surface water NG

[MayorBean 8]

Inspired by joerg's approach and since I really need something like this for my current region I revived my surface water project.

I suspended the work on this MOD months ago, because I had no idea how to realize 'overland' bridges and ferry routes were not even on my mind (only plain SC4 when I started).

Anyways, recently I found a Simtropolitan with BAT skills supporting this project by doing the essential BAT rendering. He's the one to be credited first - thank you

Monteferro!

Also thanks to gizmo28 for offering assistance for effect dir issues and J.O. and joerg for providing the basic idea.

Well, here is a *very* first impression of what I'm working on:

http://img164.exs.cx/img164/8831/surface490x903tm.jpg width=800 align=baseline>
MB - SFM - img01 - first impression

I'd like to give some rules for posting in this thread:

1st: Please don't post plain eek, totally bad... or wow, cool... - just write a PM in that case.

2nd: I really appreciate *any* kind of constructive criticismn.

3rd: Feel free to post your ideas. What do YOU need? Maybe it could be integrated...

4th: Avoid image quoting! There is no need to repost images. Just refer to it by naming the author and posting date/time.

What I'm currently thinking about - 'pipeline':
- water texture switches automatically to ingame water/custom water (provided by joerg or timotheus)
- surface water provides some effects like sparkles - I have no quite good idea on how to realize wave effects, yet, maybe do something as time goes by...
- this MOD is designed as 'advanced users only' MOD since there are some really tricky requirements regarding terraforming...

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This 1st post will be updated if major changes are made to the MOD.

ChangeLog

V 0.0 alpha 0 [12/02/2005]

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~bean~

[Vatt3 8]

This is good . I was afraid that the surface water discovery was going to die away again. I'm glad somebody is trying to refine this whole process. The color seems a little too dark compared to most water textures out there. Since this is very early I guess that doesn't matter much. How large are those water props? And how high is the water level? Like you said, eventually adding some sparkle effects would be great. Too bad the water can't be made somewhat translucent to add a feeling of depth, but of course this would also reveal everything beneath the water (good or bad). You also said you wanted the water texture to switch and match the ingame water texture, but I'm not sure how you could do that if the texture is on the model (I'm assuming). It would be great if that was possible, but the only possiblilty I can see is to have different colored water lots for different textures.

[MayorBean 8]

Vatt3,

thanks for your feedback.

To give you a clue on some points you mentioned:

I revived this project since I'm in need of building up mountain lakes which must support commuting routes (ferries/bridges). Since this MOD has been started by joerg, I might revoke public work on his request. Until then work goes on...

The colour of the water is currently taken from joerg's 'black sea' watermod. It's not the final version and used for testing purpose only (for some certain reason).

BTW: the hole in the center of the image isn't a bug. I just left out a LOT to show height difference of ingame water (sealevel#) and surface water. You can figure that out on the bridge support.

The size of the props ist currently subject to change.

Sparkles are almost done. Although, the effect wouldn't show up as nice on a still image. I'll post a pic later this week.

Well, transluency. This won't be done with this MOD since there are some needs on terraforming that would look really odd with transluent water.

Texture auto-switch is kinda hard - maybe, but hopefully not, completely impossible. I got an idea on this - but it would be realized much later on.

Check this thread frequently for updates...

~bean~

[MayorBean 8]

Today I found a way to make overground-objects with opacity.
This might help to develop this thing further on...



invisble UDI bus with opaque turquois roof

[MayorBean 8]

Well, hope this wouldn't count as multiple post - anyways, I made some progress:

Surface Water NG is streaming down the valley...

1st - preparing a lake and the river:

prepare stream

2nd - streaming down...

river streaming down the valley

semi-transparency...

semi-transparency in detail (with some glitches atm)

Please note: the water colour is still not finished. That one shown in the pics above is for testing only (you may call it 'pre-alpha')...

So, what to come next:
1.: I'm always stuck on ingame-water-autoswitch. Setting the PROP's material ID to the ingame water IID results in either not showing up or in showing a black/red/green texture. Help in appreciated.

2.: 'transit enabling' - well I'm working on some 'track-based', UDI-enabled ferries. Seems to be rather promising...

3.: bridges... Hmm, there are three possible ways: a) rain MOD; b) 'sink-holes; c) BAT models (PROPs). I would prefer c) atm - but this is far from my capabilities. Though this would be part of a later stage...

~bean~

[+Guest]

hey, that's one cool mod in the making, and i have some questions:

1) when the mod is finished, will i be able to create a river that could go from mountain top to sea?

 

2) will the water texture depend on what mod i have (if i haven't got any, then would the default show?)?

 

keep up the great work, i'll be downloading it as soon as you've finished it

[MayorBean 8]

Another 'technical' update:

I found a way on 'auto-switching' the PROP textures to the currently used custom water mod (or to use the default, if such is not installed).
Although, I'm kinda hooked on SC4's auto-gradient on water-textures. Any help is appreciated!

tc13:
Thanks for your feedback!
Yes, this water MOD would be able to stream down hills (works for slopes generated with BRF's TunnelSlopeMOD along with railways and partially with max avenue slopes). It would automatically conform to the surrounding terrain...
For the question on water mod compatibility, see statement above.

Maybe I'll post some pics of 'water on slopes' later...

~bean~

[Boggy1 45]

Wow, this looks amazing MB. I cant wait for you too release it.

Really good work!!

[MayorBean 8]

Thx, boggy! *lol*

Well, my first approach on that auto-switch was to assign the same group ID to the PROP's S3D-models as it is used by the terrain textures (0x891b0e1a). That already works for the water surface (water colour).
Now I encountered a problem with the water floor. The ground for shallow water has the IIDs 0x00000014,0x00000114,0x00000214,0x00000314,0x00000414.
For zoom level 1+2 there are some network textures sharing the same IID (114,214). Although they have a different GroupID, SC chooses them to use (which, of course, looks really odd). It seems, that SC grabs that texture with the lower GroupID first.

So: does anybody know, if the comlete material TGI is stored somewhere in the S3D file? Browsing the hex code lead to no result so far. I only found the IID value in the code....
*darn*

~bean~

[jacqulina 162]

any updates to this project

[Vandy 110]

Hello, MayorBean.

 

This is quite interesting and I'm very impressed with what you are doing.  Your surface water is another approach to a wonderful project that keeps growing and developing.

 

If I may be so bold, I would ask you to vist the Plopable Water -- Examples and Continued Development  thread that I've started to explore other possbilities for surface water plops.  I certainly believe that you have demonstrated the skill sets I'm looking for to help out with this project.

 

Again, I reallly like your approach and will be watching this thread from now one.

 

Hope to see you soon.

 

Regards,

 

Vandy