Water - my recommendations

[Noel 4,486]

I just discovered it has to do with weather settings. I was on standard Fair weather, switched to no weather and voila, they are back. Haven't checked to see if it is vis related or what I don't know.BTW, it looks GREAT. Don't know why someone can't tweak down the blue gamma in those textures though. Unless perhaps it's a huge project. Seems like it should be easy as pie to lower blue gamma, or total gamma a touch. I note in the OceanFX2 the author says this is an issue with reflections in FS2004, but again, somewhere there's a blue gamma setting.Noel

[Guest daveg4otu]

Thanks for all those easy to follow instructions Mike- this is certainly the best water yet.Dave

[Vulcan 14]

Thanks for sharing this Mike it does make a big improvement although I think I still need to 'play' with the Ocean settings. Also thanks to the authors of all the software.Just one point Mike, you say to set water detail to high yet the Oceanfx doc says to set 'land and water' with water to low in FS9, comment?I have only done a short flight from Southampton (UK) and a few slew flights but it's looking good.I have also installed the Blue Sphere textures but need to do some more flying to evaluate.I have Chris's clouds installed and reinstalled his cumulus01.bmp after the Blue Sphere installed its own.Chris, many thanks for the new clouds. My first flight with real weather via FS Meteo gave me scattered at 5,000ft and the new clouds looked great. If these are only an interim set the mind boggles at what the 'real' ones will look like :-)Noel, I think the reflections are down to vis. I am currently in CAVOK conditions with real weather, at 5,000ft and I get great reflections.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Vulcan,"you say to set water detail to high yet the Oceanfx doc says to set 'land and water' with water to low in FS9".....I wondered how long it would take for someone to query this.My guess is that Johan and Ed tested their respective creations with the default FS2004 'env_*.bmp' and 'OceanHeightField.bmp' files and, as we all know, the default cycling reflection effects leave a lot to be desired.If you set Terrain Detail to 'Land and Water' and Water Effects to 'Low' then it appears to eliminate this irritating cycling, but then you lose the nice reflection animation effects. The work done by Bill and especially Daniel have pretty much eliminated this problem. Consequently, we can now set Terrain Detail to 'Land Only' and Water Effects to 'High' which allows us to enjoy the reflection animation effects with little or no frame rate penalty. While we can still see the cycling, the nasty graphic aberration that appeared like trees casting shadows on the water surface has gone. Daniel should take credit for this. However, I note it is still present when viewing the water surface at night which is why I have been throwing not so subtle hints in Daniel's direction ;)Mike

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Noel,"I have lost my sun/moon reflections on water (except when looking straight down I see some). Those wonderful long reflections have disappeared".....Yes, this is a strange one and I haven't quite worked out why it happens. If the sun is not directly overhead and you clear the weather (I use the hot key combo set up via FSUIPC: Ctrl+Shift+W) to remove the clouds the long reflections return immediately.For a time I thought it would not be possible to have clouds AND the long reflections, but this is not so ;)If you create your weather via User Defined Weather - Customized Weather - Advanced Weather you can have several layers of cloud AND the long reflections and it looks absolutely wonderful :)Mike

[Guest ba747heavy]

Thank you sir for these recommendations! I have implemented them and my h20 looks 100% better than it did before.

[Noel 4,486]

you can have several>layers of cloud AND the long reflections and it looks>absolutely wonderful :)>>MikeWell, we thank those who try to fix something that is basically broken in the first place. I hope MS fixes this in their next release, along with the nasty visibility layer effects you see from above--very fake looking. Thankfully there are people here who work on improving the fundemental shortcomings of FS in its current form. You all REALLY add alot to my simming enjoyment. Thanks! And I thank MS for their fine effort & product.Noel

[Guest DanielBu]

Hi all,well I think that if you check the "blend dawn/dusk textures" box in the graphics settings, the different reflection maps are blended together and so you can have both, the clouds AND the sun reflections. Unfortunately, the sun reflection is independant of the sun sprite sitting in the sky, this is why you won't get the sun when there are clouds in the sky, at least not when texture blending is disabled!However it might also happen that when the mid sun and the high noon reflection maps are blended together, two suns will appear, I haven't tested this though. I did notice this a while ago, when I was playing with the env_maps.Maybe I'll come up with a new pack around Christmas ;) But again, it's not an easy task to get it right, because you need to modify color AND brightness AND alpha to get good results... -Daniel

[maxter 0]

Hi Mike,I have just started to d/l the files and noticed that the oceansfx.zip file in the AvSim library is only a FS2002 version. Is this the same one we use in FS2004?Cheers,Chris Porter:-outtaPerthWestern Australia

[Guest Boone]

Chris,There's an update for it specific to FS9, so yes continue to d/load the FS2002 set.CheersBoone,"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea." E. Cantona

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Chris,"oceansfx.zip file in the AvSim library is only a FS2002 version. Is this the same one we use in FS2004?"...... yes, 'oceansfx.zip' and 'oceanstx.zip' are compatible with both sims and no updates are needed. On the other hand, if you are running FS2004 you will need 'ofx20sa.zip' which is the batch file installer 'OceanFX 2 - FS2004'. This utility uses the aforementioned zip archives. They must be placed as is in the 'OceanFX 2Zip Files' folder otherwise it won't work. Just place both zip files in that folder - DO NOT extract the files from their respective archives.Cheers,Mike :-wave

[Guest gmorar]

Mike, Thanks for your help and thks. for this recommendations. Can't wait to install it. I have a question though,"They must be placed as is in the 'OceanFX 2Zip Files' folder otherwise it won't work". You mean placed as is in the "ofx20sa"? Regards,Gabriel.

[Guest daveg4otu]

GabrielAfter Installing Oceans FX go to C(or whatever your drive letter is)/Program files/Oceans FX/Zip files and place in there the two zip file oceanstx.zip and oceansfx.zip.Do not unzip them- the application does that.Dave

[macwino 14]

This water add-on configuration is really nice and thanks for posting it. However, even with these files I still have a problem with a blocky, checkerboard-like pattern for the water at dawn and most likely at dusk as well, although I've not tested dusk. I made a separate post about this problem and got only one response to the effect that this may be a bug that can't be fixed. However, given the interest these recommendations have generated, I thought I would repost my situation here in case anyone else has encountered it and has further comments.I have recently detected a water rendering problem that seems to exhibit itself only at dawn, and then only at certain times during this period, most commonly during the middle of the time frame. It occurs with the default water textures as well as with any of the numerous add-on textures that are available. The water appears in a patchy or checkerboard pattern of light and dark hues. This has nothing to do with shadows, etc. It just seems that rectangular blocks of water are a different color. I first noticed this problem over San Francisco Bay and then around Key West, FL.I found an earlier post indicating that someone else who had this problem had fixed it by changing his display settings to Water Effect "High"; Dawn/Dusk Texture Blending = Off; and Extended Terrain Textures = 0ff. Using these settings did not work for me.I do not think this problem is video card or driver dependent since it occurs on both of my machines, one running a Radeon 9800 Pro with Catalyst 3.8 drivers (the 3.9 set will not work with my monitor at all) and the other running an nVidia Ti4400 with the latest drivers. Also, I do not think the problem is processor related because it isn't a situation where the display ultimately catches up. These blocks do not disappear until the sky lightens. Additionally, these are relatively fast machines, with P4s of 3 GHz and 2 GHz, respectively.Any thoughts??

[Guest daveg4otu]

I've noticed this effect on a few occasions(not always )and put it down to the fact that as the water surface reflects a lighter( or darker) sky the software gradually changes the color block by block . I suppose the alernative is for a sudden change in hue over the whole lot as the sun goes up or down.Can't say it really bothered me but obviously it would be nice to get a smoother transition.Dave