4.0            - Float32 (0x40800000) -- End of entry (eoe)

And what I'm working on now is to break it down into each aspect so that we can be in control and know why and what we are doing. For funzies (and to prove I could) one of my tests was changing the value in 0x89C74 to 0x89C79 as a Uint32 to 9 and then add a string of "sparklefx". That then added the water sparkles under the fog (when over water). That's not in any test version. It was just me flexing my hexy muscles.

While it's possible I might have another test file for you later today, let's not count on it. But I am intrigued enough that I'll continue experimenting.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

I'm still tinkering.

It seems Maxis's original idea was to have a few patches of ground fog in random places along the waterways. Gizmo (and now we) are trying to make those patches much, much larger and thicker. (Which'll be cool if we can.)

Things I think I know:

• Initial patch only starts on water
• Initial start locations are totally random
• The size of the patches are independent of the tile size
• Mostly there seems to only be two visible at a time
  • Tho with my latest test I've increased the duration and might have seen more form before the others finished
• Each patch can pulse between 5 different sizes
• Each pulse is additive to the density so we can achieve white snow too quickly

And with regard to that last point, I'm beginning to believe Gizmo's thicker, darker FSH might actually be hindering our efforts. Additionally, massive changes to the size variation seems to mean they could stretch clear across and beyond the edges of a large tile and they'd layer up from all pulses giving us the pure white look.

For all further testing, let's try my files without Gizmo's in plugins.

Random pics:

 

Small Tile:

 

And the current test file: zCori's Foggier Fog v8e.dat

Mostly what we are looking for at this point is: Do you see similar fog to the above pics and has the intense stroboscopic aspect diminished?

 

Edit: I parsed the posts out into their own topic.

[Girafarig 1,404]

On 17/10/2024 at 11:06 AM, CorinaMarie said:

And the current test file: zCori's Foggier Fog v8e.dat

Mostly what we are looking for at this point is: Do you see similar fog to the above pics and has the intense stroboscopic aspect diminished?

 

Edit: I parsed the posts out into their own topic.

I picked a city with a relatively complex geography for this one.

I see most of the things you mentioned, and the stroboscopic effect doesn't show up with this patch. The fog does sort of vanish violently, which some people might find a bit awkward, but in my experience, is kind of how real-life coastal fog sort of goes away around noon, so I think it's neat.

I'm having some technical issues inserting images, so I'll get those on later on. But essentially:

• Fog appears only from water tiles, so if you have a section of the city surrounded on all sides by tall enough mountains, that section doesn't get any fog at all.
• Fog only rises up to a certain height, and at certain elevation it becomes very thin.
• For some reason, sometimes a whitish streak shows up in the fog —not like a bug, but as if there was something pushing it in a direction. It happened once right over a strait I have at this city, but I couldn't get the pic fast enough —and then, a second time, elsewhere. So I think it's not related to geography.

Still can't add the pics, but I uploaded them to imgur if you want to take a look at the gallery: https://imgur.com/a/HQudBNr

  Edited October 18, 2024 by Girafarig  
Imgur link

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

2 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

The fog does sort of vanish violently,...

Yep. We aren't even remotely close to a usable mod yet. Ideally, I'd like to get to the point where I can create one single fog overlay of the size and density I'd specify and have it appear in a controlled location (and then build up features from there). I don't yet know what causes it to cycle between the 5 phases (or pulses as I called them earlier).

Mostly what this trial was for is we now know there is nothing different on your Mac as compared to my comp.

The first key variable we'd been tweaking before  was the initial fog patch size and I now suspect when that was small the fog splotch could show up outside of the area you were watching and so we were thinking the mod wasn't working at all. When we jumped up so the size was 10k larger and 10k denser then no matter where it started it would cover the whole city tile.

 

22 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

Fog appears only from water tiles,...

I now have a test version where the fog can start over land, but I'm not sure what the other implications are. There's that first variable called Behavior_1 which is used as binary bits such that every single bit is an on or off flag. Our 1134 entry has "00 0D 00 00" at the file level. Now if we were anticipating Unit32 or a Single Precision Float32, we'd reverse that to 0x00000D00 before working with it. As binary flags tho I suspect they use them in file order. (I'm just not certain.)

This means the bits could be one or the other of two ways to view them:

00000000000011010000000000000000
00000000000000000000110100000000

As a test I noticed the line 1133 has an attached fogfx in the additional effects string (a pointer to Section 13 of the EffDir) and that line's entry has a completely different Behavior_1 setting with "04 1D 01 04" at the file level.

That then corresponds to one of these:

00000100000111010000000100000100
00000100000000010001110100000100

And the Wiki notes indicate one of the bits is for display on land only (bit 17) and another for display on water only (bit 18). The "04 1D 01 04" flags also prolly enable a few other things of which are unknown to me.

 

40 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

Fog only rises up to a certain height, and at certain elevation it becomes very thin.

That sounds very realistic.   I did experiment with the initial_z_axis_shift_max and was able to include higher elevations where it was visible.

 

42 minutes ago, Girafarig said:

For some reason, sometimes a whitish streak shows up in the fog —not like a bug, but as if there was something pushing it in a direction.

I believe that stems from the most recent tweak I tested before posting the file. There is the Actual X-Axis shrink/stretch over time (percentage) which Maxis originally set at 1.0 and Gizmo tweaked to 2.0. I set it to 0.1 trying to see what affect that would have and it seems that make some, but not all of the phases be very, very wide and range from a couple of pixels tall to a more misty look maybe 100 or 200 pixels tall.

 

For now any file I post is more to see if you see anything rather than something which might be useful. If I can truly narrow down what creates what, then we might be able to tweak it to our liking. Do iirc that earlier you said you were tweaking in the exemplar? And I only ask to see that means you can run Reader successfully. And from there if you could use HxD (or any other Hex Editor) I could show you how I'm doing the tweaks and importing them back into Reader. You could then test new ideas too.

[Girafarig 1,404]

9 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I now have a test version where the fog can start over land, but I'm not sure what the other implications are.

No idea. It could be interesting to have some sort of land-based fog following the normal conditions where fog, or more broadly, clouds appear in real life —for instance, on the windward side of mountains, at a certain height— but that would require changing a lot of parameters, not just land, and since we're essentially blind here, that might be very difficult to work with.

9 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I now have a test version where the fog can start over land, but I'm not sure what the other implications are.

For now any file I post is more to see if you see anything rather than something which might be useful. If I can truly narrow down what creates what, then we might be able to tweak it to our liking. Do iirc that earlier you said you were tweaking in the exemplar? And I only ask to see that means you can run Reader successfully. And from there if you could use HxD (or any other Hex Editor) I could show you how I'm doing the tweaks and importing them back into Reader. You could then test new ideas too.

I did manage to make the Reader run on my Mac, but that's about the limit of my abilities. I still haven't been able (I haven't even tried, tbh) to toggle name changes in certain lots, which is something I asked about a while ago. But yes, if you're willing to guide me, and if I can find a good, MacOS–based Hex Editor, then sure, that'd be nice.