Laminar/Austin or any of his team, can you explain...please...

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

....why you have the most realistic-looking water bodies of any simulation, period!

 

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I'm presently in a flight with the Cessna 172, over Lake Simcoe, in central Ontario, Canada. I shake my head in amazement, that you folks (Laminar) have nailed water color, how light affects (I do run with HDR as a constant) it, and and how the surface shade CHANGES with angle of view, as in real life depiction.

 

You probably won't state as to what techniques you used to achieve this visual output, but in a way it frustrates me that a Mega and heavy such as Microsoft, with it vast franchise experience, couldn't, and didn't come close to what you have achieved in XPX as per rendering water bodies. 

 

If ANYBODY, who has real-world coding experience could give some sort of hobby-discourse on possibly why we have such a divergence between titles such as XPX and FSX in certain topographical elements and renderings and how they appear to the end user, PLEASE, inquiring minds like mine, wish to know, and I'm sure it would interest many, many others, who have the same question, but to date have not to post such as I have today.

 

So....as I go back to flying over Lake Simcoe and heading north...I will ponder why an active developer can't put together in one package, all the best, and most outstanding features of XPX and FSX...and produce the new, 'one sim for all'.

 

Again Laminar, and specifically the person responsible on that team for water shading, and effects....if you will, what elements went into this rendering that is so superior to what was produced in FSX, and why was it possible for you to achieve this, and yet the team at Microsoft's defunct studio, could not?

 

I doubt I will get an answer, but will be so pleasantly surprised and delighted if I did!!!!   It frustrates me to have to fire up so many products depending on what is the focal point of my flight today....rather than the one 'all-in' flight simulator.  Is that a pipe-dream, or will Laminar, be finally the one to mature things out in the 20XX's and give we hobbyists, just that!

 

Pondering, and hope for a technical answer.....

 

Mitch

[airlinejets 709]

I also believe the water in X-Plane to be very realistic. The only problem is water bodies are different all over the world. The Mississippi delta would look like coffee and milk, the Caribbean (love going there) would be turquoise and so on. Basically if they could depict murky, tropical and regular, it would be near perfect.

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

I also believe the water in X-Plane to be very realistic. The only problem is water bodies are different all over the world. The Mississippi delta would look like coffee and milk, the Caribbean (love going there) would be turquoise and so on. Basically if they could depict murky, tropical and regular, it would be near perfect.

I totally agree with you. I really appreciated what Tim did for users of FSX with tropical textures. I also fly 'large' around the Caribbean, and Tim's work makes that as near life-like as possible. If I could have a XPX/FSX/FSX-Real Environment Extreme 'hybrid'...I think I would pass out....

 

I am not a programmer, but that being stated, I do enjoy understanding why things are, what limits 'this over that', and would truly appreciate an answer to my O.P. question. Michel, I hope to get a response....

 

Mitch

[airlinejets 709]

 

 

If I could have a XPX/FSX/FSX-Real Environment Extreme 'hybrid'...I think I would pass out....

 

I believe Tim will be showing us what they're preparing for X-Plane soon. Well, I'm crossing my fingers. We're talking 3D clouds a-la REX here! With the quality of water rendition in X-Plane, this could prove to be very interesting.

[FIVE-BY-FIVE 453]

i'm also a huge fan of the default water&clouds in xp10 but a 3rd Party addon will come that will improve on it :good:

 

near Vancouver with HDR OFF and VERY HIGH TEXTURES and WATER REFLECTION OFF

[saed45 38]

I believe Tim will be showing us what they're preparing for X-Plane soon. Well, I'm crossing my fingers. We're talking 3D clouds a-la REX here! With the quality of water rendition in X-Plane, this could prove to be very interesting.

 

where u getting this info from?

[FIVE-BY-FIVE 453]

where u getting this info from?

they did make a REX for xplane9 and for the past 2years there have been rumours all over the interweb :lol:   we'll see soon.

[deetee 164]

Surely there are already some great freeware replacement cloud textures out there, replacing the default with even more payware textures does not address current limitations. Just be like painting lipstick on a pig.

 

What's really needed in XP is an upgraded weather engine and improved visibility rendering for 10.3x or 10.4x with a greater variety of cloud types etc., to be able to depict the lower atmosphere of our planet in a realistic manner. With a sim as powerful as XP the sky should look way better than FS in 2013. Let's hope in 2014 it will far surpass it!

[XPX64man 130]

they did make a REX for xplane9 and for the past 2years there have been rumours all over the interweb :lol:   we'll see soon.

 

 

I hope you are right.  These REX guys are so focused on those other non-weather-related softwares now that they don't seem to be interested in XPX10-64.

I'm loving it though.  I flew all day Sunday in the Dash8 Q400 and loved every minute of it.

 

Has anyone else tried XPOrbit?  http://secure.simmarket.com/taburet-xporbit-for-x-plane-10.phtml

I installed it and it makes the scenery look a lot better for me.

 

Surely there are already some great freeware replacement cloud textures out there, replacing the default with even more payware textures does not address current limitations. Just be like painting lipstick on a pig.

 

What's really needed in XP is an upgraded weather engine and improved visibility rendering for 10.3x or 10.4x with a greater variety of cloud types etc., to be able to depict the lower atmosphere of our planet in a realistic manner. With a sim as powerful as XP the sky should look way better than FS in 2013. Let's hope in 2014 it will far surpass it!

 

I agree.  XPX64 does need a weather "face-lift" desperately.

[carrotroot 77]

 

 

The only problem is water bodies are different all over the world

 

Technically water is the same color everywhere, however depth, salinity, and what's growing on the bottom affect the amount of light that is absorbed and reflected back. Waters around the Atlantic coast of Florida looks dark-blue to aquamarine when near shallow water while the Gulf coast of Florida looks kinda dark greenish-blue to teal when near the beaches.  

 

With X-Plane, scenery developers can sorta simulate various water types by applying a semi-transparent texture over a water body.  

Here I'm using the effect to create very cold waters around Antarctica as wells as polar sea ice. What's nice is that you can create semi-wet textures (water with a hard-surface) in Meshtool and to some limited degree in WED.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

I hope you are right.  These REX guys are so focused on those other non-weather-related softwares now that they don't seem to be interested in XPX10-64.

I'm loving it though.  I flew all day Sunday in the Dash8 Q400 and loved every minute of it.

 

Has anyone else tried XPOrbit?  http://secure.simmarket.com/taburet-xporbit-for-x-plane-10.phtml

I installed it and it makes the scenery look a lot better for me.

 

 

I agree.  XPX64 does need a weather "face-lift" desperately.

How much better, though...and I probably would not see any effect, as I sort of like the sharp-to-soft (pollution/haze) visual I get when I have scenery as set to medium, rather than the default 'high'.  My preferred setting would somewhat dumb it down or outright mask it, would you think?  

[Musart 2]

To the OP:

 

It's called the Fresnel effect.

 

Fresnel effect is, roughly, the amount of reflection based on the viewing angle. If you look at a surface at 90 deg angle (perpendicular) you will have the minimum reflection. If you look at the same surface with less angle (ie: toward 0 deg) you will have the maximum reflection. So I think it's the formula used in the code. Do a google search to have more info on the physic formulas.

 

It's commonly used in 3D software like Lightwave, Blender, Maya, etc to emulate realistic surface.

 

Cheers.

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

Technically water is the same color everywhere, however depth, salinity, and what's growing on the bottom affect the amount of light that is absorbed and reflected back. Waters around the Atlantic coast of Florida looks dark-blue to aquamarine when near shallow water while the Gulf coast of Florida looks kinda dark greenish-blue to teal when near the beaches.  

 

With X-Plane, scenery developers can sorta simulate various water types by applying a semi-transparent texture over a water body.  

Here I'm using the effect to create very cold waters around Antarctica as wells as polar sea ice. What's nice is that you can create semi-wet textures (water with a hard-surface) in Meshtool and to some limited degree in WED.

 

Antarctica-1.jpg

 

Antarctica-2.jpg

 

Antarctica-3.jpg

Thank you very much for that post.  It starts an interesting dialog, to be sure!  

 

To the OP:

 

It's called the Fresnel effect.

 

Fresnel effect is, roughly, the amount of reflection based on the viewing angle. If you look at a surface at 90 deg angle (perpendicular) you will have the minimum reflection. If you look at the same surface with less angle (ie: toward 0 deg) you will have the maximum reflection. So I think it's the formula used in the code. Do a google search to have more info on the physic formulas.

 

It's commonly used in 3D software like Lightwave, Blender, Maya, etc to emulate realistic surface.

 

Cheers.

Thank you very much.  Weird though (code as you suggest?...) that FSX's water is so, on the surface lacking in detail (not referring to wave depiction/animation) that no matter what altitude, or angle to view, it still has a one-color mask, unless there is a specific texture (Tim's tropical water textures to simulate shallows and water over reefs...)  The water depicted within XPX is just another feature that I have adopted with appreciation!

[shortspecialbus 13]

Technically water is the same color everywhere, however depth, salinity, and what's growing on the bottom affect the amount of light that is absorbed and reflected back. Waters around the Atlantic coast of Florida looks dark-blue to aquamarine when near shallow water while the Gulf coast of Florida looks kinda dark greenish-blue to teal when near the beaches.  

 

Largely correct, except you've ignored one of the massive color changers and that would be whatever's suspended in solution.  A lot of mud in the water, regardless of what's on the bottom, will make it brown.  Plankton will make it green.  And so forth.

 

I'm ignoring the gist of your statement in order to be technically correct, which I'm told is the best kind of correct.

 

-stefan

[FloB 34]

they did make a REX for xplane9 and for the past 2years there have been rumours all over the interweb :lol:   we'll see soon.

 

This is what comes close to a promise:

 

"Development for X-Plane is completely different from FS9/FSX. In some cases the development for textures was easier X-Plane 9, than in FS9/FSX. However, the process to inject weather has some obstacles to overcome. The developers at Laminar have been great to help us out. We are looking forward to seeing what we can do with X-Plane 10."

 

REX Developers, feb 2013

 

Source: http://forum.avsim.net/page/index.html/_/interviews/rex-we-interview-reed-stough-and-tim-fuchs-r1080